Introduction Hubstaff Bot

When choosing a time tracking tool, it’s important to understand the many different kinds of tools out there. Tools like Mavenlink, Wrike, and Zoho Projects all include powerful time monitoring features for professional services businesses. On the other hand, the time monitoring features in such tools are available only within larger project management (PM) suites. As a result, you are paying a lot more cash for things such as file storage, in-app chat, progress reports, and shift administration. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you will discover 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. Hubstaff Bot

Characteristics and Utilization

Hubstaff’s user interface (UI) is designed with a appealing 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 first log into the system, you’ll be taken to the main dashboard, which provides you an overview of how many hours your employees have worked that day and how many hours they’ve worked over the past seven days. You will also see a list of each member, their most recent tasks, and how busy they have been over the past week. This is a solid PM data visualization that allows you instantly differentiate between workhorses and do-nothings, and it instantly calls to focus projects which are getting more than sufficient attention and jobs that are being neglected.

There are two methods to put in time in Hubstaff: You can construct manual timesheets with previous hours worked, or you may use the stopwatch feature on Hubstaff’s native desktop program. With the timesheet attribute, you log in your hours as you probably did with pen and paper during the analog age of time tracking. Basically, if you work your shift, you add time to your own timesheet, and you also sign off on it. This is a fairly standard method of monitoring time. Regrettably, because Hubstaff does not allow you to add future time, you can’t use the platform as a shift organizer. Administrators can let users manually edit formerly submitted timesheets, and they’re able to induce users to need a reason to ensure they’re actually adding hours that they worked. Admins can also set up the system to let users to start monitoring time if they have not clocked to the system in a while.

The next, and most frustrating, way of tracking moment in Hubstaff is using the stopwatch feature. In each solution we tested, this component is available within the confines of your internet browserevery solution that is, except for Hubstaff. With Hubstaff, you are required to download an native desktop application that lives within a separate window. In it, you can select your project, press Start, and your own timer will begin counting. When you’re done, your activity and your screenshots will be sent to the main hub. The native app will take a photo at random intervals of up to 3 shots per hour depending on how frequently the admin would like to spy on workers. Screenshots can be partially fuzzy to not record sensitive information on every grab, but a lot of the display is left unsullied you’ll still get a feeling of whether the screen is on work-related or play-related content. This is an annoyingly complicated and convoluted means to manually monitor time, especially if you’re jumping from task to task through the day. Hubstaff must find a way to add the stopwatch and also screengrab components 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’s on the desktop app. The mobile apps let admins monitor motions via GPS monitoring. This provides you an summary of how much motion was performed by your worker by capturing location information at different stages.

The Schedules tab lets you assign dates and times for employees to do the job. It is possible to set a minimum number of hours to work, a lunch break duration, and you’ll be able to allow it to be a recurring change. The program’s reporting applications is terribly basic: You’ll receive access to weekly, daily, project, and penis view reports in addition to a”habit” report which allows you filter information from the aforementioned reports. When compared to the PM options in this course, Hubstaff’s reporting is utterly embarrassing so, if your goal is to understand and evolve according to if and how your employees manage time, you would be better off working with Zoho Projects, our Editors’ Choice for PM.

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Admins receive notifications once they’ve attained weekly staffing and budget limits. Invoices are automatically calculated and made based on the time each employee worked, in addition to their associated pay rate. You can set up automatic citizenship through PayPal, which enables you to automate payments based on time tracked within the tool. Keep in mind: Consumers do not have to send time for approval, so automatic payments will be made whether workers were right or wrong about the number of hours that they worked. There’s no reminder for managers to double-check each timesheet ahead of automatic payments move out thus, if you are worried about making false payments, then it is possible to place PayPal payments to guide. Hubstaff Bot

Cost And Alternatives

Hubstaff has been constructed to provide you with Big Brother-level oversight into when employees are working, what they’re doing while they operate, and what you really need to cover them as soon as the work is finished. The Basic $5-per-month plan provides you access to easy time monitoring tools, an employee payment schedule manager, 24/7 support, and user preferences that may be handled on an employee-by-employee basis. Moreover, this plan lets you keep tabs on whether your employees are working by letting you record screenshots while they function in addition to monitor mouse and keyboard activity during changes. Of the five tools we’ve analyzed, Hubstaff is the only instrument that offered this level of insight into the way that workers are progressing. Although screen and keyboard monitoring are helpful (albeit over-reaching) features for a shift 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 discover in the Basic program, but you will also get access to Hubstaff’s application programming interface (API) to integrate the application with other third-party applications. The Premium package also has a lightweight schedulingtool that provides administrators the capability to assign shifts and assign tasks from within the console. Premium customers can also use the application to make invoices and make PayPal payments mechanically. Customers that pay annually will get two weeks free (for both price tiers).

