Intro New Productivity Software

When choosing a time monitoring tool, it is important to comprehend the many different types of tools available. Tools such as Mavenlink, Wrike, and Zoho Projects all include 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. Because of this, you’re paying a lot more cash for things such as file storage, in-app discussion, progress reports, and change management. 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 tool for time tracking. New Productivity Software

Attributes and Utilization

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 display for data entry and analysis. When you first log into the system, you will 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’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 solid PM data visualization which lets you immediately differentiate between workhorses and do-nothings, and it instantly calls to attention projects that are becoming more than sufficient focus and projects that are being disregarded.

There are two ways to put in time in Hubstaff: You are able to construct manual timesheets with past hours worked, or you may use the stopwatch feature on Hubstaff’s native desktop app. With the timesheet attribute, you log your hours since you probably did with pen and paper through the analog age of time tracking. Basically, if you work your change, you add the time to your own timesheet, and you sign off on it. This is a pretty standard method of monitoring time. Regrettably, because Hubstaff doesn’t let you add future time, you can’t use the platform for a shift organizer. Administrators can allow users manually edit previously submitted timesheets, and they’re able to force users to require a motive to ensure they’re really adding hours that they worked. Admins can also set up the system to let users to begin tracking time should they have not clocked to the system in a little while.

The second, and most bothersome, way of monitoring moment in Hubstaff is by using the stopwatch feature. In every solution we tested, this component is available within the confines of your web browser–every alternative that’s, except for Hubstaff. With Hubstaff, you are expected to download an native desktop application that lives within a separate window. In it, you can select your project, press Start, and your timer will begin counting. When you’re done, your activity and your screenshots will be sent to the main hub. The native app is going to take a picture at random periods of up to 3 shots per hour based on how frequently the admin wants to spy on employees. Screenshots can be partly fuzzy not to capture sensitive information on each grab, but a lot of this display is left unsullied you’ll still get a feeling of if the display is on work-related or play-related content. This can be an annoyingly complex and convoluted means to manually track time, especially if you’re jumping from task to task throughout the day. Hubstaff must find a way to bring 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 apps is precisely the same as it’s on the desktop program. The mobile programs 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 data at different stages.

The Schedules tab enables you to assign dates and times for employees to work. It is possible to put a minimum number of hours to work, a lunch break interval, and you’ll be able to make it a recurring change. The tool’s reporting software is horribly basic: You’ll receive access to weekly, daily, project, and member view reports as well as a”habit” report that allows you filter data from the aforementioned reports. When compared to the PM solutions within this course, Hubstaff’s coverage is downright embarrassing consequently, if your target is to learn and evolve according to when and how your employees manage time, you’d be much better off working using Zoho Projects, our Editors’ Choice for PM.

Click here to sign up for Hubstaff

Admins receive notifications once they have reached weekly staffing and budget limitations. Invoices are automatically calculated and made depending on the time each worker worked, as well as his or her associated pay rate. It is possible to set up automatic citizenship through PayPal, which lets you automate payments based on time monitored inside the application. Remember: Consumers do not need to send time through for acceptance, therefore automatic payments will be made whether workers were right or wrong concerning the number of hours they worked. There’s not any reminder for managers to double-check every timesheet ahead of automatic payments move out so, if you’re concerned about making bogus payments, then it is possible to set PayPal payments to guide. New Productivity Software

Price And Options

Hubstaff has been constructed to provide you with Big Brother-level oversight into when workers are working, what they are doing while they work, and what you need to cover them as soon as the job is done. The Fundamental $5-per-month plan provides you access to simple time tracking tools, an employee payment program manager, 24/7 support, and user preferences which can be handled on an employee-by-employee basis. Additionally, this program enables you to keep tabs on whether or not your employees are working by allowing you document screenshots while they work as well as monitor mouse and keyboard action during shifts. Of the five tools we tested, Hubstaff is the only tool that offered this amount of insight into how workers are progressing. Although keyboard and screen monitoring are helpful (albeit over-reaching) attributes for a shift screen, Hubstaff’s implementation leaves much to be desired (more on this later).

The $9-per-user-per-month Premium program includes all you’ll find in the Basic program, but you will also get access to Hubstaff’s application programming interface (API) to integrate the tool with other third party software. The Premium package also has a lightweight schedulingtool that gives administrators the power to assign shifts and assign tasks from inside the console. Premium customers can also use the application to make invoices and create PayPal payments mechanically. Clients that pay yearly will get two months free (for both cost tiers).

