Difficult time manager

Easy Tracker Standard provides the tools for tracking time and managing projects. Unfortunately, the program doesn't flow smoothly, even with all its attempts at being helpful.

This program opened with a seemingly simple five-step Wizard, which instantly excited us. We were able to jump between the five tasks represented in the Wizard, but we still needed a trip to the Help file and glossary for further instruction. The misnamed Easy Tracker perplexed us. It looks easy, but it constantly confused us. One bright spot were the tools for building databases of Clients and Users, which were simple and reminded us of populating Microsoft Outlook's Contacts file. However, setting up Projects and billing for the appropriate time spent on each job seemed like it should have a more intuitive feel, but there was a major gap in the program's logic. For example, we were unable to properly apply billable hours to specific projects.

The program offered some neat features, such as using different currencies and assigning project status, but didn't make up for its major lack of direction. Even after reading the Help file and experimenting onscreen, we were never able to fully utilize this program, and we spent a great deal of time daydreaming about other project management and billing programs that worked much better when we tested them.

Easy Tracker Standard has a 30-day trial period. It installs desktop icons without permission. While it looked professional and friendly, we found that billing was too difficult and we do not recommend this program.