Time tracking when nobody shares an office
In an office a manager learns a lot without asking: who is in, what they are on, when the day ends. Remote team time tracking has to replace that, and software does it in one of two ways.
Recorded by the person
Each person says what they worked on
- They press Start and Stop on the work in hand
- Each entry names a project, a kind of work and a note
- Nothing is collected between the two clicks
- A wrong entry is corrected, and the correction is logged
Watched by the software
The software collects signs of activity
- Screenshots every few minutes
- Keystrokes and mouse moves turned into an activity score
- Lists of the apps and websites that were open
- Idle alerts when the mouse stops moving
The second kind measures whether a computer looks busy, which is not the same as work getting done. Reading a spec, thinking through a bug and a call with a client all look idle. It also tells people they are not trusted, and a remote team runs on trust more than an office does. Time Tracker Software HQ is a time tracker for remote employees of the first kind.
Across time zones
Each entry keeps the times on the clock of the computer or phone that recorded it. Two people who both start at 09:00 in different countries both show 09:00 in Reports, though they started hours apart. Durations and totals are exact either way, and a date filter in Reports reads each person’s own day.
What the timer records, and what it never does
An entry is the project and the task type picked before Start, the note if one was typed, the moments Start and Stop were pressed, and a small icon in Reports that says whether a computer or a phone recorded it. That is the whole record.
No screenshots, no keystrokes
- No screenshots and no screen recording.
- No keystrokes, no mouse movement and no activity score.
- No list of apps or websites you had open.
- No camera or microphone.
- No idle detection. A forgotten timer keeps running until someone stops it, and the fix is a correction made by a person, not a guess made by the software. The guide to developer time tracking covers the usual slips and how to correct them.
What each app is allowed to touch
If you are looking for a time tracker without screenshots, this is what to check in any app, not only this one. Phones and browsers make an app declare what it needs, and these are the full lists:
| App | What it asks for | What it does not |
|---|---|---|
| Android app | The internet, notifications, and permission to keep the timer running in the background | Location, camera, microphone, contacts or files |
| Browser extension | Storage and alarms, and the Time Tracker Software HQ website | Your tabs, or the pages you open |
The desktop app for Windows and Linux has no such list, because a computer does not make programs ask. It holds no code that reads the screen, the keyboard or other programs. What it keeps on your disk is the running timer and the entries waiting to be sent.
Working offline
Remote work runs on home broadband that drops in the evening, a co-working space’s Wi-Fi, a train, or a café network that wants a sign-in page first. None of it stops the desktop timer. It saves each entry on the computer, shows how many are waiting, and sends them by itself once the website answers, each one once. The Android app does the same.
For a lead this has one consequence. An entry waiting on someone’s laptop is not in Reports yet, so a day that looks empty may only be unsent. It arrives with the times that were pressed, not the time it was delivered.
Who sees what: roles
Each organization comes with two roles, Tenant Admin for its admins and User for everyone else. Teams add a third kind of reach: a team’s Lead User sees that team’s work. This is what each of them can read about you:
| About you | You | Your team lead | An admin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your entries in Reports and Excel | All of them | Those on the team’s projects | All of them |
| Correcting an entry | Not by default | Not by default | Yes |
| The activity log | Your own lines | None of your lines | All of your lines |
| Your screen, keys and apps | Never recorded | Never recorded | Never recorded |
An admin can widen this on purpose: a role with Edit All Time Interval sees and corrects every entry in the organization, as an admin does. Other colleagues see none of your hours.
Reports in each organization hold only the entries on its own projects. If you also work for a second organization, its Reports show none of the hours you track for the first. For how a lead reads one team’s week, see team time tracking.
The activity log of edits
Remotely, nobody can lean over and ask why an entry changed, so the record has to answer. Entries cannot be typed in on the website; each one comes from a timer. Every entry a timer sends adds a line to the activity log, and so does every edit made on the website. One entry’s history looks like this:
- Created “Time interval has been created via API.” The timer sent the entry when it was stopped.
- Updated “Time interval for Sara Khan has been updated: ended at.” An admin corrected the end of an entry left running.
Each line also shows:
- Who made the change, with their role.
- When, in the reader’s own time zone. The column heading names it, for example Timestamp (UTC+05:00), which helps when a team spans several.
- The IP address the change came from.
Everyone has Activity Logs in the sidebar. Admins see the lines for everyone in the organization, and everyone else sees the lines for what they did themselves. Nobody can edit or delete a line.
Setting up a remote team
Setting up a time tracking app for remote employees is mostly decisions, not clicks. The clicks are in the complete guide. This is the order, and what changes when nobody is in the room:
- Build the lists before inviting anyone. Projects, task types and teams first, so that the first timer anyone starts already offers the right choices.
- Add people, and send passwords separately. You give each new user a starting password, and their verification email does not contain it. Send it by another route, such as your team chat, and ask them to change it under Change Password on their profile. Someone who already has an account joins with the password they have.
- Expect verification to be the first snag. Nobody can sign in, on the website or in the desktop app, until they click the link in that email. When someone says they cannot sign in, the email is usually in their spam folder.
- Send everyone the right app. Computers on Windows or Linux get the desktop app from Download App on the website. Phones get the Android app from Google Play or the iPhone app from the App Store, and anyone who lives in the browser can use the extension for Chrome, Opera or Firefox.
- Turn on two-factor sign-in. Home networks and personal laptops are out of your reach. Two-Factor Auth in the account menu adds a code from an authenticator app to every sign-in, and the desktop app asks for it too.
Write the house rules down. In an office they spread by example; at a distance they have to be written. Three are enough: stop the timer for breaks, say in the note what the work was, and tell the person who corrects entries when one is wrong.
Frequently asked questions
No, in none of its apps. The desktop app, the Android app and the browser extension record a project, a task type, a note and the moments you press Start and Stop. Between those two clicks nothing is captured: no screen, no keys, no mouse, no list of apps or sites and no activity score.
Yes, the desktop app and the Android app. Each entry is saved on the device when you stop the timer, and sent once when the website can be reached again. Signing in the first time and reading Reports need a connection.
You see all of your own. The admins of your organization see everyone's. The lead of a team sees your entries on that team's projects and nothing you track elsewhere. Other colleagues see none of them, unless an admin gives their role Edit All Time Interval.
Yes, with one account and one password. An admin of the other organization adds you under Users with the same email address. Switch with Switch Organization in the website's account menu, or from the Organization list in the desktop app, which is locked while a timer runs. Each organization's Reports show only the hours tracked on its own projects.
Yes. Time Tracker Software HQ is one: a timer the person starts and stops, with no screenshots, keystroke counts or idle alerts. To check another app, read what it asks for. On a phone or in a browser, a tracker that takes screenshots has to ask for access to the screen. On a computer it does not have to ask, so read its feature list as well.