Reinventing Learning, One iOS Device at a Time

Using Time Tracking to Manage Projects and Stay in Budget

Nicholas Callaway transformed his small children’s book publishing company into Callaway Digital Arts in August of 2010. His vision was to be an app studio that created high quality children’s and lifestyle apps. This transformation meant that he needed to hire digital designers, developers, animators, sound designers and producers. His company ballooned from 10 employees in August to 30 by year end. Today, Callaway Digital Arts has 50 employees and freelancers building award winning apps.

Since designing and building apps was a new business for Callaway, Nicholas and his team knew they needed some tools to manage the development of the apps, and make sure that they were delivering them on budget. Nicholas assigned Jennifer Caffrey, CDA’s Director of Operations, to find a system to meet their needs.

Callaway is unique in the industry, Jennifer explains, because, “we do everything in-house. There are a lot of companies that create content and farm out development, or others that do the development but not the content. We’re a fully functional end-to-end studio.”

Since they were already using Google Apps, Jennifer decided to search for a solution that integrated well with Google Apps. Her primary concern was for time; specifically, capturing and understanding time. “Knowing that we spent x hours on a Martha Stewart app is great, but it’s even better to know what percent of those hours were spent on design and development.”

“ Knowing that we spent x hours on a Martha Stewart app is great, but it’s even better to know what percent of those hours were spent on design and development. ”

“Most Employees Don’t Need Any Training”

Getting set up on Harvest was simple. “Once one of my employees is in the Google Apps system, it’s easy to just add them in to Harvest. They get an email that explains how to enter time, most employees don’t need any training. They get their weekly timesheets e-mailed to them on time, without hassle.”

Employees at Callaway use Harvest in a number of different ways. Some enter their time on a weekly basis directly in their Gmail inbox. Because of the Google integration, they get a weekly email with a live timesheet where they can enter time and click submit. Others use the Mac Widget or iPhone app, and enter time as they work by starting and stopping a timer for specific tasks.

Powerful Reporting

For Jennifer, the most important Harvest feature is the simple and powerful reporting. “Since we were awarded the Department of Education grant, we have had to produce more reports on how we spend our time. It's important to know how the grant money is being utilized, so I send our content partners and the DOE regular reports that I pull from Harvest. It's great; with Harvest I can easily click on the reports function and I get an instantaneous export of the information I need. It doesn't require having high-end tech skills, which is great for my position.”

“ It’s great; with Harvest I can easily click on the reports function and I get an instantaneous export of the information I need. It doesn’t require having high-end tech skills, which is great for my position. ”

Harvest makes time tracking easy for CDA, by integrating with Google Apps, a system they already use everyday. Utilizing detailed report functionality keeps Callaway Digital Arts on track, within budget, and able to decide what needs to be done for the next generation of apps.