Intro Does Hubstaff Work Offline
When picking a time tracking tool, it is important to understand the various kinds of tools available. Tools such as Mavenlink, Wrike, and Zoho Projects all feature powerful time monitoring features for professional services companies. On the other hand, the time tracking features in such tools are available only as part of larger project management (PM) suites. As a result, you are paying much more money for things like file storage, in-app discussion, progress reports, and change administration. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you will discover pure play time monitoring tools like Hubstaff (which starts at $5 per month per user) and TSheets, our Editors’ Choice tool for time tracking. Does Hubstaff Work Offline
Attributes and Utilization
Hubstaff’s user interface (UI) was created with a appealing left-rail blue navigation bar which leaves plenty of room around the side of your display for data entry and analysis. When you first log into the system, you will be taken to the main dashboard, which provides you an summary of the number of hours your employees have worked that day and how many hours they have worked over the past seven days. You will also see a list of each member, their most recent jobs, and how active they’ve been over the last week. This is a strong PM data visualization that allows you immediately differentiate between workhorses and do-nothings, and it immediately calls to attention projects that are becoming more than sufficient focus and jobs that are being disregarded.
There are two methods to add time in Hubstaff: You can build manual timesheets with past hours worked, or you may use the stopwatch feature on Hubstaff’s native desktop program. With the timesheet feature, you log your hours since you probably did with pen and paper through the analog age of time monitoring. Essentially, you work your shift, you add the time to your own timesheet, and you sign off on it. This is a fairly standard procedure of tracking time. Regrettably, because Hubstaff doesn’t let you add future time, you can not use the platform for a shift planner. Administrators can let users manually edit previously submitted timesheets, and they can induce users to require a reason to guarantee they’re actually adding hours they worked. Admins may also set the system up to let users to begin tracking time should they have not clocked into the machine in a while.
The next, and most frustrating, way of monitoring time in Hubstaff is using the stopwatch feature. In each solution we analyzed, this element is available within the boundaries of your internet browser–every solution that is, except for Hubstaff. With Hubstaff, you are required to download an native desktop application that resides within a separate window. In it, you can select your job, press Start, along with your timer will start counting. When you are done, your activity and your screenshots will be sent to the principal hub. The native program is going to take a picture at random intervals of up to three shots per hour based on how often the admin wants to spy on workers. Screenshots can be partly blurred to not record sensitive information on every grab, but enough of the display is left unsullied you’ll still get a sense of whether the display is on work-related or play-related content. This can be an annoyingly complex and convoluted way to manually track time, especially if you’re jumping from task to task throughout the day. Hubstaff must find a way to add the stopwatch and also screengrab elements to the cloud-based architecture to simplify ease of use.
Tracking time in real-time on Hubstaff’s Android and iOS apps is precisely the same as it is on the desktop program. The mobile programs let admins monitor movements via GPS tracking. This provides you an summary of how much movement was done by your worker by capturing location information at different stages.
The Schedules tab lets you assign times and dates for employees to do the job. You can put a minimum number of hours to work, a lunch break interval, and you can make it a recurring change. The tool’s reporting software is terribly basic: You will get access to weekly, daily, project, and member view reports in addition to a”habit” report which lets you filter information from the above reports. In comparison to the PM options within this class, Hubstaff’s reporting is utterly embarrassing consequently, if your target is to learn and evolve based on if and how your employees handle time, you’d be better off working with Zoho Projects, our Editors’ Choice for PM.
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Admins receive notifications when they have attained weekly staffing and budget limitations. Invoices are automatically calculated and made based on the time each worker worked, as well as their associated pay rate. You can set up automatic citizenship through PayPal, which lets you automate payments based on time tracked inside the tool. Keep in mind: Users do not have to send time for acceptance, so automatic payments will be made whether employees were wrong or right concerning the amount of hours that they worked. There is no reminder for supervisors to double-check every timesheet ahead of automatic payments move out so, if you’re concerned about making bogus payments, then you can place PayPal payments to manual. Does Hubstaff Work Offline
Cost And Options
Hubstaff has been constructed to provide you with Big Brother-level oversight into when employees are working, what they are doing while they operate, and what you need to cover them as soon as the work is finished. The Basic $5-per-month plan gives you access to simple time tracking tools, a worker payment program manager, 24/7 support, and user settings that can be handled in an employee-by-employee basis. Moreover, this program lets you keep tabs on whether or not your employees are operating by letting you record screenshots while they work as well as monitor keyboard and mouse action during changes. Of the five tools we’ve analyzed, Hubstaff is the only instrument that provided this level of insight into the way that workers are progressing. Although keyboard and screen monitoring are helpful (albeit over-reaching) features for a change screen, Hubstaff’s implementation leaves much to be desired (more about this later).
The 9-per-user-per-month Premium plan includes everything you’ll find in the fundamental plan, but you’ll also get access to Hubstaff’s application programming interface (API) to integrate the application with other third-party applications. The Premium package also comes with a lightweight schedulingtool that gives administrators the capability to assign changes and assign tasks from within the console. Premium customers may also use the tool to create invoices and create PayPal payments automatically. Customers that pay yearly will receive two weeks free (for both cost tiers).
