Intro Free Time Tracking Software

When picking a time tracking tool, it’s important to comprehend the many different types of tools available. Tools like Mavenlink, Wrike, and Zoho Projects all include robust time monitoring features for professional services businesses. On the other hand, the time tracking features in these tools are available only as part of larger project management (PM) suites. As a result, you are paying a lot more money for things such as file storage, in-app chat, progress reports, and change 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 instrument for time tracking. Free Time Tracking Software

Characteristics and Usage

Hubstaff’s user interface (UI) was created with an attractive left-rail blue navigation bar that leaves plenty of room around the side of your display for data entry and analysis. When you log into the system, you’ll be taken to the main dashboard, which provides you an summary of how many hours your employees have worked this day and the number of hours they’ve worked over the previous seven days. You will also find a list of each member, their most recent tasks, and how active they’ve been over the last week. This is a solid PM data visualization that lets you immediately differentiate between workhorses and do-nothings, and it immediately calls to focus projects that are becoming more than sufficient attention and projects that are being disregarded.

There are two ways to put in time in Hubstaff: You can build manual timesheets with past hours worked, or you can 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 pencil and paper through the analog era of time monitoring. Basically, if you work your shift, you add the time to your own timesheet, and you sign off on it. This is a pretty standard procedure of monitoring time. Regrettably, because Hubstaff does not allow you to add future time, you can’t use the platform for a shift planner. Administrators can let users manually edit formerly submitted timesheets, and they’re able to induce users to require a reason to guarantee they’re actually adding hours that they worked. Admins can also set up the system to let users to start monitoring time if they haven’t clocked into the machine in a little while.

The second, and most bothersome, way of monitoring time in Hubstaff is by using the stopwatch feature. In each solution we analyzed, this element can be found within the confines of your internet browser–every solution that’s, except for Hubstaff. With Hubstaff, you’re required to download a native desktop application that lives within another window. In it, you can select your project, press Start, along with your timer will start counting. When you’re done, your activity and your screenshots will be transmitted to the principal hub. The native app will take a photo at random intervals of up to three shots per hour based on how frequently the admin wants to spy on workers. Screenshots can be partially blurred not to capture sensitive information on each catch, but a lot of this display is left unsullied that you’ll still get a feeling of whether the screen is on work-related or play-related content. This can be an annoyingly complex and convoluted way to manually track time, particularly if you’re jumping from task to task through the day. Hubstaff must find a way to add the stopwatch and 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 precisely the same as it is on the desktop app. The mobile apps let admins monitor motions via GPS monitoring. This gives you an overview of just how much motion was done by your worker by capturing location information at distinct stages.

The Schedules tab enables you to assign dates and times for workers to work. You can put a minimum number of hours to operate, a lunch break interval, and you’ll be able to allow it to be a recurring shift. The program’s reporting applications is terribly basic: You’ll get access to weekly, daily, project, and penis view reports as well as a”habit” report which allows you filter information from the above reports. When compared to the PM solutions in this course, Hubstaff’s reporting is downright embarrassing consequently, if your goal is to understand and evolve according to when and how your employees handle time, you’d be much better off working using Zoho Projects, our Editors’ Choice for PM.

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Admins receive notifications once they have reached weekly staffing and funding limitations. Invoices are automatically calculated and created depending on the time each worker worked, in addition to their related pay rate. You can set up automatic payroll through PayPal, which lets you automate payments based on time tracked within the application. Keep in mind: Users don’t have to send time for acceptance, so automatic payments will be made whether workers were wrong or right about the amount of hours they worked. There is no reminder for supervisors to double-check each timesheet ahead of automatic payments move out thus, if you’re concerned about making false payments, then you can set PayPal payments to guide. Free Time Tracking Software

Cost And Alternatives

Hubstaff was constructed to give you Big Brother-level oversight into when employees are working, what they’re doing while they operate, and what you need to pay them as soon as the job is done. The Fundamental $5-per-month plan gives you access to simple time tracking tools, a worker payment program manager, 24/7 support, and user settings that may be handled on an employee-by-employee basis. Additionally, this program enables you to keep track of whether your employees are operating by allowing you document screenshots while they function as well as monitor keyboard and mouse action during shifts. Of the five tools we tested, Hubstaff is the only tool which offered this level of insight into how employees are progressing. Although keyboard and screen tracking are useful (albeit over-reaching) attributes for a change monitor, Hubstaff’s implementation leaves much to be wanted (more on this later).

