Taking A Closer Look at ActivTrak: An Honest Guide
This blog post is a detailed guide to ActivTrak, a tool perfect for monitoring employees working from home. We explore its features, user experience, pricing, and more. This honest guide serves as a useful resource for startups, growing businesses, and large organizations looking for a reliable tool to manage remote teams.
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Welcome to our complete review of ActivTrak, a tool that tackles how to track employees' work and user behavior analytics within your organization.
In this guide, we scrutinize its features, user experience, customer service, and pricing, alongside user reviews, providing a holistic picture of what ActivTrak offers.
Whether you're a startup, a growing business, or a large organization, this guide aims to aid you in making an informed decision about ActivTrak.
Standout Features of ActivTrak
ActivTrak stands out in the market with a multitude of distinguishing features. Among them, the platform's ability to provide detailed insights into the working hours of employees, including breaks and idle times, enables effective time tracking and attendance monitoring. These features help prevent remote work burnout by offering data-driven insights that enable proactive management of workloads and productivity.
Real-time observation of employee activities is another significant aspect, ensuring transparency and accountability in the workplace. The platform also provides robust user activity monitoring by recording application and website usage, giving a clear picture of how employees spend their time.
Complementing this, ActivTrak's screen monitoring capability solves the issue of how to monitor employee screen activity by allowing the capture of screenshots to provide a visual record of activities. Finally, the automatic time mapping feature simplifies the process of timesheet creation and validation by mapping time based on the activities performed.
What users are saying:
User reviews confirm the platform's effective features. ActivTrak's Team Pulse function, ability to monitor employee compliance, and productivity features in workforce analytics and project management have also been highlighted by users.
Despite some users finding the range of features overwhelming and expressing concern about cost changes for certain reports, the platform is generally regarded as user-friendly, affordable, and effective.
User Experience (UX)
ActivTrak offers an intuitive, user-friendly interface with logically arranged menus, providing easy access to essential data such as productivity levels and user activity. While its UX strengths have contributed to its popularity, some users desire more customizable reporting and improved mobile functionality.
What users are saying:
Users have largely positive feedback on ActivTrak's user experience (UX). A review on PCMag highlighted that ActivTrak has a user-friendly dashboard that offers comprehensive time tracking and analytics. Users can customize activity categories and the software offers detailed reporting features.
Users on G2 have also praised ActivTrak's user-friendly interface and the customizable reporting features. However, some users have found the multitude of features overwhelming and noted that there are limitations based on subscription plans.
Customer Support
ActivTrak's customer service comprises a tiered system catering to the diverse needs of customers and accommodating businesses of all sizes.
Digital Support, the base level for all customers, offers access to ActivTrak Help Center and Academy, live chat and email support, scheduled calls, and 24/7 help center access. Digital Support is included in all paid subscriptions.
Premier Support elevates Digital Support by adding weekend live chat, bi-annual training sessions, a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM), extended hours, and personalized guidance.
Signature Support, designed for larger organizations, enhances Premier Support with a dedicated Technical Account Manager (TAM), quicker response times, quarterly reviews, additional training, and assistance with data customization and integration.
ActivTrak's customer service focuses on effective implementation, configuration optimization, and revealing productivity insights, offering additional services like Adoption Assurance and insights-to-action workshops.
What users are saying:
Reviews of ActivTrak on Trustpilot present a mixed view of the company's customer support. Some users have raised concerns about unauthorized charges, difficulties in canceling subscriptions, and perceived deceptive pricing practices. There are also reports of unhelpful sales teams and issues with transparency and unauthorized credit card charges.
However, it's not all negative. Despite the reported challenges, the company is noted to be responsive to feedback and offers assistance when issues arise.
Pricing Plans
ActivTrak offers three primary plans: Free, Essentials, and Professional, as well as additional paid add-ons. If you’ve wondered how to track employees working from home free, ActivTrak’s Free plan supports up to 3 users and offers a 30-day data history with features like an activity dashboard, productivity reports, and website blocking.
