Ofc is not clear, i omitted it because i was trying to get straight to the point rather than make people read an EVEN LONGER post and be deterred to reply by boredom. i find that doing so is not good etiquette and generally a waste of the reader’s time. Since you asked, i will reply going against my idea of etiquette…
Just re-iterating: i am not trying to dupmp an issue on others’ shoulders, i am trying to pick clever and more expert people’s brains on a specific issue which represents maybe 10% of the final wanted result of a wider project(below) wihtin OH, which i am putting together without constantly weighing on you all, and will share the “how to” once completed and cleaned to the best of my abilities.
Here it goes:
At work we compile BY HAND an absolutely horredous and unwieldy excel file(i deeply hate it) with the time we spend doing our various tasks daily. This is not by choice, this is imposed by the higher ups, and i would generally consider it good practice if done properly. (There also are softwares which are built for time management.)
Ideally, if one(me) really takes the time to insert task id and the time spent while the day passes, would get precise graphing and statistics and be able to derive monhly work hours(costs) per project.
In the real world, this means interrupting the stream of thoughs of what you are doing, loosing concentration to make caluclations about how many minutes you’ve spent on the previous task, before passing onto the next task at hand.
We also work in an open space environment, and often help each other.
Again, ideally, each time somebody asks for help, and you know how to help them, you’d need to stop what you are doing, tell them “i’ll help you” count the minutes you spent on your previous task, mark your stuff as task id, go help them, and then come back, count your minutes and input them, reinsert the previous task… and by then you have completely forgotten what was the next thing you wanted to do. You can obviously leave post-it notes, make guides for yourself (again good practice) but… really that’s only a support, not a solution.
SO, i talked with management, and proposed to implement a system that would achieve the same result (daily graphs and monthly totals) ,with more more coherence to effectively what is going on in the office, while not encumbering us workers with an (oh so italian) overhead of bureaucracy.
Note that i’ve already implemented through openhab the management of ventilation and lighting in the office, so it felt only natural, since we already have a machine running for that, to exploit it further (and yes, i like challenges)
it’s worse than that. I want to filter out the days when there is no change in state, as none of us works 7/7. But that part i can do on my own and will not ask help for it.
i want to provide links to each of the rendered images or copypaste them in a monthly report.
Why?
Because by filling in manually my hated excel is what we currently get, and in the adminstration’s eyes if they are to accept another system it must provide the same level of analysys.
The purpose of automation is often “saving time”. I’ve read you scripted your automated installation of OH, i believe it’s for the same purpose - streamlining, i really dont’ think it needs explanation.
The main issues are readability and resolution
vs
(this was achieved as a test, so i haven’t inputted many minutely changes, but imagine a more fragmented day, the loss of information cha be significant)
Because we also all dont’ work full days on equal working hours. some of us are part time, some of us work more often mornings, others afternoons into evening, some always 8.30am-5pm.
Again, by filling in that excel file, the result adapts automatically(…filed by hand…) to each of our hours.
We already produce bar codes for each task (alltho for different purposes linked to iso9001 certification.
You might already know that bar code readers work often asn HID.
Add it to:
And this is the part i have already sorted out, together with calcualtions for totals, bash scripting and
this is already done too. i know the format of the strings i need.
i am missing only one piece, which is finding out timestamps.
i am truly sorry for the lenghty post. 
PS. I’ll keep looking for solutions on my own as well.
If i find out how to solve my issue will post here