Recurring Entries

Delu

Most of us put salt to our food every day.

The same is true for supplements and water. Some of us have some habits that we do every day.

It would be nice if Chronometer has a feature to insert recurring entries.

Karen_Cronometer

Hi Delu,

Thanks for your suggestion!

Cronometer has a couple of options to help you enter foods that you eat each day.
For example, copying and pasting foods from one day into another. Learn more about copying items in your diary here: https://cronometer.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018032812

You could also create a recipe in the Foods tab with all the foods you regularly eat. Then you can add recipe, rather than adding each individual ingredient each day.
Right-click and use the Explode Recipe action to show the individual ingredients so you can quickly make changes to serving sizes, if you make adjustments day-to-day.

Learn how to create custom recipes here: https://cronometer.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018510311

Best,

Delu

The request is about recurring foods; the answer is about recipe...what a joke!

nobrandheroes

I understand what Delu is saying. I think it would be useful to have a food scheduling option. Maybe on the food details page, add an option for recurrence.

I think the real key for an application or a service like this is for the user to spend as little time as possible interacting with it.

gbarn

I use the recipe trick all the time. My recipe is called "Daily Supplements" , works like a charm and saves a lot of entry time.

Delu

I also have that kind of bundle of foods. But, that doesn't save me from copying and pasting "recipe" everyday. Computers are supposed to do this kind of redundant task.
Some people just don't get it!

gbarn

Delu, I may be misunderstanding but what do you mean about copy and pasting "recipe" everyday. All I do is go to Add Food and start to typing dail... and in the search list my "Daily Supplements - Multi Vit; B&L Areds; Fish Oil; Magnesium" becomes visible and I click on it. That puts all the caloric and macro nutrients etc. values in my diary and shows that recipe in the list. Are you saying you want each individual component of the recipe listed? The nutrient values all show up in the total, so I don't see the need, especially since you created the recipe and know what is in it.

Delu

I often copy the recipe from the previous day and paste it to the current day.

It is similar step like your search and add method.

The request was to avoid the searching and adding altogether. You just schedule your recipe, Crono simply adds it by itself.

Don't you schedule recurring tasks in your task manager (calander) app?

If you do the same task everyday, you don't need to write on to your calander everyday. You can tell your calander to repeat the tasks by itself.

It is like that.

gbarn

For supplements that you take every day that would make sense. I eat a variety of foods everyday, not the same things, and some days I fast, so no food at all. But I understand what you are asking for now. The question what I would have if I were them would be when to add those every day items. They could create an "Everyday" or "Default Adds" list, where you could add whatever you want similar to a recipe but a specific List for just that purpose. Then there would have to be a button of some kind to add them. You couldn't add them automatically when you pick a day because some people like myself wouldn't want them added on fasting days, or for some other reason.

As a workaround, instead of your copy and paste routine, you may want to name your recipe something that is easy to type and unique, like "dddddd". This way when you start to add your other items for the day, you could easily type that recipe name and select it. It may be faster than what you are currently doing. I use to be in the software business and adding a feature is not as simple of a task as one might think. Unless there is a ground swell of need by multiple users, and there is no "other" way to accomplish the same thing, it doesn't make economic sense to add said feature. Just my opinion. Better to focus your resources toward other things.

Delu

Adding the feature doesn't have to change the existing habit. You can use your current habit of adding by searching or whatever trick you have.
Many people don't fast or never have interrupted habits. At least for salt and water, we can just add them into the recurring list and forget about it. I don't have to write salt every day.

And I am not the first person requesting this feature. Many uses have already requested this (even if the terms used are different).
You don't care about a feature doesn't mean that other users don't care about it. This is very important feature to me because I am sick and tired of writing the same item (5mg salt) day after day, year after year.
Computers are best in doing this kind of routine.

It is very absurd you tried to dismiss an important feature as irrelevant just because you don't need it.

Delu

You don't need the feature doesn't mean that other user don't need it. I am not the first person to request this feature.

I am going through the trouble of requesting a feature because it is important to me. I am sick and tired of writing the same item, 5mg of salt, day after day, year after year.
It is very absurd you are trying to dismiss a reasonable feature request as irrelevant just because you don't need the feature.

