Intro Track Time Spent
When picking a time tracking tool, it’s important to understand the many different types of tools out there. Tools such as Mavenlink, Wrike, and Zoho Projects all feature powerful time monitoring features for professional services companies. 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 like file storage, in-app chat, progress reports, and shift management. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you’ll discover pure play time monitoring tools such as Hubstaff (which begins at $5 per month per user) and TSheets, our Editors’ Choice instrument for time tracking. Track Time Spent
Characteristics and Usage
Hubstaff’s user interface (UI) is designed with an attractive left-rail blue navigation bar that leaves plenty 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 gives you an overview of the number of hours your employees have worked that day and the number of hours they’ve worked over the past seven days. You will also see a list of each member, their most recent jobs, and how busy they’ve been over the past week. This is a solid PM data visualization which lets you instantly differentiate between workhorses and do-nothings, and it instantly calls to attention projects that are becoming more than enough attention and jobs that are being disregarded.
There are two methods to put in time in Hubstaff: You are able to build manual timesheets with previous 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 since you probably did with pen and paper during the analog era of time monitoring. Essentially, you work your change, you add the time to your own timesheet, and you also sign off on it. This is a fairly standard method of tracking time. Regrettably, because Hubstaff doesn’t let you add future time, you can’t use the platform as a shift organizer. Administrators can allow users manually edit formerly submitted timesheets, and they can induce users to require a motive to guarantee they’re really adding hours that they worked. Admins can also set the system up to remind users to start monitoring time should they haven’t clocked to the system in a little while.
The next, and most frustrating, way of tracking moment in Hubstaff is by using the stopwatch feature. In each solution we tested, this element is available within the confines of your internet browserevery 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, and your own timer will start counting. When you are done, your action and your screenshots will be sent to the principal hub. The native program is going to take a picture at random intervals of up to three shots per hour based on how often the admin would like to spy on employees. Screenshots can be partly fuzzy not to capture sensitive information on every catch, but enough of the screen is left unsullied you’ll still get a feeling of if the screen is really on work-related or play-related content. This can be an annoyingly complicated and complicated way to manually monitor time, especially if you’re jumping from task to task throughout the day. Hubstaff must find a way to bring 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 is on the desktop app. The mobile programs let admins monitor motions via GPS monitoring. This gives you an summary of how much motion was done by your worker by capturing location information at distinct stages.
The Schedules tab enables you to assign times and dates for employees to work. You can put a minimum number of hours to work, a lunch break interval, and you’ll be able to make it a recurring change. The program’s reporting software is terribly basic: You will get access to weekly, daily, project, and member view reports as well as a”habit” report that lets you filter information from the above reports. When compared to the PM options within this class, Hubstaff’s coverage is downright embarrassing consequently, if your goal is to learn and evolve according to if and how your employees manage time, you’d be better off working with Zoho Projects, our Editors’ Choice for PM.
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Admins receive notifications when they have reached weekly staffing and funding limits. Invoices are automatically calculated and made depending on the time each employee worked, in addition to his or her related pay rate. You can set up automatic citizenship through PayPal, which lets you automate payments based on time tracked within the application. Keep in mind: Consumers don’t have to send time for acceptance, so automatic payments will be made whether employees were right or wrong about the amount of hours that they worked. There’s not any reminder for supervisors to double-check every timesheet ahead of automatic payments go out thus, if you are worried about making false payments, then you can set PayPal payments to guide. Track Time Spent
Cost And Options
Hubstaff has been 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 job is done. The Fundamental $5-per-month program gives you access to simple time monitoring tools, a worker payment program supervisor, 24/7 support, and user preferences that can be handled in an employee-by-employee basis. Moreover, this plan enables you to keep track of whether your employees are operating by allowing you record screenshots while they work as well as monitor mouse and keyboard action during changes. Of the five tools we analyzed, Hubstaff is the only tool which offered this amount of insight into the way that workers are progressing. Although keyboard and screen tracking are useful (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 all you’ll discover in the Basic program, but you’ll also get access to Hubstaff’s application programming interface (API) to integrate the application with other third-party applications. The Premium bundle also has a lightweight schedulingtool that gives administrators the power to assign changes and delegate tasks from inside the console. Premium customers may also use the application to make invoices and create PayPal payments automatically. Clients that pay annually will receive two weeks free (for both cost tiers).
