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ActivTrak is our pick for the best employee monitoring software for analytics because it offers comprehensive workforce insights, such as activity tracking, website and app monitoring, content filtering and alerts. The software is easy to install, set up and use, and the dashboard delivers keen insight into user activity and how to improve productivity across your team.
This cloud-based software is compatible with Windows, Mac, Chrome, terminal services and even virtual desktop infrastructures. Managers can use iOS and Android mobile apps to view simplified dashboards and usage reports, but you can’t run the software itself on employees’ mobile devices.
9.2 / 10
There are many employee monitoring tools on the market that can track employee activity, identify shirking and report back on productivity. However, ActivTrak’s reporting goes into more granular detail that enables companies to make more strategic decisions. The company bills the software as offering insights rather than oversights, meshing with call data and numerous other productivity tools, including Salesforce and monday.
Imagine a scenario where you’re considering introducing a four-day workweek. ActivTrak can generate impact analysis reports by profiling workplace efficiency and output. Once you know when people deliver their best work, it’s easier to build a case for adjusting the length of the workday.
Other monitoring tools lack ActivTrak’s valuable insights, like overutilization. It might seem positive when an employee works long hours and delivers more than expected, but this ultimately leads to burnout — and possibly sick leave or even a resignation. ActivTrak allows you and your team managers to identify the employees who are at risk of burnout, such as people who regularly work through breaks or spend too much time in front of their screens, before suggesting coaching opportunities to help them work more wisely and effectively.
By drilling down into individual employees’ utilization and productivity levels, you can identify who is at risk of burnout. Source: ActivTrak
This focus on employee well-being — as well as on core areas, like user activity and employee productivity — makes ActivTrak one of the better platforms in its field for maintaining employee privacy. We particularly welcome the inclusion of silent and visible operating modes, which debuted several years ago. Previously, the program only ran silently, which we found to be a limitation for companies that prioritize transparency.
ActivTrak is incredibly easy to use, from installation to daily tasks. Its user interface is streamlined and uncluttered, making it easy to navigate, even for first-time users. Everything is neatly organized under well-labeled tabs, so you never have to hunt for what you need. It’s easy for employers and managers to track their workforce’s productivity on an employee, team and company basis. You can view a wealth of employee data, which the software can quickly break down into actionable insights.
The main dashboard provides a numerical overview of your team’s performance. Source: ActivTrak
To begin using ActivTrak, you simply install the software and download agents onto the devices you wish to monitor. Once installed, the agent can feed data back to the central dashboard, where company administrators can monitor it in real time.
Application monitoring | Track which software is being used, as well as when, how and by whom it is being used. |
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Productivity monitoring | Highlight the usage of sites or apps you’ve deemed unproductive. |
Workforce insights | See side-by-side comparisons and current-versus-historical data sets. |
Web content filtering | Filter and block specific sites or entire types of web content. |
Alerts and reporting | Get a real-time overview of individual employees’ performance. |
ActivTrak includes an application monitoring feature that keeps tabs on the programs users access, when they are doing so and for how long. The most frequently accessed apps appear in a chart on the dashboard and show how much time your team or a given user spends on certain applications. The charts are clear, though some rival platforms offer more scope to present the information in varied ways, which is often beneficial for presentations or internal documents.
When configuring the software, you can select websites or applications that you deem “unproductive.” These settings are used to gauge the productivity of individual employees and your team as a whole. Using the productivity monitor, you can quickly tell who spends most of their time on task and who is otherwise unengaged while on the clock.
The latest versions of ActivTrak include analytics with varying degrees of granularity. You can track productive versus unproductive behavior, employee focus and efficiency, tool and application use, workload balances and technology usage. Side-by-side comparisons of employees and teams help you identify who is excelling and who needs additional guidance or assistance. You can also use past behavior and activity to set future usage and performance goals.
We like that you can track how successfully a new tool or software is being adopted throughout your company. Source: ActivTrak
If tagging a website as “unproductive” isn’t enough, ActivTrak also allows you to block access to specific types of web content — a service that could help prevent cyberattacks on remote workers, in particular. This filtering tool can be useful for preventing employees from navigating to particularly problematic content (e.g., anything related to drugs, pornography and gambling) and maintaining network security. We found it especially neat that you can establish user risk scores to get a better understanding of who is conducting high-risk activities outside of established company policies, which could necessitate retraining.
