Introduction Hubstaff Free Version
When choosing a time tracking tool, it is important to comprehend the various kinds of tools available. Tools such as Mavenlink, Wrike, and Zoho Projects all feature robust time monitoring features for professional services companies. 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’re paying a lot more money for things like file storage, in-app discussion, progress reports, and shift management. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you’ll find pure play time monitoring tools such as Hubstaff (which begins at $5 per month per user) and TSheets, our Editors’ Choice tool for time tracking. Hubstaff Free Version
Attributes and Utilization
Hubstaff’s user interface (UI) is designed with an attractive left-rail blue navigation bar that leaves plenty of room on the 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 gives you an summary of the number of hours your employees have worked this day and how many hours they’ve worked over the previous seven days. You’ll also see a list of every member, their most recent tasks, and how active they have been over the last week. This is a solid PM data visualization that allows you instantly differentiate between workhorses and do-nothings, and it immediately calls to attention projects which are becoming more than enough focus and projects that are being neglected.
There are two methods to add time in Hubstaff: You can construct manual timesheets with past 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 probably did with pen and paper through the analog era of time monitoring. Essentially, you work your shift, you add time to your own timesheet, and you sign off on it. This is a fairly standard method of tracking time. Unfortunately, because Hubstaff doesn’t let you add future time, you can not use the platform as a shift organizer. Administrators can allow users manually edit previously submitted timesheets, and they can induce users to need a motive to ensure they’re actually adding hours that they worked. Admins can also set the system up to remind users to start monitoring time should they haven’t clocked into the machine in a little while.
The next, and most bothersome, way of monitoring time in Hubstaff is using the stopwatch feature. In each solution we tested, this element can be found within the confines of your web browserevery solution that’s, except for Hubstaff. With Hubstaff, you are expected to download an native desktop application that lives within another window. In it, you can choose your project, press Start, along with your timer will start counting. When you are done, your action 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 based on how often the admin wants to spy on employees. Screenshots can be partially fuzzy not to capture sensitive information on each grab, but a lot of the screen is left unsullied that you’ll still get a sense 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, especially if you’re jumping from task to task through 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 apps is exactly the same as it’s on the desktop app. The mobile apps let admins monitor movements via GPS tracking. This provides you an overview of just how much motion was done by your employee by capturing location information at distinct stages.
The Schedules tab lets you assign dates and times for workers to do the job. You can put a minimum number of hours to operate, a lunch break interval, and you can make it a recurring shift. The program’s reporting applications is terribly basic: You’ll get access to weekly, daily, job, and member view reports as well as a”custom” report that lets you filter data from the aforementioned reports. When compared to the PM solutions in this course, Hubstaff’s coverage is utterly embarrassing consequently, if your target is to understand and evolve according to if and how your employees handle time, you would be much better off working with Zoho Projects, our Editors’ Choice for PM.
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Admins receive notifications when they’ve attained weekly staffing and funding limits. Invoices are automatically calculated and made depending on the time each employee worked, as well as his or her associated pay rate. You can set up automatic citizenship through PayPal, which lets you automate payments based on time monitored within the tool. Remember: Consumers don’t have to send time for acceptance, therefore automatic payments will be made whether employees were wrong or right about the number of hours that they worked. There is not any reminder for supervisors to double-check every timesheet ahead of automatic payments go out so, if you’re worried about making false payments, then you can place PayPal payments to manual. Hubstaff Free Version
Price And Alternatives
Hubstaff was built to provide you with Big Brother-level oversight into when workers are working, what they are doing while they work, and what you want to pay them when the work is finished. The Basic $5-per-month plan gives you access to simple time tracking tools, an employee payment schedule manager, 24/7 support, and user preferences which may be managed on an employee-by-employee basis. Moreover, this plan lets you keep track of whether your employees are operating by letting you record screenshots while they function as well as monitor mouse and keyboard action during shifts. Of the five tools we’ve analyzed, Hubstaff is the only tool which offered this amount of insight into the way that employees are progressing. Although screen and keyboard tracking are helpful (albeit over-reaching) attributes for a change monitor, Hubstaff’s implementation leaves much to be desired (more on this later).
