Getting started

This topic takes you from the first time you open Grindstone to your first timed minute, then shows you around the window. If you haven’t installed Grindstone yet, start with Installing Grindstone.

Your first workspace

Everything you track in Grindstone lives in a workspace. The first time you open Grindstone, you have none yet, so it welcomes you and offers Let’s Make Your First Workspace.

The kind of workspace you can make in the beta is a Folio, a workspace just for you, kept on this device. Cloud Connection and Server Connection are marked Coming Soon.

  1. Choose Create Your First Folio.
  2. In Create a New Folio, type a Name for it and choose OK. The name can’t contain characters that file names can’t, and it can’t match a workspace you already have.

Grindstone creates the folio and opens Setup Workspace.

If you already have a folio file, choose Import a Folio File instead. You can also choose a Grindstone 4 database there; see Coming from Grindstone 4. Workspaces and folios covers both.

Open Grindstone Settings, in the corner of this screen, lets you change Settings before you open a workspace.

The first time this screen appears, it also shows Send Epiforge anonymous usage counts, already on. It sends Epiforge a short daily count of which versions are in use, never anything from your workspaces. Turn it off here if you’d rather not; Grindstone sends nothing until you’ve left this screen, and you can change it later in Settings. See Privacy.

Setup Workspace

Setup Workspace takes you through its steps one at a time.

Introduce Yourself

Under What should I call you?, enter your name. Grindstone suggests the user name you signed in to your computer with. It uses this name for the person in the workspace your time belongs to. Then go on to the next step, or press Enter.

Select a Preset

A preset decides how the workspace starts out: the fields your work has, the views you see, what the Dashboard shows and what Grindstone keeps watch for. Under Start From, choose where the preset comes from:

  • Built-in Preset: the presets that come with Grindstone (see Presets). General Time Tracking is first and already selected. Choose any preset to see its description and the choices it makes for you.
  • Saved Preset: presets you’ve saved for later use (see Presets).
  • Preset File: a preset file someone gave you (see Presets). Choose Browse to pick it. Turn on Save this preset for later use to keep it among your saved presets.

When you have the preset you want, choose Finish. Grindstone sets up the workspace and opens it.

If you’d like to tailor the preset first, choose Build on This with AI instead. Building a preset with AI explains that step. Presets covers presets in full.

If you choose Cancel, you go back to Your Workspaces. The folio stays in the list, and Setup Workspace appears again when you open it.

Timing your first minute

The right end of the bar at the top of the window says Not timing until you start.

  1. Press Ctrl+K, or choose the Switch button beside Not timing. A list of your work items opens with a search box.
  2. If the work item you want is listed, select it and choose Start, or press Enter.
  3. If it isn’t, type its name and choose Create Work Item. Pressing Enter does the same when nothing matches. Grindstone opens Create Work Item with the name filled in. Choose OK, and timing starts. See Timing your work.

While you’re timing, the bar shows a readout and a label for what you’re timing. Choose Stop Timing to stop.

Timing your work covers switching from one thing to another and the rest of timing.

A tour of the window

The bar at the top

From left to right:

  • The button that opens the main menu, described below.
  • The name of the open workspace.
  • A waving hand, when you’ve been away and haven’t told Grindstone what happened. Its tooltip says “You were away. Tell Grindstone what happened.” Choose it to open Welcome Back. See When you step away.
  • What you’re timing: the readout and label, Switch, and Stop Timing. Choose the readout or the label to pick another one. See Timing readout and label.

Views and the Dashboard

The panel on the left lists everything you can look at:

  • Dashboard, which shows your status tiles and pinned charts. See The Dashboard.
  • User Views, the views you and your preset made.
  • System Views, which Grindstone keeps for itself, in the folders Selection, Traits and Active.

The toolbar above the list has Create View, Edit View, Duplicate View and Delete View, and Search narrows the list by name. Right-click the list for the same commands plus Copy and Copy with Headers.

Whatever you select in the list fills the rest of the window. Views explains them.

The button at the left end of the bar opens the main menu. At the top it shows Grindstone and the version you have. Below that:

  • Find Gaps, Export to Excel and Save a Copy as Folio.
  • Alerts, when the workspace has statuses, for choosing which ones alert you. See Statuses and alerts.
  • Timing Readout and Timing Label.
  • Actions, Statuses, Timing Formulas and Create Preset.
  • Settings, also Ctrl+, (comma).
  • Close, followed by the workspace’s name, which takes you back to your workspaces.

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