Activity Classification enables you to categorize websites and applications by business function and classify them as productive or unproductive, impacting the data accuracy of your ActivTrak reports and dashboards and enabling easier analysis of team and individual productivity.
Visit the Classifications Page (Settings > Classifications) to classify activities in ActivTrak.
Use this guide to learn about:
- Intelligent Auto-Classification
- Pending activities
- Classified activities
- Detailed Views
- Classification settings
- Group Classification
- Bulk Classification
- The 'Ignore' category
- Classifying from the Admin Panel or Live Reports
Intelligent Auto-Classification
ActivTrak's crowd-sourced Intelligent Auto-Classification system reduces Admin burden and saves everyone time by automatically classifying over 90% of activities with a category and productivity classification. The Intelligent Auto-Classification system is built from anonymized customer usage data and descriptions of tools used by common roles such as Design, Marketing, Sales, Developers and more as well as industry-specific data. Note: These auto-classifications will not override any previously added classifications in your account. They will only be applied to new activities or those that have remained undefined.
Pending Activities
The Classifications page (Settings > Classifications) defaults to the Pending tab displaying activities that need a category, productivity status, or both. By default this table is sorted by duration (longest cumulative time first), and includes activities over 5 minutes from the last 30 days (up to 500 rows).
You can filter or sort this table by Classification Type:
- Pending is applied to any new site or application that a user has engaged with that was not automatically associated with an existing category or productivity status.
- Pending Category is applied to any new site or application that a user has engaged with that was not automatically associated with an existing category. Categories define the type of activity or tool the employee is using, such as email or project management, in lieu of analyzing each individual website or application.
To categorize an activity, select a category or add a new one from the Select Category drop-down menu. This designation will be applied to all previous and future use of this website or application.
NOTE: There is an Ignore category that can be selected if there are certain activities that need to be excluded in the productivity reports. Learn more about how to use the Ignore category here.
- Pending Productivity is applied to any new site or application that a user has engaged with that was not auto-classified as productive or unproductive.
To classify these activities, select productive or unproductive from the Select Status dropdown menu. This designation will be applied to all previous and future use of this website or application.
NOTE: Sites with and without the 'www.' prefix (www.domain.com and domain.com) will be classified the same automatically.
To view more details about a specific website or application, click on its row within the table. This will bring you to the activity-specific page where you can view usage, classify, and apply group classifications.
TROUBLESHOOTING TIP: There are several reasons why a website or application may show as 'Unclassified' in reports but not appear on the Pending page as expected. If you still can't locate an activity after trying the steps below, contact Support.
- Only activities with a cumulative duration >5 minutes are shown. If you need to classify an activity with <5 minutes, select "Show all Activities" from the three-dot menu in the upper right:
- Only activities from the past 30 days are shown. If you need to classify an activity that was last accessed greater than 30 days ago, briefly open the site or app on a tracked device to force it to reappear.
- It can take up to an hour for newly accessed activities to appear on the Classifications page. If an activity was just accessed for the first time, try checking back later.
- The table can only display 500 records at a time, so you may need to utilize the search bar to locate a specific pending activity.
Classified Activities
The Classified tab on the Classifications page (Settings > Classifications) displays activities that have both a category and productivity applied - either via auto-classification or manual classification. Similar to the Pending tab, by default this table is sorted by duration (longest cumulative time first), and includes activities from the last 30 days (up to 500 rows).
You can filter or sort this table by Classification Type:
- Auto-Classified: Displays all of the activities that ActivTrak’s auto-classification system classified based on crowdsourced information. These classifications can always be adjusted to better fit specific needs.
- Group Classified: Applied to all activities that are classified based on groups. For example, Facebook might be considered 'Productive' for a marketing team, but 'Unproductive' for an engineering team. Learn more about group classification here.
- Ignored: Applied to all activities that have been categorized with the Ignore category option. Ignored activities will not be shown throughout reports and their durations will not be included except within the Activity Log. Learn more about Ignoring activities here.
Use the advanced search to find all activities assigned to a particular category, as shown below.