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In comparison to TSheets, its closest competition in our roundup, Hubstaff is reasonably priced, especially given the added tracking features that are unavailable in competitive resources. TSheets offers a fundamental free account, in addition to a $4-per-user-per-month account that charges a $16 base fee a month for teams with fewer than 100 users, along with an $80 base fee per month for teams with more than 100 users. The base fee, which Hubstaff does not charge, makes TSheets marginally more expensive than Hubstaff, even in Hubstaff’s Premium degree.

If you are more interested in these hulky PM alternatives, then you will want to pony up a little 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 unlimited number of consumers (that is a pretty good deal if you want all the excess PM attributes ). Wrike’s cheapest time tracking plan prices $24.80 per user per month.

What Should Be Added

Editor’s note: Since our first review of Hubstaff, the business has released a significant update in late 2018 that specifically addressed certain feature weaknesses or omissions, such as adding a internet timer, fleshing out coverage options, and adding activity levels and monitor monitoring. We are going to be testing these features shortly and you will see the results in an upcoming update to this review.

Besides its draconian screengrab and keystroke monitoring, Hubstaff does not do an excellent job allowing for deeper shift oversight. By way of example, Hubstaff doesn’t allow advanced monitoring. If you run a trucking company and you’re less concerned about the number of hours each trucker drove than the distance driven, then there’s no way to manage that in Hubstaff. Users can add notes to a empty text field, but that information will not be mixed into accounts. As a consequence, you can not use it to find out about who is working, how they’re working, and what they are producing (aside from the amount of hours tracked). TSheets not only provides you this choice, it provides you the ability to make six extra customizable innovative tracking fields. You might even put in a query for every single clock-out (i.e.,”Was there an episode? Yes. No.”) Along with the system forces the consumer to respond to the questions at the end of every shift or else they won’t be able to clock out.

As hardcore as Hubstaff is about monitoring work, the tool doesn’t allow for IP address restrictions, which means your workers can say they’re working from the workplace but they could actually be working from a cruise boat in the Bahamas (unless they’re using the mobile program to track time). This is a normal feature that’s available in almost every other instrument we analyzed. Hubstaff also doesn’t enable admins to require users to snap a photograph if they report to work. I guess it is overkill to make someone take a selfie right before you start recording their screen and monitoring their keystrokes, but TSheets lets you set this as a necessity (which makes sense, particularly if you’re tracking tasks done outside of a computer, such as retail, building, or entertainment work). The software also does not allow users clock via a phone call, which can be a component TSheets and other service providers make readily available for workers who do not have a smartphone.

Monitoring Employee Work

We have touched on how some of Hubstaff’s more Enormous Brother-like attributes factor into time tracking. But the platform also has a lot of the hallmarks of worker monitoring tools. Hubstaff’s employee tracking features include keystroke logging, URL and program monitoring, GPS and location tracking, and activity screenshots.

Once you place your users and they download the timer app onto their machine, the desktop app not only tracks time but will require screenshots randomly or at custom intervals, for example three screenshots each minute. This applies not just to the user’s most important display but any connected monitors too. Hubstaff does not log keys but it will monitor the action provided via the mouse and computer keyboard, providing employers a calculation of how active the worker is. This info all winds up on the Hubstaff dashboard in the Task tab. This is where you can then pick an individual in the drop-down menu to view their screenshots connected with activity data.

If it comes to application and URL monitoring, Hubstaff goes beyond simply tracking time to learn what websites and apps a worker opened or visited and how long they had been there. The Reports section may then run custom queries on vectors such as app usage mapped against time and action. Hubstaff integrates with project and job management tools like Asana and Trello to filter reports by particular projects or tasks to monitor productivity.

1 unique employee monitoring feature supplied is GPS location monitoring through Hubstaff’s mobile program. While the mobile app can’t take screenshots or catch mobile app and site activity, it lets you monitor and log place for employees working in the field. While the thickness of tracking surveillance and data features can’t step up to a powerhouse tool for example Teramind, our Editors’ Choice for employee tracking, Hubstaff has a useful selection of features for companies that want a bit more oversight. Hubstaff Bot

Summary

Hubstaff is a easy-to-administer, feature-rich, time tracking tool. If you are diligent about monitoring employee behavior while on the clock, then there is no better software accessible than Hubstaff. You will be able to log screenshots, monitor keystroke volume, and route moves via GPS monitoring.

Regrettably, if you’re trying to find a platform which goes the excess mile to enable customization, atypical data entry, or a much more sophisticated reporting structure, then Hubstaff will not be right for you. Additionally, should you choose another program, your employees will thank you for not needing them to obtain a secondary app for tracking time–particularly when you consider that every other instrument we examined makes this potential within the confines of their online UI. Hubstaff Bot

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