Intro Make Time App
When choosing a time monitoring tool, it’s important to understand the many different types of tools available. Tools like Mavenlink, Wrike, and Zoho Projects all feature powerful time tracking features for professional services companies. On the other hand, the time tracking features in these tools are available only within larger project management (PM) suites. As a result, you’re paying much more cash for things like file storage, in-app discussion, progress reports, and change administration. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you will find pure play time monitoring tools such as Hubstaff (which begins at $5 a month per user) and TSheets, our Editors’ Choice instrument for time tracking. Make Time App
Attributes and Utilization
Hubstaff’s user interface (UI) was created with an attractive left-rail blue navigation bar that leaves plenty of room on the right-hand side of your display for data entry and analysis. When you first log into the system, you’ll be taken to the main dashboard, which provides 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 will also see a list of each member, their most recent tasks, and how busy they’ve been over the past week. This is a strong PM data visualization which allows you immediately differentiate between workhorses and do-nothings, and it instantly calls to focus projects that are becoming more than enough attention and jobs that are being neglected.
There are two methods to add 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. With the timesheet attribute, you log your hours as you likely did with pencil and paper during the analog era of time monitoring. Basically, if you work your shift, you add time to your own timesheet, and you sign off on it. This is a fairly standard method of monitoring time. Unfortunately, because Hubstaff does not allow you to 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 need a reason to ensure they’re really adding hours they worked. Admins can also set up the system to remind users to begin tracking time should they haven’t clocked to the system in a while.
The next, and most frustrating, way of monitoring moment in Hubstaff is using the stopwatch feature. In every solution we analyzed, this component can be found within the confines of your internet browser–every alternative that is, except for Hubstaff. With Hubstaff, you’re required to download an native desktop application that resides within another window. In it, you can select your job, press Start, along with your timer will begin counting. When you’re done, your activity and your screenshots will be transmitted to the principal hub. The native program is going to take a picture at random periods of up to 3 shots per hour based on how often the admin wants to spy on workers. Screenshots can be partly fuzzy to not capture sensitive information on each grab, but enough of the display is left unsullied you’ll still get a feeling of if the display is really 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 add the stopwatch and screengrab components 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’s on the desktop app. The mobile programs let admins monitor motions via GPS monitoring. This gives you an overview of just how much motion was performed by your employee by capturing location data at different stages.
The Schedules tab lets you assign times and dates for employees to do the job. You can set 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 in addition to a”habit” report that allows you filter data from the above reports. In comparison to the PM solutions in this course, Hubstaff’s coverage is downright embarrassing so, if your target is to understand and evolve according to if and how your employees manage time, you would be much better off working with Zoho Projects, our Editors’ Choice for PM.
Click here to sign up for Hubstaff
Admins receive notifications once they’ve reached weekly staffing and funding limits. Invoices are automatically calculated and created depending on the time each employee 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 within the tool. Keep in mind: Users don’t have to send time through for acceptance, therefore automatic payments will be made whether workers were wrong or right about the amount of hours that they worked. There’s no reminder for supervisors to double-check every timesheet before automatic payments move out so, if you are concerned about making bogus payments, then you can place PayPal payments to guide. Make Time App
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 work, and what you need to pay them as soon as the job is finished. The Fundamental $5-per-month program gives you access to easy time tracking tools, an employee payment schedule supervisor, 24/7 support, and user settings that can be managed on an employee-by-employee basis. Moreover, this program enables you to keep tabs on whether your employees are operating by letting you document screenshots while they work as well as monitor mouse and keyboard action during changes. Of the five tools we’ve analyzed, Hubstaff is the only tool that offered this level of insight into the way that employees are progressing. Although keyboard and screen monitoring are useful (albeit over-reaching) features for a shift monitor, Hubstaff’s implementation leaves much to be desired (more on this later).
The $9-per-user-per-month Premium program includes everything you’ll find in the fundamental plan, but you’ll 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 gives administrators the capability to assign changes and delegate tasks from within the console. Premium clients may also use the application to make invoices and create PayPal payments mechanically. Clients that pay yearly will receive two weeks free (for both cost tiers).
Click here to sign up for Hubstaff
Compared to TSheets, its closest competitor in our roundup, Hubstaff is fairly priced, particularly given the added tracking features that are unavailable in competitive tools. 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 groups with fewer than 100 users, and an $80 foundation fee monthly for teams with over 100 users. The base fee, which Hubstaff doesn’t charge, makes TSheets marginally more expensive than Hubstaff, even at Hubstaff’s Premium level.