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Compared to TSheets, its closest competition in our roundup, Hubstaff is reasonably priced, especially given the extra monitoring features that are unavailable in competitive resources. TSheets offers a basic free account, as well as a $4-per-user-per-month accounts that charges a $16 base fee a month for groups with fewer than 100 users, along with a $80 foundation fee per month for teams with over a hundred users. The base fee, which Hubstaff does not charge, makes TSheets slightly more costly than Hubstaff, even in Hubstaff’s Premium degree.
If you are more interested in these hulky PM solutions, then you will need to pony up a bit more cash. Mavenlink’s cheapest plan that includes time monitoring costs $39 per user per month. Zoho’s cheapest time tracking plan is $25 a month for an unlimited number of users (that is a pretty solid deal if you want all of the excess PM features). Wrike’s cheapest time monitoring plan prices $24.80 per user per month.
What Should Be Added
Editor’s note: Since our original review of Hubstaff, the business has released a significant update in late 2018 that specifically addressed certain feature flaws or omissions, including adding a web timer, fleshing out coverage choices, and adding activity levels and monitor tracking. We are going to be analyzing these attributes shortly and you’ll see the results in an upcoming update to this review.
Besides its draconian screengrab and keystroke monitoring, Hubstaff doesn’t do a very good job allowing for deeper shift oversight. For example, Hubstaff does not allow advanced monitoring. If you run a trucking company and you’re less concerned about how many hours each trucker drove than the distance driven, then there is no way to manage that in Hubstaff. Users can add notes to an empty text area, but that data will not be mixed into reports. As a consequence, that you can’t use it to learn about who’s working, how they are functioning, and what they are producing (aside from the number of hours monitored ). TSheets not only gives you this option, it provides you the ability to create six extra customizable advanced monitoring fields. You might even add a query for every single clock-out (i.e.,”Was there an episode? Yes. No.”) And the system forces the consumer to respond to the queries at the close of each change or they will not be able to clock out.
As hardcore as Hubstaff is about tracking work, the tool doesn’t allow for IP address limitations, which means your employees can say they are working from the workplace but they could actually be operating from a cruise boat in the Bahamas (unless they’re using the mobile program to monitor time). This is a standard feature that’s available in virtually every other tool we tested. Hubstaff also does not enable admins to require users to snap a photo if they report to work. I guess it is overkill to generate somebody take a selfie before you start recording their screen and monitoring their keystrokes, but TSheets enables you to place this as a necessity (which makes sense, particularly if you’re tracking tasks done out of a computer, such as electronic, building, or entertainment work). The software also does not allow users clock via a telephone call, which can be an element TSheets and other service providers make available for workers who do not have a smartphone.
Monitoring Employee Work
We have touched on how a number of Hubstaff’s more Big Brother-like features factor into time monitoring. But the platform also has many of the hallmarks of worker tracking tools. Hubstaff’s employee tracking features include keystroke logging, URL and application monitoring, GPS and place monitoring, and action screenshots.
Once you set your customers and they download the timer program onto their server, the desktop program not only tracks time but will take screenshots randomly or in custom intervals, for example three screenshots per minute. This applies not only to the user’s most important display but any attached monitors too. Hubstaff does not log keys however, it will track the activity provided via the mouse and keyboard, providing employers a calculation of just how busy the employee is. This info all winds up around the Hubstaff dashboard from the Task tab. This is where you can then pick an individual from the drop-down menu to see their screenshots correlated with action data.
When it comes to application and URL monitoring, Hubstaff goes beyond just tracking time to learn what websites and programs an employee opened or visited and how long they had been there. The Reports module can subsequently run custom queries on vectors like app usage mapped against time and action. Hubstaff incorporates with job and task management tools like Asana and Trello to filter reports from specific projects or tasks to monitor productivity.
One unique employee tracking feature offered is GPS location tracking through Hubstaff’s mobile program. While the cellular app can’t take screenshots or catch mobile app and website activity, it allows you to monitor and log place for employees working in the area. While the thickness of tracking data and surveillance features can’t measure up to a powerhouse tool such as Teramind, our Editors’ Choice for employee tracking, Hubstaff has a useful selection of attributes for employers that want a bit more oversight. Does Hubstaff Work Offline
Conclusion
Hubstaff is a easy-to-administer, feature-rich, time monitoring tool. If you’re diligent about tracking employee behavior while on the clock, then there’s no better program available than Hubstaff. You will be able to log screenshots, monitor keystroke volume, and route moves via GPS tracking.
Regrettably, if you’re looking for a platform which goes the excess mile to allow customization, irregular information entry, or a more advanced reporting arrangement, then Hubstaff will not be perfect for you. In addition, should you opt for a different program, your employees will thank you for not requiring them to download a secondary program for monitoring time–particularly when you consider that every other instrument we examined makes this possible within the confines of their web-based UI. Does Hubstaff Work Offline
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