Direct Database Access

The Complete Time Tracking Professional database can be accessed directly, external to the Complete Time Tracking Professional client application to facilitate the use of third party reporting products, exporting of custom data, interfacing with external systems, and bulk data entry. Several methods of access can be used, as described in the following table.

Access Method	Description
ODBC	A commonly used Windows-specific data access system supported by Microsoft Office and most third party reporting and database tools.
JDBC	A data access system commonly used in Java applications.
ADO.NET	A data access system commonly used in .NET applications.
Database Script Tool	An external tool specifically designed for Complete Time Tracking Professional that can be used to run SQL-like scripts. It is command line or configuration file driven and can be run as a scheduled task. It includes a configuration editor, XML, CSV and TAB-delimited data export, conditional expressions, and persistent variables that allow a script to continue from a previous run. This tool is available for download from the Complete Time Tracking web site. Database scripts can also be run directly from the Server Manager. See Running Database Scripts.

All access methods require direct database login using database user accounts, separate to the user accounts maintained within the Complete Time Tracking Professional application. Database user accounts can be set with limited read, full read, or read-write access.

Note: An understanding of the data structure, data contents and methods of retrieval are required to effectively use direct database access. There are also strict data modification rules that must be adhered to. This information is provided in the Database Script tool documentation.