Time Tracker - Track your session timing

Next to all the features of SessionLab that save you time and allow you to work collaboratively when planning your sessions, Time Tracker allows users on a Pro subscription and above the ability to track the time when you deliver your workshops.

When you’re ready to begin delivering your session, you can click on the Time Tracker button at the top of the session planner to begin running your agenda. You will see the menu that will allow you to choose if you would like to autostart the next block (which means that it would start automatically when the previous block’s time runs out) or if you would like to start the next block manually.

In this menu, you will also be able to start your session by clicking on the ‘Start now’ button, which will show your local time.

If you are starting the Time Tracker after the assigned starting time of your session, you will be able to choose whether to start the session now (at the current time) or to start it at the scheduled start time of the first block in your session (if it is in the past).

Please note that Time Tracker is currently not available for sessions that contain breakout rooms.

There are two different modes of the Time Tracker, and you can choose which way of running it fits you better:

Once you launch the Time Tracker in either of the two modes, you’ll see the Player toolbar appear at the top of the session planner, which will always show you the title of the current item on your agenda, and the time remaining in this current block. The color in the Player toolbar will change from green to orange when 20% of the planned time is left, and to red when only 5% of the designated time remains.

You’ll also see some action buttons on the right side, which allow you to add more time to your current block, or to move onto the next block in your agenda.

You will also see a horizontal line appear on the left side of the session planner in the ‘minimap’. This will show you a visual representation of how far through the current block you are.

After the 15 minutes designated to this particular block is over, the session will automatically progress to the next block.

The Time Tracker will automatically run through your whole agenda, moving seamlessly from one block to the following in your schedule, without you or your collaborators needing to manually move onto the next block.

This enables you to focus on the delivery of your session and not on spending time clicking the ‘next’ button. However, while Time Tracker is running, you can still adjust the timings of your agenda or fast forward in case your plan changes.

Finally, at the end of the session, you can choose if you would like to keep the updated plan or restore the session to the original plan.

If you prefer to manually indicate when a block is finished in your session, you can use the manual mode of the Time Tracker.

To start Manual Mode, after clicking the Time Tracker button, set the Autostart next block to OFF.

You will see the Player toolbar appear at the top of your session where you can see your current block, how much time you have remaining, and if you're ahead or behind schedule.

The next block will not start automatically. You can use the Next button to go to the next block of your session when you’ve finished delivering the current one.

If at any point you would like to stop manual mode and allow the next block to start automatically, you can tick the box in front of the ‘Start next block automatically’ option at the top of the player toolbar.

If you find you need more time on your current activity, you can add more time to the block while Time Tracker is running. In the ‘Add Time’ section of the Player toolbar, you’re able to add time in 1-minute or 5-minute increments.

Adding time in this way will not only add time to your current block, but it will also amend the start time of all the following blocks in your session. You can also adjust or even reorder the blocks as you would do during planning, while Time Tracker is running.

If you need less time than you planned on a block in your session, you can click the ‘Next’ button in the Player toolbar to move on to the following activity in your agenda.

It might happen that you go over time and that the Player toolbar transitions to the next block before you are finished delivering the current one. In that case, you can return to the previous block by simply adding more time to it as you would normally during planning.

When you’ve finished delivering your session, you can click on the ‘End’ button in the Player toolbar to stop Time Tracker running.

A separate copy of your session is created with the actual timings as a new version of your session.

You will be able to Revert to the original session (before the time tracker) immediately or click the X button to close this notification and keep the new Version. You can see all the previous Versions of the session in the Activity & Versions tab of your Session Planner.
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Please note: if you end the session with some blocks that have still not been delivered and you decide to keep the delivered Version, the duration of these blocks will be adjusted to a 0-minute duration, to reflect that they have not been delivered.

If you didn’t press the Time Tracker button at the moment you began running your session, you can choose to start delivering from the first block in your session, by choosing the starting time of this block. The time tracker will then go back in order to start from the first block of your session.

If you have other blocks in your session where their starting time is already in the past their title will be highlighted in orange to indicate this.

If you click the Next button in a session that is behind schedule, the time tracker will automatically skip to the first block which is on schedule.

The same will happen if you run the Time Tracker in the automatic mode.