Clockflux

Exporting your hours: which of CSV, PDF and ICS to use

App featureHours & pay4 min readBy

At some point your hours have to leave the app. Payroll wants a figure, a client wants a timesheet, or you want to compare your own record with a payslip. Clockflux Pro can export a date range in three formats, and they're built for different jobs. Here's what each contains and when to reach for it.

How to export

Open the Calendar tab and press Export…. A small panel opens with a From and a To date, set to the month you're looking at, and one button per format: CSV, PDF and ICS. Change the dates if you want another period, press a button, and the file downloads.

Some details:

  • The range can cover about three years at most, and the end date can't be before the start.
  • Clockflux builds the file on its server from the entries the app sends with your request, so you need a connection. Offline, the button is unavailable until you're back online.
  • Session times are written in your browser's time zone, and the file says which one.
  • The daily totals include your break adjustment if you've turned on break crediting, the same as in the app.
  • Totals are decimal hours to two decimal places, without the quarter-hour rounding that the app's decimal view uses. Why that matters is in an earlier post.

CSV: for spreadsheets, payroll and invoices

The CSV is the raw record. It has one row per day that has sessions or a day off, with these columns:

  • Date and Weekday
  • Day Off: Personal, Sick, Official or Unpaid, with "(Half Day)" when it was a half day
  • Total Hours: for example 7.83
  • Sessions: the day's sessions as start and end times, like 09:00-12:30; 13:00-17:30. A session still running shows a dash as its end time.
  • Tasks: only if you track hours per task. Each day lists its tasks and their hours, such as Client A 3.50h; Client B 4.00h.

The file is UTF-8 with the marker Excel needs, so accents open correctly with a double-click. Open it in your spreadsheet, and the Total Hours column adds up with a plain sum. This is the one to use when you want to check a payslip, work out an invoice, or build your own report.

PDF: a report you can send

The PDF is the version for reading. It's an A4 report with:

  • a header with the date range and the day it was generated;
  • four summary figures: hours worked, days worked, days off and your daily target;
  • an Hours per task section with a coloured bar and a share for each task, if you track by task;
  • a Day by day table with each day's hours and sessions, and a total at the bottom. A full day off shows its type in place of sessions.

The footer states the time zone the times are in and numbers the pages. It's the format for a timesheet your manager or a client has to sign off, or one for your own files at the end of a month.

ICS: your days off in your calendar

The ICS file holds your days off and none of your hours. Each day off in the range becomes an all-day event called "Day Off (Personal)", "Day Off (Sick)" and so on, filed under "Time Off" and set to show you as free.

Import it into Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar, and your leave appears next to your meetings. It's a file you import once, so it doesn't update itself. If you change a day off in Clockflux later, export again and import the new file.

Which one for what

  • Checking a payslip or building an invoice: CSV.
  • Handing over a timesheet or keeping a monthly record: PDF.
  • Showing your leave in a calendar your colleagues can see: ICS.

If you're after a copy of everything to restore Clockflux on another device, use the backup in Settings instead. A backup is for putting your data back into Clockflux, and an export is for reading it elsewhere.

Free and Pro

Exports are part of Clockflux Pro. On the free plan the Calendar tab tells you so, and the backup is the way to get a copy of your data. The privacy notice says what we hold and how to export or erase it.