Hilary

@Delu we take all feature requests seriously. We do require user research, and planning before implementing a feature, but do be aware your request has been heard. The user group on the forum encompasses only a fraction of our entire user base, so while some feature requests may seem prevalent here, they may not reflect the true needs of our user base.
We have a number of projects in the works, and your request may be absorbed into one of those, or even created as its own feature. Please do be patient as we get many feature requests and we are a very small team with very big goals.
In the meantime, I encourage you to try one of the workarounds suggested by other users to make your process easier. Cronometer is pretty complex, and many users have found nifty shortcuts and workarounds that you may not have considered. Creating a "Recipe" is a great option, as well as using one of our many copy/paste options.

Delu

do be aware your request has been heard.

@Hilary
Thank you.

HLSTEW

I drink bullet proof coffee every morning. Never miss it.

I think what is being requested is instead of having to copy/ paste one day at a time (30 times for a month for example) a feature would be nice where it is add to all days. So that it is automatically there without copying it over all the time.

Taking the same vitamins was another example where they could be added on every day instead of single day copying.

Hilary

@HLSTEW we have added the request to our list. In the meantime, I encourage you to try one of the workarounds suggested by other users to make your process easier.

JimHohl

I also want this feature for coffee, supplements, etc. Like the original poster said, it’s the point of a tracker to automate tracking and having to copy paste every day is not the same thing. The easier a tool like this is to use accurately, the more success people will have.

Steverino

Adding and then exploding cascading recipes of other recipes works, but sure would be easier to create a daily template that adds specific items to each CM group. Would save a lot of exploding and dragging around. I like to have for all my daily stuff organized by breakfast, lunch and dinner just for readability.

Kazz

come on its nearly 2020
I've seen users request this since 2017...

Hilary

Thanks for your input @Kazz! We love getting user feedback, and we've got this one on the horizon! We are a small team here at cronometer, and must prioritize accordingly. We don't typically give ETA's on features, and things can change and we don't want to be giving any false promises.
Check out this blog post updating you all on our progress in the last year or two! (We only even really started hiring staff in the last couple of years and we have been growing steadily!) https://cronometer.com/blog/cronometer-2019-the-year-in-review/
We are pretty proud of how far we have come with such a great crew and being able to keep up a healthy work-life balance so we can continue to love our jobs and get the best software we can out to you!

queenofgeek

I want to chime in and say that I would like to see this feature implemented too.

YAC

Another + 1. I use the Recipe feature. BUT I would also love not to have to search and add every day.

nickersonm

I would also find a recurring foods feature extremely useful; that's really the only thing I find lacking in Cronometer!

janick

This useful feature would save me a ton of time every day since I commonly eat the same foods. For each recurring food, I want to set its frequency and which meal group it shows up under, and the ability to edit its frequency settings after setup. Think of Google Calendar and its recurrence features — I'd like the same thing except for foods.

davidR

I, too, would like that feature added to the app. Thanks.

queenofgeek

Me too. It was added to the list in 2019. I wonder how long that list is

Steverino

I also eat a lot of the exact same foods every day, and like them organized into different groups on each day. I stopped complaining about this missing feature once I realized that just using Copy Previous Day does pretty much exactly what I want. I organize stuff so that things I eat that I know I won't eat tomorrow is in it's own group. Then you can click on group and Delete All.

alistairlow

+1, this would be amazing and save a lot of time!

LosOjos

+1 Most meal tracking apps have this feature. It would save so much time.

BillHudacek

Add me to the list. I do BPC every morning. EVERY morning. And supplements - every. single. day.

This is invariant behavior. I want a template for each and every day. I might change BPC to BPC-with-cocoa, but that's on me and it's the exception. The supplements cannot change, ever, and must be there every day. I do have a 'supplements' "recipe", which saves a bit of pain, but I still sometimes notice past days where I forgot to add it (argh).

So yes, I'm also adding multiple things each. and. every. day.

Imagine bringing up this web page and adding a comment - the SAME comment - every day. Would you like me to illustrate for a month or so? Let me know!

:-) Rather tongue-in-cheek there but I hope I've made my point. This ain't about convenience. It goes straight to UX ('usability' - yeah, I weear a software developer hat too).

CeeJay

I'd like to throw in my request for this feature, but like most requests, I'm pretty sure it won't happen. This topic was opened 3 years ago and nothing.

joycerey

I too request capacity for used to define an automatic daily insert with option to specify to which group to add it.

My very least favorite part of Cronometer is daily need for my manual action to enter my daily vitamins. if I skip, way easier to delete than find and add.

Recipe is a workaround that should be replaced by a new Daily Auto-Add feature.

Please take this request seriously and build it in and release this with fanfare. it is a predictable widespread user need!!!!