timeBuzzer
ProductivitytimeBuzzer is the time tracking tool built around a physical desk buzzer. Agents create, filter, and bulk edit activities, manage the layer and tile hierarchy that categorizes them, assign tiles to users and groups, pull reports and charts, and react to webhook events.
What This Integration Enables
timeBuzzer is time tracking for people who will not open a tracking app. A physical buzzer sits on the desk, and twisting it starts recording against whatever the buzzer is set to. That hardware premise shapes the whole API: the categories are not free text, they are a rigid three-level structure that timeBuzzer describes with its own address analogy, country to state to city. There are always exactly three layers, they cannot be added to or reordered, and a tile belongs to exactly one layer permanently.
That rigidity is what makes the connector useful and what makes it worth respecting. FlowRunner agents create and search tiles, assign them to users and groups, create and correct activities, mark them billed in bulk, and pull the multi-specification reports timeBuzzer builds from them. They also react in real time, because the connector's trigger fires on new, edited and deleted activities. What agents do not do is quietly reshape the structure the time hangs off. There is no move operation, so a tile in the wrong layer has to be deleted and remade. That is exactly the kind of one-way door FlowRunner's human-in-the-loop design puts a person in front of.
Without FlowRunner
With FlowRunner
Use Case Scenarios
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Every tap resolves to a client, or reaches a human
The trigger fires as activities are saved. The agent reads the tiles the entry carries, walks them up through List Layers and Get Tile to a client and a project, and confirms nothing else already covers the period. Resolved entries continue toward billing. Anything with a missing or ambiguous tile combination goes to the account manager in Slack with the tile path, the note and the duration attached. The team keeps using a buzzer. The categorization gets fixed the same day rather than at month end.
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The billable period closes with its own evidence
At the end of a period the agent calls Get Report with up to four specifications in one call, each grouped its own way, one by layer and one by day. Because Strict Date decides whether an entry must sit entirely inside the range or merely overlap it, the report can answer "hours worked in August" rather than "entries that touched August", which is the difference an invoice actually cares about. Totals go to a sheet in Google Sheets and the invoice lines are raised in QuickBooks Online. Set Activities Billed then flips the flag on the entries that were counted, and only that flag, so nothing else about the entries changes.
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A new client gets its structure without a maintenance job
When a new client is won in the CRM, the agent creates the layer 1 tile for the client and the layer 2 tiles for its workstreams. For the layer 3 activity types that every client shares, it creates them as Global tiles, which timeBuzzer makes an automatic child of every tile in the layer above, including ones created later. That single choice removes the recurring chore of wiring parent links by hand every time a client is added. Assign Tile Users then decides who may track against the new client, and because that call replaces the whole list rather than adding to it, the agent sends the full roster it was given rather than the delta.
Human-in-Loop Highlight
timeBuzzer has no operation that moves a tile between layers, because a tile's layer is permanent. So every real taxonomy change, splitting a client into two, promoting a workstream, retiring an old activity type, is a delete and a recreate, and Delete Tile takes the tile out from under whatever time already points at it. timeBuzzer ships the pre-check for exactly this: Check Tile Activities answers whether a tile already carries time. The agent runs it across every tile in the proposed change and stops. It posts: "Restructuring Acme from two workstreams to four. Six tiles to remove. Four are empty. Two carry time: Acme / Retainer holds 214 entries and Acme / Retainer / Review holds 38. Delete both, or archive them through Update Tile and build the new structure alongside?" The operations lead decides, per tile, and the agent executes the answer. Delete Tiles and Delete Activities both report a success count and an error list rather than failing as a unit, so a half-approved teardown is not something anyone should discover afterwards.
Agent Capabilities
47 actionsAccount
6- Get Account Returns the account with its users, which is also where a flow finds the numeric user id that Create Activity requires.
- Get My User Returns the user the API key belongs to.
- Update My User Changes the connected user's own profile.
- List Permissions Lists what the connected user is allowed to do. The read that explains a 403 before a flow hits one.
- Get API Version Returns the API version. It needs no authentication at all, which makes it a free reachability check for a connection.
- Check Client Compatibility Confirms a client version is still supported by the account's API.
Layers and Tiles
15- List Layers Lists the three layers of the account's structure with their names and visibility.
- Get Layer Returns one layer.
- List Tiles Lists tiles, optionally scoped to a layer.
- Get Tile Returns one tile with its parents, type and visibility.
- Search Tiles Searches tiles server-side rather than filtering a fetched page, which is what the tile picker uses.
