How to monitor computer activities. Top questions answered!

Monitor employee computer activity easily

What is computer activity monitoring? It’s an automated process of analyzing computer usage, including applications, Internet surfing, social media, and more. It helps assess attendance and productivity based on the gathered information. Computer monitoring software is the most effective way of doing it. Computer tracking with WorkTime also offers reports on staffers’ logins/ logouts, active/ idle time, overtimes, and others. What’s more, our user activity monitoring is transparent and privacy-friendly. We care about the high trust level between managers and employees, and the positive atmosphere during the workflow.

Compared to other alternatives, this technology provides an unrivaled range of capabilities for computer activity monitoring. And the following are must-have features:

1. Applications use monitoring

The most common computer activities in the workplace involve the use of different applications. Computer monitoring software helps you monitor any application that employees use on their desktops. Whether it is free, licensed, developed in-house, or by a third-party company, this technology can monitor applications of any kind.

Regardless of what applications employees use on their desktops, monitoring software keeps you informed about it.

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Additionally, monitoring indicates the history of applications that have been used and are currently in use. For example, top application reports by WorkTime show which computer, employee, when, and for how long use an app. This allows you to monitor computer activities and determine what of them are work-related. Also, monitoring reports show which software is in high demand or rarely used.

Computer monitoring software shows which applications are in higher demand and are not required.

You can easily see how licensed software is applied and plan your future purchases. Monitoring software also comes in handy when you need to identify paid software that is barely used. This helps the company cut expenses by either reducing the number of licenses in the future or canceling additional license agreements. Read about how a school board saved a lot on licensed software. Also, read how a construction material and lime producing company saved up thousands of dollars moving to Citrix servers.

Computer activity monitoring

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2. Internet and social media use monitoring

Other computer activities that employees are engaged in often include surfing the Internet and using social media. Monitoring software is the perfect tool to get insight into employees’ internet activities It can underline how often they use social media during working hours. For example, it shows what employees spend time on the Internet, playing games, shopping online, or socializing and chatting on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. It highlights and subsequently eliminates any internet activities that are not productive.

Computer monitoring software is designed to effectively highlight and reduce any unproductive internet and social media use.

Computer activity monitoring

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Monitoring reports show the employee’s system login name, the time and duration of Internet use, and the history of the websites/ URLs visited. This is an effective way to minimize non-work-related internet activities and improve engagement and discipline. Read how a healthcare organization was able to reduce the time its workers spent on social media and increase productivity.

3. Employee login/logout, idle time (attendance) monitoring

In terms of employee attendance, computer monitoring software automatically records logins/ logouts and active/ idle time. This technology is an excellent addition to existing check-in systems or can be effectively used as the primary means of monitoring attendance.

Computer monitoring software is an effective way to monitor and improve employee attendance.

If most work-related activities are performed on computers, monitoring software can monitor attendance better than the regular clock-in/ clock-out systems. Employees can be physically present in the office but be unproductive at the same time. The computer monitoring system generates detailed real-time reports that help employers gain insight into computer activities regarding employee logins/ logouts and idle/ active time.

Computer monitoring software records the time of the first and last activity, all logins and logouts, active and idle times, productive and unproductive application use, overtime, and insufficient working hours.

Since employees are often unaware of how much time they spend on tasks, introducing them to monitoring results is a great way to solve productivity problems. And they can be very different. By integrating monitoring software, employees and employers will be fully aware of areas that need improvement. They will be able to minimize wasting time on work-harmful computer activities during active hours and eliminate overtime claims.

Computer activity monitoring

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How it works?

• Computer monitoring software is an automated system. It monitors computer activities in the background without interrupting work processes.
• It displays exact computer activities carried out on the company’s networks – when, for how long, by whom, and on what computers.
• It records the computer name, employee system login name, and then software and websites used.
• The system is designed for effective software usage analysis. With this information, employers can view all the reports needed for employees and computers in seconds.
• It works on just about any application. It records how and when these apps are used.
• It saves all captured information for future reference.

How to choose safe monitoring software?

Before choosing software to monitor computer activity, it is always a good idea to investigate what particular system functions the solution uses to acquire and record information about device usage.

Here’s a simple rundown of how this system works, as well as some tips for selecting safe computer monitoring software:

1. Make sure it records the user system login name, not the password

When logging in to the system (Windows, Terminal Session, etc.), employees enter their login names/ passwords, computer monitoring software captures the login name.

This information is used to identify who is using the computer. To catch the user’s system login name the software uses special system functions.

Also monitoring software records system login and logout times to identify when the computer was used (How to monitor employees’ login and logout).To choose a safe computer monitoring software make sure it does not record and store any passwords. To get statistics on your computers’ usage this is enough to have login names recorded.

Here is why you don’t want your system password to be captured when monitoring computers: this might cause security and privacy issues. Passwords can be captured for official investigation purposes or for stealing information (spyware catches passwords to access personal information, banking accounts, etc.). Computer monitoring is intended neither for investigation nor for spying purposes.

Computer monitoring software

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2. Make sure it captures applications used, not screenshots

When a user runs multiple software and programs, computer monitoring software collects and records which applications are active. This is done with certain system functions. This technology gathers a large amount of data. So, to save disk space and minimize system resources, it records used applications with precision (for example, every 3 minutes)
When choosing software to monitor computer activity, ensure it does not capture screenshots, document content, emails, and chat content, as this could disclose personal information. To understand how your devices are utilized, you simply need to know the names of these apps and documents.
If you need to know how often your employees press keyboard buttons, make sure your monitoring software only records the number of times buttons are pressed, not which buttons are pressed.
Here’s why you don’t want any content or passwords to be captured:

This could lead to security and privacy issues. Passwords and other sensitive information should be recorded for official investigations or in the event of data theft.

Computer monitoring software

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3. Make sure it records visited websites, not passwords

With the help of special system functions computer monitoring software tracks internet use by recording website URLs (read how to monitor internet use). This information is used to monitor computer activity of employees during their working time.

When visiting certain websites, employees may be asked to enter their passwords (e.g., web banking, medical or insurance websites, and so on). Make sure, passwords are not recorded or stored by the monitoring program of choice.

Getting a record of login names and website URLs is sufficient to provide information on computer usage. Passwords are usually recorded for official investigations in cases of data theft, as previously stated.

Computer monitoring software

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4. Make sure it safely stores captured information

All of the information gathered is recorded in a database. This is done to generate reports and analyze computer use.
Selecting computer tracking software that incorporates database backup is a smart idea.
Additionally, ensure that all the data is password-protected and encrypted.

Conclusion

Computer monitoring software is the best way to identify applications’ usage, minimize unproductive Internet and social media visits, improve attendance, and save money on seldom used licenses. This gives you the complete information you need to assess all of the computer actions listed above. With this tool, you can assess your workers’ real productivity, identify who is working hard and who is underperforming, and focus on areas that need development. Having said that, the technology you use is critical. Investigate the software industry and choose non-intrusive employee monitoring tools, such as WorkTime. Our software corresponds to the modern monitoring standards. By using it, you can be sure that it collects only work-related information that helps enhance employee productivity. Some reports show top work performers and less diligent employees or departments. Plus, some reports highlight the reasons for someone’s poor productivity, like distraction score metrics. In any way, you can check these features yourself in the trial version.