How do I get the most out of my Hourly trial?

Here are some recommendations about how to go about trialling Hourly (or any other time tracking application) efficiently and effectively.


1. Note down your requirements

Before you do anything you should jot down your organisation or business's requirements related to time tracking. This way it's easier to remember what to look out for when you are researching and testing different solutions.


2. Get things ready & talking with your team

Make sure you're ready to get going when you sign up. This means having a record of things like projects, clients, rates handy so you can enter them in and start tracking time.

If you're organising a team to try Hourly, this also means coordinating the timing of your trial with them so that everyone gets a chance to be involved.


3. Consider importing your data

Importing can take a bit of time to set up but automates the creation of everything in Hourly (people, projects & clients). It also means you'll get value from Hourly's reports and predictions straight away.


4. Keep it small

Instead of trying to track all of your organisation's time through Hourly during your trial, we'd recommend picking one or two projects so you can keep things manageable, reduce the risk of something going wrong and minimise duplication and overhead (see #5 below).

If you're part of a larger organisation, pick a small team and form a pilot project to evaluate Hourly.


5. Keep your normal process going in parallel

We're hoping you love Hourly but even if you do, it might be a bit ambitious to switch over within your trial period. We'd suggest you keep tracking time as you have been previously and then make a call at some stage during the trial.


6. Transitioning to a subscription

If transitioning to a subscription (Yay!), remember to add your payment details before the trial period ends to make the process as smooth as possible. Also, make sure you review (and potentially remove) any test data that's been entered. You don't want time entries accidentally finding their way onto an invoice when they shouldn't, or your end-of-year report showing a big spike in meeting time when it's not actually the case. Finally, double check the People page to make sure things are up to date, as this is what the invoicing is based on. If you have users who aren't needed anymore, you can archive or remove them and you won't be charged for them.



How does the Hourly trial work? The time page