- Create Tile Creates a tile in a layer. A Global tile becomes an automatic child of every tile in the layer above, including ones created later.
- Update Tile Replaces a tile's record, so read it first and send it back with the changes applied. Name and Layer are required on every call even when neither changes. This is also the reversible way to retire a tile.
- Delete Tile Removes one tile. Permanent, and there is no move operation, which is why a structure change is a review item rather than a routine write.
- Delete Tiles Removes several tiles in one call, reporting a success count and an error list rather than failing as a unit.
- Check Tile Activities Answers whether tiles already carry time. The call a flow makes before proposing any deletion, and the evidence behind this page's human gate.
- List Assigned Tiles Lists the tiles assigned to a user, which is what they can actually track against.
- List Tile Users Lists the users assigned to a tile.
- Assign Tile Users Sets which users may track against a tile. The list replaces what was there, so sending one id removes everyone else.
- Assign Tile Groups Sets which groups may track against a tile. Also a replacement rather than an addition.
- Set Tile Public Flips the flag that makes a tile available to everyone. While it is on, the user and group assignments are irrelevant, and timeBuzzer defaults new tiles to on.
Activities
10- List Activities Lists activities. Count is required and capped, so a full read walks the range with Offset.
- Get Activity Returns one activity with its tiles, note and timestamps.
- Count Activities Returns how many activities match a filter without returning the rows.
- Search Activities Searches activities with a filter, including Strict Date, which decides whether an entry must sit entirely inside the range or merely overlap it.
- Get Activity Search Metadata Returns the total for a filter without the rows, so a paged walk knows how far to go before it starts.
- Create Activity Files an activity. Start, end, both UTC offsets, note, user and tiles are all required, including an empty note, because timeBuzzer stores the local offset at each end so its reports can group by local day.
- Update Activity Replaces an activity's record. Read it first and send it back with the changes applied.
- Set Activities Billed Marks activities billed in bulk. It changes only the billed flag and nothing else, which is what makes it safe to run over a closed period.
- Delete Activity Removes one activity.
- Delete Activities Removes several activities in one call, capped per call and reporting partial results. Each deletion also fires the activity trigger, so a bulk removal produces one trigger run per entry.
Groups
7- List Groups Lists the account's groups.
- Create Group Creates a group that tiles and users can be assigned to as a unit.
- Rename Group Renames a group.
- Assign Group Users Sets which users belong to a group, replacing the existing membership.
- Assign Group Tiles Sets which tiles a group may track against, replacing the existing set.
- Assign User Groups Sets which groups a user belongs to, replacing their existing memberships.
- Delete Group Removes a group.
Reports
3- Get Report Runs up to four report specifications in one call, each with its own filter, grouping and rounding. The first column of every row is the seconds as a number, which is what makes the output straightforward to total.
- Get Chart Returns a chart of tracked time. timeBuzzer marks this deprecated in favor of Get Report and it is kept for flows that already use it.
- Get Filtered Chart Returns a filtered chart. Also deprecated by timeBuzzer in favor of Get Report.
Webhooks
6- List Webhooks Lists the account's webhook configurations, which is how a flow audits what is calling out.
- Get Webhook Returns one webhook configuration.
- Create Webhook Registers a webhook. Custom request headers are where a shared secret goes, because timeBuzzer signs nothing itself.
- Update Webhook Replaces a webhook configuration, so read it first and send it back with the changes applied.
- Delete Webhook Removes one webhook configuration.
- Delete Webhooks By URL Removes every configuration pointing at the same callback URL in one call, which is what cleaning up a multi-event subscription needs.
Triggers
1 triggersEvent Triggers
1- On timeBuzzer Activity Event Fires when an activity is created, edited or deleted, or on all three. timeBuzzer treats any response other than a 202 as a delivery failure and can roll back the transaction the user was saving, so this trigger is worth proving on a throwaway activity before it sits in front of real time tracking. Because each webhook configuration carries exactly one event, selecting all events registers three configurations against the same callback URL, and Delete Webhooks By URL clears them together.
Frequently Asked Questions
What can FlowRunner do with timeBuzzer?
FlowRunner agents can run Get Account, Get My User, and Update My User in timeBuzzer, plus 44 more actions.
Does connecting timeBuzzer to FlowRunner require OAuth?
No. timeBuzzer connects to FlowRunner with an API key, no OAuth flow required.
Can timeBuzzer trigger a FlowRunner workflow automatically?
Yes. timeBuzzer supports 1 trigger that can start a FlowRunner workflow automatically.
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