It took three months for V Venkatachallam to learn coding and create an app for people who work in shifts. He didn’t have any previous experience with coding or programming, but the urge to do something different kept him awake at nights working on MyShiftDiary.
Venkatachallam himself works in shifts and the difficulty of managing his schedules on a sheet of paper was the spark for creating an app to keep track of his shifts and days offs.
“Whenever someone invited me for a family function or party, I had to take out the list and check which shift I was on that day. Now, with my MyShiftDiary application, it’s just two taps away.
“MyShiftDiary is a very simple application for people who work in shifts. This easy to use tool helps you to find your shift on any date, record your notes connected to the shift schedule, search and find notes when needed, record your overtime and list the overtime for any month.
“The overtime option is a big hit with many workers as, with a single tap, you can find out how many hours you have in that current month or between any given dates. No need to add up the time sheet and log sheet.”
First the user has to set up his shift. There are four default shift schedules in the app, which are customizable, and additional shift schedules can be set up as needed. For any new schedule, the user needs to save a schedule description, first date of any shift cycle and the number of days in any shift cycle. Once the shift is set up, the user can enjoy the following features:
• Find out the shift for any date (past/future)
• Find out the number of days from today to that date
• Record short notes as in a diary or log book
• Search recorded notes
• Record overtime
• Calculate the total hours of overtime for any selected period
• Export notes and overtime to email
• Export schedule screen shot and schedule list to email
• Set up and find ‘buddy’s shift duty’ for any selected date
The MyShiftDiary app has not become a sensation on the App Store, nor has it appeared on top of any list. But Venkatachallam is happy with the 2,000 downloads it has logged. He is expecting a lot more downloads in the coming days as he has cleaned up bugs and done some fine tuning in a recent update. The app is also available in Arabic for download.
“I am receiving a lot of response from all around the world. I get emails with suggestions for a future update. I am very happy that my hard work is helping at least a few people.”
MyshiftDiary is charged $0.99 at the App Store. As of now, the app is available only for iOS devices, but Venkatachallam hopes to make one for Android also.
“I need to study a lot more to do coding for making the app compatible with Android devices. Actually, I started with the idea of making the app for the Android platform as all tools are free and easily available online. But I faced a lot of issues in coding due to the various sizes of devices available in the market, resulting in a long time in developing, with my limited personal time, so I shifted to iOS. Maybe later I will try to make it in Android also. Currently I am busy with a new app, which will be my third one.
“The second app I did, Property Point, didn’t do well, but I have lots of hopes for the third one, Expense Share,” he added.THE PENINSULA