The $9-per-user-per-month Premium plan includes all you’ll find in the fundamental program, but you will also have access to Hubstaff’s application programming interface (API) to integrate the application with other third party software. The Premium bundle also has a lightweight schedulingtool that provides administrators the power to assign changes and assign tasks from within the console. Premium customers may also use the tool to make invoices and make PayPal payments mechanically. Clients that pay annually will receive two weeks free (for both price tiers).
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Compared to TSheets, its nearest competition in our roundup, Hubstaff is reasonably priced, particularly given the extra tracking features that are unavailable in competitive resources. TSheets supplies a basic free accounts, 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, along with an $80 base fee per month for groups with over 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 solutions, then you will want to pony up a little 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 fairly solid deal if you want all the extra PM attributes ). Wrike’s lowest time tracking 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 significant update in late 2018 that specifically addressed specific feature flaws or omissions, including adding a web timer, fleshing out coverage options, and adding action levels and monitor monitoring. We’ll be testing 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 shift oversight. By way of instance, 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 handle that in Hubstaff. Users may add notes to an empty text area, but that information will not be mixed into accounts. As a consequence, you can’t use it to learn about who is functioning, how they’re functioning, and what they are producing (aside from the amount of hours monitored ). TSheets not only provides you this choice, it provides you the ability to make six extra customizable innovative monitoring fields. You might even add a question for every single clock-out (i.e.,”Was there an episode? Yes. No.”) Along with the system forces the user to reply to the queries at the end of each change or they won’t be able to clock out.
As hardcore as Hubstaff is about tracking work, the application doesn’t permit for IP address restrictions, which means your employees can say they are working from the office but they could actually be operating from a cruise boat in the Bahamas (unless they are using the mobile program to track time). This is a standard feature that’s available in almost every other instrument we tested. Hubstaff also doesn’t enable admins to require users to snap a photo if they report to work. I guess it is overkill to make someone take a selfie before you get started recording their display and monitoring their keystrokes, but TSheets enables you to set this as a requirement (which makes sense, particularly if you’re tracking tasks done outside of a computer, like retail, construction, or amusement work). The software also does not allow users clock in via a phone call, which is a component TSheets along with other service providers make readily available for employees who do not have a smartphone.
Monitoring Employee Work
We have touched on how a number of Hubstaff’s more Enormous Brother-like features factor into time monitoring. However, the platform also has a lot of the hallmarks of worker monitoring tools. Hubstaff’s employee tracking features include keystroke logging, URL and application tracking, GPS and place tracking, and activity screenshots.
Once you set your users and they download the timer program onto their server, the desktop program not only tracks time but will require screenshots randomly or at custom intervals, for example three screenshots each minute. This applies not only to the user’s main display but any connected monitors as well. Hubstaff does not log keys however, it does monitor the activity provided through the mouse and computer keyboard, providing companies a calculation of how active the worker is. This info all winds up around the Hubstaff dashboard from the Task tab. This is where you can then select a user in the drop-down menu to see their screenshots connected with activity data.
When it comes to application and URL tracking, Hubstaff goes beyond just tracking time to learn what sites and apps an employee opened or visited and how long they were there. The Reports module may then run custom queries on vectors like app usage mapped against time and activity. Hubstaff integrates with job and task management tools like Asana and Trello to filter reports from particular projects or tasks to monitor productivity.
1 unique employee monitoring feature offered is GPS location tracking through Hubstaff’s mobile program. While the mobile app can’t take screenshots or capture mobile app and site activity, it allows you to monitor and log place for employees working in the field. While the depth of monitoring data and surveillance features can’t measure up to a grid application for example Teramind, our Editors’ Choice for worker monitoring, Hubstaff includes a useful choice of features for employers that want a bit more oversight. Hubstaff Free Version
Wrap-up
Hubstaff is a easy-to-administer, feature-rich, time monitoring tool. If you’re diligent about tracking employee behavior while on the clockthen there’s no better program available than Hubstaff. You’ll be able to log screenshots, monitor keystroke volume, and path movements via GPS monitoring.
Regrettably, if you’re trying to find a platform which goes the excess mile to enable customization, atypical information entry, or a more advanced reporting arrangement, then Hubstaff will not be right for you. In addition, in case you opt for another program, your employees will thank you for not needing them to download a secondary app for monitoring time–especially when you consider that every other instrument we examined makes this possible within the confines of their online UI. Hubstaff Free Version
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