Introduction Employee Time Tracking
When picking a time tracking tool, it’s important to comprehend the various types of tools out there. Tools like Mavenlink, Wrike, and Zoho Projects all include robust time monitoring features for professional services businesses. However, the time tracking features in these tools are available only within larger project management (PM) suites. Because of this, you are paying a lot more money for things such as file storage, in-app discussion, progress reports, and shift administration. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you’ll find pure play time tracking tools such as Hubstaff (which begins at $5 per month per user) and TSheets, our Editors’ Choice tool for time tracking. Employee Time Tracking
Characteristics and Usage
Hubstaff’s user interface (UI) is designed with an attractive left-rail blue navigation bar which leaves lots of room on the right-hand side of your screen for data entry and analysis. When you log into the system, you will be taken to the main dashboard, which provides you an summary of how many hours your employees have worked that day and the number of hours they have worked over the previous seven days. You’ll also find a list of every member, their most recent jobs, and how active they have been over the last week. This is a strong PM data visualization which lets you immediately differentiate between workhorses and do-nothings, and it instantly calls to focus projects which are becoming more than enough focus and projects that are being neglected.
There are two ways to add time in Hubstaff: You are able to build manual timesheets with previous hours worked, or you may use the stopwatch feature on Hubstaff’s native desktop app. Together with the timesheet feature, you log in your hours as you likely did with pen and paper through the analog age of time tracking. Essentially, you work your shift, you add the time to your own timesheet, and you also sign off on it. This is a fairly standard procedure of tracking time. Regrettably, because Hubstaff does not allow you to add future time, you can not use the platform for a shift organizer. Administrators can allow users manually edit formerly submitted timesheets, and they can induce users to need a reason to ensure they’re actually adding hours they worked. Admins may also set up the system to let users to begin monitoring time if they have not clocked to the machine in a little while.
The second, and most bothersome, way of tracking moment in Hubstaff is by using the stopwatch feature. In each solution we tested, this component is available within the boundaries of your web browserevery alternative that is, except for Hubstaff. With Hubstaff, you’re required to download a native desktop application that resides within a separate window. In it, you can select your project, press Start, and your timer will start counting. When you’re done, your activity and your screenshots will be transmitted to the principal hub. The native app is going to take a photo at random intervals of up to three shots per hour depending on how frequently the admin would like to spy on workers. Screenshots can be partly fuzzy not to record sensitive information on every grab, but enough of the display is left unsullied you’ll still get a feeling of if the display is on work-related or play-related content. This is an annoyingly complex and complicated means to manually track time, particularly if you’re jumping from task to task throughout the day. Hubstaff must find a way to bring 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 programs is exactly the same as it is on the desktop program. The mobile apps let admins monitor movements via GPS monitoring. This gives you an summary of how much movement was performed by your worker by capturing location data at different stages.
The Schedules tab lets you assign dates and times for workers to do the job. It is possible to put a minimum number of hours to operate, a lunch break interval, and you’ll be able to make it a recurring shift. The program’s reporting software is terribly basic: You will get access to weekly, daily, job, and penis view reports as well as a”habit” report that allows you filter information from the aforementioned reports. When compared to the PM options within this course, Hubstaff’s coverage is utterly embarrassing so, if your target is to learn and evolve based on when and how your employees manage time, you’d be better off working with Zoho Projects, our Editors’ Choice for PM.
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Admins receive notifications when they’ve reached weekly staffing and budget limits. Invoices are automatically calculated and made depending on the time each employee worked, as well as his or her related pay rate. It is possible to set up automatic citizenship through PayPal, which lets you automate payments based on time monitored inside the tool. Remember: Consumers don’t have to send time through for approval, therefore automatic payments will be made whether employees were wrong or right about the number of hours they worked. There is no reminder for managers to double-check each timesheet ahead of automatic payments go out so, if you’re concerned about making bogus payments, then it is possible to place PayPal payments to guide. Employee Time Tracking
Price And Alternatives
Hubstaff has been built to give you Big Brother-level oversight into when workers are working, what they’re doing while they work, and what you need to pay them when the job is done. The Basic $5-per-month plan provides you access to simple time monitoring tools, a worker payment schedule supervisor, 24/7 support, and user preferences that can be managed on an employee-by-employee basis. Moreover, this plan lets you keep tabs on whether or not your employees are working by letting you record screenshots while they function in addition to monitor keyboard and mouse activity during shifts. Of the five tools we’ve tested, Hubstaff is the only instrument that provided this amount of insight into how workers are progressing. Although screen and keyboard monitoring are helpful (albeit over-reaching) features for a change screen, Hubstaff’s implementation leaves much to be desired (more on this later).
The 9-per-user-per-month Premium plan includes everything you’ll find in the Basic plan, but you’ll also have access to Hubstaff’s application programming interface (API) to integrate the tool with other third party applications. The Premium bundle also comes with a lightweight schedulingtool that provides administrators the power to assign changes and assign tasks from inside the console. Premium clients may also use the application to make invoices and create PayPal payments mechanically. Customers that pay annually will get two weeks free (for both price tiers).