If you’re more interested in those hulky PM alternatives, then you’ll want to pony up a little more cash. Mavenlink’s cheapest program that includes time tracking costs $39 per user per month. Zoho’s cheapest time monitoring plan is $25 per month for an infinite number of consumers (that is a pretty good deal if you need all 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 first overview of Hubstaff, the business has released a major upgrade in late 2018 that specifically addressed specific feature weaknesses or omissions, including adding a web timer, fleshing out reporting options, and adding action levels and monitor monitoring. We’ll be analyzing these attributes shortly and you’ll see the results in an upcoming update to this review.
Besides its draconian screengrab and keystroke tracking, Hubstaff does not do an excellent job allowing for deeper change supervision. By way of instance, Hubstaff doesn’t allow advanced tracking. If you operate a trucking company and you are less concerned about the number of hours each trucker drove than the distance driven, then there is no way to manage this in Hubstaff. Users may add notes to an empty text field, but that data will not be mixed into reports. As a consequence, you can not use it to learn about who’s working, how they are working, and what they’re generating (aside from the number of hours tracked). TSheets not only gives you this option, it provides you the ability to make six extra customizable advanced monitoring fields. You can even put in a question for every single clock-out (i.e.,”Was there an episode? Yes. No.”) And the system forces the user to respond to the queries at the close of each shift or they will not be able to clock out.
As hardcore as Hubstaff is all about monitoring work, the application does not permit for IP address limitations, which means your workers can say they’re working from the workplace but they could actually be working from a cruise ship in the Bahamas (unless they’re using the mobile app to track time). This is a standard feature that’s available in almost every other instrument we tested. Hubstaff also does not enable admins to need users to snap a photograph if they report to work. I guess it is overkill to generate someone take a selfie before you get started recording their display and tracking their keystrokes, but TSheets lets you place this as a requirement (which makes sense, particularly if you’re tracking tasks done out of a computer, such as retail, construction, or amusement work). The program also does not let users clock via a telephone call, which is an element TSheets along with other service providers make available for workers who don’t have a smartphone.
Tracking Employee Work
We’ve touched on how a number of Hubstaff’s more Big Brother-like features factor into time monitoring. However, the platform also has a lot of the hallmarks of employee tracking tools. Hubstaff’s employee monitoring features include keystroke logging, URL and program tracking, GPS and place tracking, and activity screenshots.
Once you place your users and they download the timer program onto their machine, the desktop app not only tracks time but will require screenshots randomly or in custom intervals, such as three screenshots each minute. This applies not only to the user’s most important screen but any attached monitors as well. Hubstaff doesn’t log keys but it will track the action provided via the mouse and computer keyboard, giving employers a calculation of just how busy the worker is. This data all winds up around the Hubstaff dashboard in the Activity tab. This is where you can then pick an individual in the drop-down menu to see their screenshots correlated with activity data.
If it comes to application and URL monitoring, Hubstaff goes beyond just tracking time to see what websites and apps a worker opened or visited and how long they were there. The Reports section can subsequently run custom questions on vectors such as program usage mapped against time and activity. Hubstaff integrates with project and job management tools such as Asana and Trello to filter reports from particular projects or tasks to track productivity.
One unique employee tracking feature offered is GPS location tracking through Hubstaff’s mobile app. While the cellular app can not take screenshots or catch mobile app and site activity, it allows you to track and log location for employees working in the area. While the depth of tracking surveillance and data features can not step up to a grid application for example Teramind, our Editors’ Choice for employee tracking, Hubstaff includes a useful choice of attributes for employers that want a little more oversight. Make Time App
Summary
Hubstaff is an easy-to-administer, feature-rich, time monitoring tool. If you are diligent about tracking employee behaviour while on the clock, then there’s no better software accessible than Hubstaff. You’ll have the ability to log screenshots, track keystroke volume, and route moves via GPS monitoring.
Unfortunately, if you’re looking for a platform that goes the extra mile to allow customization, irregular data entry, or even a much more sophisticated reporting arrangement, then Hubstaff will not be right for you. Additionally, should you choose a different system, your employees will thank you for not requiring them to obtain a secondary app for tracking time–particularly once you consider that every other tool we examined makes this possible within the boundaries of their web-based UI. Make Time App
Click here to sign up for Hubstaff