Click here to sign up for Hubstaff

Compared to TSheets, its nearest competition in our roundup, Hubstaff is reasonably priced, especially given the added monitoring features that are unavailable in competitive tools. TSheets supplies a basic free accounts, as well as a $4-per-user-per-month accounts that charges a $16 base fee per month for groups with fewer than 100 users, along with an $80 foundation fee monthly for teams with over 100 users. The base fee, which Hubstaff does not charge, makes TSheets marginally more expensive than Hubstaff, even in Hubstaff’s Premium level.

If you are more interested in these hulky PM solutions, then you will need to pony up a little more money. Mavenlink’s cheapest plan that includes time monitoring prices $39 per user per month. Zoho’s cheapest time tracking plan is $25 a month for an infinite number of consumers (which 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 original overview of Hubstaff, the business has released a major update in late 2018 that specifically addressed certain feature weaknesses or omissions, including adding a web timer, fleshing out coverage 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 monitoring, Hubstaff does not do an excellent job allowing for deeper change oversight. By way of instance, Hubstaff does not allow advanced monitoring. If you operate a trucking business and you are less concerned about how many hours a trucker drove than the distance driven, then there is no way to handle that in Hubstaff. Users may add notes to a empty text area, but that information won’t be mixed into reports. This means you can not use it to learn about who is working, how they’re functioning, and what they are generating (other than the amount of hours monitored ). TSheets not only provides you this option, it gives you the ability to create six extra customizable innovative tracking fields. You might also put in a question for every single clock-out (i.e.,”Was there an episode? Yes. No.”) Along with the system forces the user to respond to the queries at the close of each change or else they won’t have the ability to clock out.

As hardcore as Hubstaff is about monitoring work, the application does not allow for IP address restrictions, which means your employees can say they are working from the workplace 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 virtually every other instrument we tested. Hubstaff also doesn’t enable admins to require users to snap a photograph when they report to work. I guess it is overkill to generate somebody take a selfie before you get started recording their display and tracking their keystrokes, but TSheets enables you to place this as a necessity (which makes sense, especially if you’re monitoring tasks done outside of a computer, like retail, construction, or entertainment work). The program also does not allow users clock in via a phone call, which is a component TSheets and other service providers make readily available for workers who do not have a smartphone.

Monitoring Employee Work

We’ve touched on how some of Hubstaff’s more Big Brother-like features factor into time monitoring. But the platform also offers a lot of the hallmarks of employee tracking tools. Hubstaff’s employee monitoring attributes include keystroke logging, URL and program tracking, GPS and place tracking, and action screenshots.

Once you set your users and they download the timer app onto their machine, the desktop program not only tracks time but will take screenshots randomly or in custom intervals, for example three screenshots each minute. This applies not just to the user’s most important screen but any attached monitors too. Hubstaff does not log keys but it will track the action provided via the mouse and computer keyboard, giving companies a calculation of just how active the worker is. This info all winds up around the Hubstaff dashboard in the Activity tab. This is where you can then pick a user from the drop-down menu to view their screenshots correlated with action data.

If it comes to application and URL monitoring, Hubstaff goes beyond just tracking time to see what sites and programs a worker visited or opened and how long they were there. The Reports module may then run custom queries on vectors such as app usage mapped against time and activity. Hubstaff incorporates with project and task management tools such as Asana and Trello to filter reports by particular projects or tasks to track productivity.

One unique employee tracking feature offered is GPS location tracking 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 location for workers working in the field. While the thickness of monitoring data and surveillance features can’t step up to a powerhouse tool for example Teramind, our Editors’ Choice for worker tracking, Hubstaff includes a useful selection of features for employers that want a little more oversight. New Productivity Software

Summary

Hubstaff is a easy-to-administer, feature-rich, time tracking tool. If you are diligent about monitoring employee behaviour while on the clockthen there is no better program available than Hubstaff. You will have the ability to log screenshots, monitor keystroke volume, and route moves via GPS monitoring.

Unfortunately, if you’re trying to find a platform which goes the extra mile to enable customization, atypical information entry, or a much more advanced reporting structure, then Hubstaff will not be right for you. Additionally, in case you choose another system, your employees will thank you for not requiring them to obtain a secondary app for tracking time–especially when you consider that every other tool we examined makes this possible within the boundaries of their online UI. New Productivity Software

Click here to sign up for Hubstaff