# Feature OP-7069 - Have "HH:mm" as the input format for duration fields (e.g "estimated time" on work packages and "hours" for time entries) 

Project: OpenProject
Status: rejected
URL: https://community.openproject.org/work_packages/OP-7069

## Planning

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Date |  |
| Priority | Medium |
| Target versions | Wish List |
| Sprint |  |
| Backlog bucket |  |
| Votes | 12 |
| List |  |
| Roadmap |  |
| Relevance |  |

## OPEN POINTS / FEEDBACK

_No work packages_

## Features and Chunks

_No work packages_

## Bugs and other work packages

_No work packages_

## Technical Details

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Module |  |
| Feature Flag |  |
| Requires doc change | No |
| Enterprise plan |  |

## Details

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Pull preview |  |
| Mockups |  |
| Found in mobile app version |  |
| Follow-up feedback e-mail |  |
| Accessibility | No |

## People

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Assignee |  |
| Accountable |  |
| Product manager |  |
| Developers |  |
| Designer |  |
| Ordered by |  |
| Signed off by |  |
| Interest by |  |

## Estimates and progress

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| PD (min) |  |
| PD (max) |  |
| Work |  |
| Labor costs |  |

## Description

The current input format for duration field  (e.g "estimated time" on work packages and "hours" for time entries) is a decimal value (e.g. 1,5) represents 1 hour and 30 minutes.

This is confusing to users.

A format like "HH:mm", so e.g 1:30 would be easier to understand. We could either implement this in a single field with a placeholder or have two fields, one for hours and one for the minutes.

Here is a mock up created by Aleix showing the two options side by side. (Please don't get distracted by the fact that the mockup was made in material design. That is not the topic here.)

<https://time-spent-input.stackblitz.io/>

Please extend the following table in case some important aspect is missing.

<table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Pro single field</strong></td><td><strong>Contra single field</strong></td><td><strong>Pro two separate fields</strong></td><td><strong>Contra two separate fields</strong></td></tr><tr><td><ul><li>Copy and paste from other documents possible</li><li>Could allow a whole range of different input formats such as "1h", "1.5h", "40 min", "1:35"</li><li>Backwards compatible with what current users are used to</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>Not so intuitive: First time users need to think and understand before they can log a time.</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>Intuitive. Doesn't make users think.</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>Copy and paste of values from other documents is not possible anymore.</li><li>Existing users need to learn the new interface (which should be fairly easy)</li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table>