The $9-per-user-per-month Premium program includes everything you’ll discover in the fundamental program, 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 has a lightweight schedulingtool that gives administrators the capability to assign shifts and assign tasks from within the console. Premium customers may also use the application to make invoices and make PayPal payments mechanically. Clients that pay annually will receive two weeks free (for both price tiers).

Click here to sign up for Hubstaff

Compared to TSheets, its nearest competitor in our roundup, Hubstaff is reasonably priced, especially given the added monitoring features that are unavailable in competitive tools. TSheets supplies a basic free account, as well as a $4-per-user-per-month account that charges a $16 base fee per month for teams with fewer than 100 users, and a $80 base fee per month for groups with more than a hundred users. The base fee, which Hubstaff does not charge, makes TSheets slightly more costly than Hubstaff, even at Hubstaff’s Premium degree.

If you’re more interested in these hulky PM solutions, then you will want to pony up a bit more money. Mavenlink’s cheapest program that includes time tracking prices $39 per user per month. Zoho’s cheapest time monitoring plan is $25 per month for an infinite number of users (that is a pretty good deal if you want all of the excess PM features). Wrike’s lowest time monitoring plan costs $24.80 per user per month.

What Should Be Added

Editor’s note: Since our original review of Hubstaff, the company has released a major upgrade in late 2018 that specifically addressed specific feature weaknesses or omissions, including adding a internet timer, fleshing out reporting choices, and adding activity levels and screen monitoring. We are going to be analyzing these attributes shortly and you will 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 supervision. By way of example, Hubstaff doesn’t allow advanced tracking. If you operate a trucking business and you are less concerned about how many hours a trucker drove than the distance driven, then there’s no way to handle that in Hubstaff. Users can add notes to a empty text area, but that data won’t be mixed into accounts. As a consequence, you can not use it to learn about who’s working, how they’re working, and what they’re producing (aside from the number of hours tracked). TSheets not only gives you this option, it gives you the ability to create six extra customizable advanced tracking fields. You might also add a query for every single clock-out (i.e.,”Was there an episode? Yes. No.”) And the system forces the user to respond to the questions at the end of every change or else they won’t be able to clock out.

As hardcore as Hubstaff is all about tracking work, the application does not permit for IP address limitations, which means your employees can say they are working from the office but they could actually be working 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 almost every other instrument we analyzed. Hubstaff also does not enable admins to require users to snap a photograph if they report to work. I guess it’s overkill to generate somebody take a selfie right before you get started recording their screen and tracking their keystrokes, but TSheets lets you place this as a requirement (which makes sense, particularly if you’re monitoring tasks done outside of a computer, such as electronic, building, or entertainment work). The program also does not let users clock via a phone call, which can be a component TSheets along with other service providers make readily available for workers who don’t have a smartphone.

Tracking Employee Work

We have touched on how a number of Hubstaff’s more Enormous Brother-like features factor into time tracking. However, 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.

As soon as you set your users and they download the timer app onto their server, the desktop program not only monitors time but will take screenshots randomly or in custom intervals, for example three screenshots per minute. This applies not just to the user’s most important display but any attached monitors as well. Hubstaff doesn’t log keys but it does monitor the activity provided via the mouse and computer keyboard, giving employers a calculation of how busy the employee is. This data all winds up on the Hubstaff dashboard from the Task tab. This is where you can then pick a user from the drop-down menu to see their screenshots connected with action data.

If it comes to application and URL tracking, 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 then run custom questions on vectors like app usage mapped against time and action. Hubstaff incorporates with project and job management tools such as Asana and Trello to filter reports from specific tasks or projects to monitor productivity.

1 unique employee monitoring feature offered is GPS location monitoring through Hubstaff’s mobile program. While the mobile app can’t take screenshots or catch mobile app and website activity, it allows you to track and log place for employees working in the area. While the depth of monitoring surveillance and data features can not step up to a powerhouse tool for example Teramind, our Editors’ Choice for employee monitoring, Hubstaff includes a helpful selection of attributes for companies that want a little more oversight. Free Time Tracking Software

Wrap-up

Hubstaff is an easy-to-administer, feature-rich, time monitoring tool. If you’re diligent about monitoring employee behaviour while on the clock, then there’s no better software available than Hubstaff. You will have the ability to log screenshots, track keystroke volume, and route movements via GPS tracking.

Regrettably, if you’re trying to find a platform that goes the excess mile to allow customization, irregular data entry, or even a much more sophisticated reporting structure, then Hubstaff won’t be right for you. Additionally, in case you choose another program, your employees will thank you for not requiring them to obtain a secondary app for tracking time–especially once you consider that every other tool we reviewed makes this possible within the boundaries of their web-based UI. Free Time Tracking Software

Click here to sign up for Hubstaff