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Compared to TSheets, its closest competitor in our roundup, Hubstaff is fairly priced, especially given the extra tracking features that are unavailable in competitive tools. TSheets offers a fundamental free account, in addition to a $4-per-user-per-month accounts that charges a $16 base fee a month for groups who have fewer than 100 users, and a $80 base fee monthly for teams with more than 100 users. The base fee, which Hubstaff does not charge, makes TSheets marginally more costly than Hubstaff, even at Hubstaff’s Premium level.
If you are more interested in those hulky PM solutions, then you’ll want to pony up a little more money. Mavenlink’s cheapest plan that includes time tracking costs $39 per user per month. Zoho’s cheapest time monitoring plan is $25 a month for an infinite number of users (that is a fairly good deal if you want all of the excess PM attributes ). Wrike’s lowest time monitoring plan costs $24.80 per user per month.
What Should Be Added
Editor’s note: Since our original overview of Hubstaff, the business has released a major update in late 2018 that specifically addressed specific feature flaws or omissions, including adding a internet timer, fleshing out reporting options, and adding action levels and screen monitoring. We’ll be analyzing these features shortly and you will see the results in an upcoming update to this review.
Aside from its draconian screengrab and keystroke tracking, Hubstaff does not do an excellent job allowing for deeper change supervision. For example, Hubstaff does not allow advanced tracking. If you run a trucking company and you’re less concerned about the number of hours a trucker drove than the distance driven, then there is no way to handle this in Hubstaff. Users can add notes to a empty text area, but that information won’t be mixed into reports. As a consequence, you can’t use it to find out about who’s working, how they’re working, and what they are producing (other than the number of hours tracked). TSheets not only provides you this choice, it gives you the ability to create six additional customizable advanced monitoring fields. You can even add a question for every single clock-out (i.e.,”Was there an incident? Yes. No.”) Along with the system forces the consumer to reply to the questions at the end of each shift or else they will not have the ability to clock out.
As hardcore as Hubstaff is all 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 can actually be operating from a cruise boat in the Bahamas (unless they are using the mobile app to monitor time). This is a normal feature that’s available in almost every other tool we analyzed. Hubstaff also does not enable admins to require users to snap a photo if they report to work. I guess it’s overkill to generate someone take a selfie right before you get started recording their screen and monitoring their keystrokes, but TSheets enables you to set this as a requirement (which makes sense, especially if you’re tracking tasks done out of a computer, like retail, construction, or entertainment work). The program also does not allow users clock in via a telephone call, which is a component TSheets along with other service providers make readily available for employees who don’t have a smartphone.
Tracking Employee Work
We’ve touched on how some of Hubstaff’s more Enormous Brother-like features factor into time monitoring. However, the platform also offers many of the hallmarks of employee monitoring tools. Hubstaff’s employee tracking attributes include keystroke logging, URL and application tracking, GPS and place tracking, and activity screenshots.
As soon as you set your customers and they download the timer program onto their server, the desktop program not only monitors time but will take screenshots randomly or at custom intervals, for example three screenshots per minute. This applies not just to the user’s main display but any connected monitors as well. Hubstaff does not log keys however, it will monitor the activity provided via the mouse and computer keyboard, giving employers a calculation of just how active the worker is. This data all winds up around the Hubstaff dashboard from the Activity 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 program and URL tracking, Hubstaff goes beyond just tracking time to see what websites and apps an employee opened or visited and how long they were there. The Reports module may subsequently run custom queries on vectors like app usage mapped against time and activity. Hubstaff integrates with project and task management tools like Asana and Trello to filter reports from particular tasks or projects to monitor productivity.
One unique employee tracking feature supplied is GPS location tracking through Hubstaff’s mobile app. While the mobile app can not take screenshots or catch mobile app and website activity, it lets you monitor and log location for employees working in the area. While the thickness of tracking data and surveillance features can’t step up to a powerhouse tool for example Teramind, our Editors’ Choice for employee tracking, Hubstaff includes a useful selection of attributes for employers that want a little more oversight. Employee Time Tracking
Conclusion
Hubstaff is a easy-to-administer, feature-rich, time monitoring tool. If you’re diligent about monitoring employee behavior while on the clockthen there’s no better program available than Hubstaff. You will be able to log screenshots, track keystroke volume, and path movements via GPS tracking.
Unfortunately, if you’re looking for a platform that goes the excess mile to enable customization, atypical data entry, or a more advanced reporting arrangement, then Hubstaff won’t be perfect for you. Additionally, should you opt for another system, your employees will thank you for not requiring them to obtain a secondary program for monitoring time–especially when you consider that every other tool we reviewed makes this potential within the confines of their web-based UI. Employee Time Tracking
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