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Compared to TSheets, its nearest competitor in our roundup, Hubstaff is reasonably priced, especially given the extra monitoring features that are unavailable in competitive tools. TSheets supplies a basic free accounts, in addition to a $4-per-user-per-month account that charges a $16 base fee a month for teams who have fewer than 100 users, along with an $80 base fee monthly for groups with more than 100 users. The base fee, which Hubstaff doesn’t 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 cash. Mavenlink’s cheapest plan 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 users (which is a fairly solid deal if you want all the extra PM features). Wrike’s lowest time tracking plan prices $24.80 per user per month.
What Should Be Added
Editor’s note: Since our original review of Hubstaff, the business has released a significant upgrade in late 2018 that specifically addressed specific feature weaknesses or omissions, such as adding a web timer, fleshing out coverage options, and adding action levels and monitor monitoring. We are going to be analyzing these attributes shortly and you’ll see the results in an upcoming update to this review.
Aside from its draconian screengrab and keystroke monitoring, Hubstaff doesn’t do an excellent job allowing for deeper shift supervision. By way of example, Hubstaff does not allow advanced monitoring. If you operate a trucking company and you are less concerned about how many hours a 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 data won’t be mixed into accounts. This means that you can’t use it to learn about who is functioning, how they are working, and what they are generating (aside from the amount of hours monitored ). TSheets not only gives you this option, it gives you the ability to make six extra customizable innovative tracking fields. You might also add a query for every clock-out (i.e.,”Was there an episode? Yes. No.”) Along with the system forces the consumer to respond to the queries at the end of each shift or they will not be able to clock out.
As hardcore as Hubstaff is all about tracking work, the tool doesn’t permit for IP address restrictions, which means your employees can say they’re working from the workplace but they can actually be working from a cruise ship in the Bahamas (unless they’re using the mobile program to track time). This is a normal feature that’s available in virtually every other tool we analyzed. Hubstaff also does not enable admins to need users to snap a photograph when they report to work. I guess it is overkill to generate someone take a selfie before you start recording their screen and monitoring their keystrokes, but TSheets enables you to set this as a necessity (which makes sense, particularly if you’re tracking tasks done out of a computer, like electronic, building, or entertainment work). The program also does not allow users clock via a phone call, which is a component TSheets and other service providers make readily available for employees who do not 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. But the platform also has a lot of the hallmarks of employee monitoring tools. Hubstaff’s employee monitoring attributes include keystroke logging, URL and program monitoring, GPS and location monitoring, and activity screenshots.
As soon as 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, such as three screenshots each minute. This applies not only to the user’s most important screen but any connected monitors as well. Hubstaff does not log keys but it does monitor the action provided through the mouse and keyboard, giving companies a calculation of how busy the worker is. This info all winds up on the Hubstaff dashboard in the Task tab. This is where you can then select an individual from the drop-down menu to see their screenshots correlated with activity data.
When it comes to application and URL monitoring, 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 section may then run custom queries on vectors like program usage mapped against time and activity. Hubstaff incorporates with project and task management tools like Asana and Trello to filter reports from particular tasks or projects to monitor productivity.
One unique employee tracking feature offered is GPS location monitoring through Hubstaff’s mobile app. While the cellular app can not take screenshots or capture mobile app and website activity, it lets you track and log place for employees working in the area. While the depth of tracking data and surveillance features can’t step up to a grid application for example Teramind, our Editors’ Choice for employee tracking, Hubstaff includes a helpful selection of attributes for companies that want a little more oversight. Track Time Spent
Summary
Hubstaff is a easy-to-administer, feature-rich, time monitoring tool. If you are diligent about monitoring employee behavior while on the clockthen there’s no better software available than Hubstaff. You’ll be able to log screenshots, monitor keystroke volume, and path movements via GPS monitoring.
Regrettably, if you’re looking for a platform that goes the extra mile to enable customization, atypical data entry, or a more advanced reporting arrangement, then Hubstaff won’t be right for you. In addition, in case you choose a different system, your employees will thank you for not requiring them to obtain a secondary app for monitoring time–particularly once you consider that every other tool we reviewed makes this possible within the boundaries of their web-based UI. Track Time Spent
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