Managers can get a real-time view of employee performance. You can run reports to help you analyze the daily, weekly, monthly or annual productivity of individual employees, your team or your entire organization. This data can be used for future decision-making.
Personal insights provide visual representations of work balance and overall employee well-being. Source: ActivTrak
ActivTrak offers four moderately priced paid plans, plus the ability to create a custom plan and quote based on the requirements of a larger enterprise. One thing we especially like about ActivTrak is that it also offers a free plan. It has somewhat limited capabilities compared with ActivTrak’s paid plans, but no other competitors we reviewed have a free plan. ActivTrak also offers a 14-day free trial of its paid plans, which is standard for the industry.
Unlike many of its competitors, ActivTrak doesn’t offer monthly plans. Instead, plans are contracted on an annual basis. We like that multiyear and volume discounts are available.
Plan | Standout features | Cost |
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Free | Three-user maximum, 30 days of data history, real-time reporting, activity logs, website blocking, time tracking, user identity management, security features, and basic admin features | $0 per user per month |
Essentials | Everything in the Free plan, plus unlimited users, six months of data history, historical trend analysis, offline meeting time tracking, alerts, calendar integration, advanced reporting, silent deployment, single sign-on, digital support, screen details (add-on), and ActivConnect (add-on) Premier and Signature support (add-ons) | $10 per user per month |
Essentials Plus | Everything in the Essentials plan, plus advanced activity trend analyses, optional full URL and title bar visibility, automated reporting, and goal tracking | $15 per user per month |
Professional | Everything in the Essentials Plus plan, plus one year of data history, location policies, a team performance management dashboard, advanced productivity management, and workforce planning | $19 per user per month |
Enterprise | Custom | Custom quote |
Because ActivTrak already has roughly 95 percent of user activities predefined as productive or unproductive, the software is quick to implement. It doesn’t take long to become familiar with ActivTrak’s intuitive interface. After half an hour of clicking around, you should feel comfortable using the software, so you can get up and running without much of a learning curve. You certainly don’t need to be overly familiar with this category of software to get started with ActivTrak’s operation.
ActivTrak offers several ways to reach customer support. The company’s tech support team responds to email requests for assistance, or you can access live chat or call the company’s toll-free number for immediate assistance. That’s a marked improvement over some employee monitoring platforms whose customer service is limited to web support.
ActivTrak provides 24/7 coverage and multilanguage support. You can also access a dedicated team of experts for more help with onboarding, training or classes. In addition, ActivTrak has many online resources, including FAQs, how-to videos, case studies, blogs, whitepapers, templates and webcasts.
One potential limitation of ActivTrak is the absence of keystroke logging. This tool is often useful for tracking what users type into web browsers and applications. Although the platform doesn’t monitor precise keystrokes, it does track mouse and keyboard activity to gauge user productivity. Some rival platforms, like Teramind, do offer keystroke logging. Check out our full Teramind review to learn more.
You might want to look elsewhere if your employees routinely use mobile devices for their jobs. ActivTrak is compatible with Windows, Mac and Chrome OS, but not with Android or iOS. Given the popularity of iPads, particularly among employees, that’s arguably an oversight. It’s something we’d like to see addressed in future iterations of the company’s software.
This review was produced alongside detailed analyses of nine other employee monitoring software platforms. To help you choose the best employee monitoring software, we attended training courses and got into the nuts and bolts of different platforms to explore the limitations and boundaries of these applications.
We also considered employees’ perspectives. It’s been proven that monitoring software can improve staff morale if positive data is visible, but there will be occasions when surveillance begins to feel intrusive. In ActivTrak’s case, it’s possible to set monitoring as either silent or visible, depending on which device the software is installed on and how upfront you want to be with your personnel about monitoring their activities.
We recommend ActivTrak for …
We don’t recommend ActivTrak for …
Skye Schooley contributed to this article.