The Essentials plan, priced at $10 per user per month, includes all Free plan features plus real-time activity reports, productivity classification, and more. Additional features can be purchased as add-ons.
The ActivConnect add-on, priced at $3 per user per month, includes data export, app integrations, and BI starter templates. The Screen Details add-on, available for $2 per user per month, offers screenshots, alarms, and detailed web activity data. The Data History add-on costs $1 per user per month and extends data history up to 3 years.
The Professional plan, priced at $17 per user per month, comes with all the Essentials features and additional ones like remote vs. in-office productivity analysis and Google Workspace and Salesforce integrations. The same add-ons as in the Essentials plan are available here too.
For larger organizations, there's the Enterprise plan with all Professional plan features plus unlimited users, a 24-month data history, and advanced features like API access and HRIS integration. The pricing for this plan is not specified.
Customers receive a 14-day free trial of the Professional plan. After the trial, the account converts to the Free plan unless upgraded to a paid plan.
What users are saying:
Reviews suggest that ActivTrak offers good value for its functionality and price point, with users appreciating its rich feature set and ease of use. Some users, however, have expressed dissatisfaction with certain aspects. For instance, they dislike the fact that changes in reports require additional payment, suggesting some discontentment with the costs related to add-ons.
Security and Compliance
ActivTrak prioritizes employee monitoring privacy in the workplace and security, holding SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certifications which validate its system-level controls for processing customer data. It also complies with numerous data privacy regulations, including GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, and implements rigorous security measures like end-to-end data encryption, audit logs, security alarms, and domain blocking to prevent compliance violations. ActivTrak provides guidance to businesses on how to configure their software for compliance with these regulations.
What Users Like About ActivTrak
ActivTrak has garnered positive ratings from various review websites. For instance, it has a 4.6/5 rating on Capterra and a 4.5/5 rating on G2, reinforcing its standing as a leading productivity and time management tool.
Users have praised ActivTrak for its comprehensive activity tracking, reporting capabilities, and ease of use. In G2 reviews, users value the real-time monitoring feature known as Team Pulse, which helps in tracking employee activity and maintaining engagement of remote teams:
In addition, customers have commended ActivTrak for its insights, easy deployment, and helpful customer service. It is seen as a useful tool for monitoring productivity and improving efficiency.
On GetApp, ActivTrak's functionality and user interface have been positively reviewed by users. Some have praised its ability to provide visibility into productivity, employee engagement, and efficiency metrics.
User reviews on Capterra further underscore the positive feedback:
What Users Don't Like About ActivTrak
Though reviews on ActivTrak tend towards the positive, some users have expressed dissatisfaction with usability, billing practices, and customer support. There have also been complaints about the software's inability to track activity on mobile devices, which can be a limitation for organizations that have adopted a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy.
User reviews on G2 have expressed billing and pricing concerns and difficult with usability:
These sentiments have also been reflected in user reviews on GetApp.
On Capterra, some users appear to have similar concerns with the ActivTrak’s usability, installation, and billing practices.
Final Thoughts
While ActivTrak does have its drawbacks, such as occasional tracking inconsistencies and limited mobile functionality, its comprehensive suite of features make it an appealing option for businesses of all sizes. The tool's robust time-tracking, detailed reporting, and user activity monitoring provide an invaluable snapshot of how work is being done within an organization.
Furthermore, its user-friendly interface makes it easy to use, even for those with limited technical knowledge. The software's ability to capture screenshots and automatically map time based on activities performed simplifies the process of timesheet creation and validation, providing a level of transparency that can benefit both employers and employees.
On the pricing front, ActivTrak's range of plans offers flexibility, making it a viable solution for both small businesses and larger organizations. While some users have expressed dissatisfaction with ActivTrak's customer support, its overall high ratings indicate a generally positive user experience.
In conclusion, if you're looking for a tool that promotes transparency, improves productivity, and provides deep insights into your team's work habits, ActivTrak is worth considering. As with any tool, it's important to assess your unique needs and trial the software before committing to ensure it's the right fit for your business.