NOTE: Sites with and without the 'www.' prefix (www.domain.com and domain.com) will be classified the same automatically.
TROUBLESHOOTING TIP: There are a few reasons why a website or application may not appear on the Classified page as expected. If you still can't locate an activity after trying the steps below, contact Support.
- Only activities with a cumulative duration >5 minutes are shown. If you need to classify an activity with <5 minutes, select "Show all Activities" from the three-dot menu in the upper right:
- Only activities from the past 30 days are shown. If you need to find an activity that was last accessed greater than 30 days ago, briefly open the site or app on a tracked device to force it to reappear.
- The table can only display 500 records at a time, so you may need to utilize the search bar to locate a specific activity.
Detailed Views
Click anywhere in the white space between columns of an activity's row to get additional details about the activity you are classifying, including total users, top users, total durations, when the activity first appeared in your account, and more. Within Detailed Views, you can also add a category and productivity classification to the activity as well as add group classifications.
Classifications Settings
The Settings tab on the Classifications page (Settings > Classifications) displays all categories and the number of activities assigned to each category. Within this page, you can take the following actions:
- New categories can be added by clicking + Add New Category below the table.
- Existing categories can be deleted by clicking on the three-dot menu in the far right of each row. The Ignore category cannot be deleted.
- Existing category names can be updated by clicking within the box, which turns it green.
Group Classification
Most activity classifications work across the organization, but paid plans have the ability to assign category and productivity exceptions to specific groups, accounting for the fact that sometimes a particular site or app is productive for one team but not for others. For example, a social media site might be classified as 'Unproductive' for an engineer, while the same site might be classified as 'Productive' for a marketing manager.
To apply Group Classification, navigate to Settings > Classifications. Search for an activity on either the Pending or Classified tabs, then click anywhere in the white space between columns of its row to access its detailed view. Then locate the 'Group Classifications' section.
Click on 'Select Group' and a drop-down menu will appear with your existing groups. Select the Group for which you wish to add an exception, and then define the category and/or productivity status. To add more than one group with an exception, click '+Add New Group Classification'.
In the example above, the bottom left 'Classified Items' section shows that Instagram is assigned the category 'Social Media' and classified as Unproductive. In the Group Classifications Section, Marketing is assigned an exception and the activity is Productive.
Given that users can be members of multiple groups, the order of the group classifications will determine which classification is recorded for an individual user; their first group listed takes priority. To modify the order of the group classifications, use the six-dot icon to the left of each group to drag the group to the preferred positioning:
Reports reflect your group classifications. When a website or activity with a mixed classification is represented, such as in the Top Websites or Top Applications report, the mixed productivity icon will show as in the screenshot below. Other reports will display the category and productivity assigned to the individual employee.
TIP: Filter the Classified tab on the Classifications page to quickly view all activities that have been Group Classified:
Bulk Classification
Our paid plan users can enjoy reduced time classifying activities by using Bulk Classification. This feature allows an Admin to place similar activities all in the same category with minimal effort. To do this, simply click on the checkboxes next to the activities in the right-hand box. There is the option to select all or select only a few. Once the activities are selected, choose a category from the drop-down menu at the top and then classify the activity as either productive or unproductive.
Note: By default, the Classification page displays activities from the last 90 days with a duration over 5 minutes. There is no way to classify activities that are not shown on the Classifications page.
The Ignore Category
ActivTrak offers Admins the option to customize reports to meet their organization’s needs by excluding specific activities using the "Ignore" category. Any time associated with "Ignored" activities will NOT be factored into any calculations or reports, with the exception of the Activity Log. In all other reports, this time will be treated as if the user were offline.
NOTE: Prior to Cross-Device Active Window Tracking (CDAWT), remote terminal applications were typically added to the Ignore Category in order to avoid over-reporting when a user worked simultaneously on multiple devices with an Agent. This is no longer recommended. As of June 2024, the latest activity across any of a merged user's devices is found, the previous activity is ended, and a new activity entry begins. CDAWT "clips" time to ensure that the total time reported does not exceed the actual time spent working, regardless of the number of devices in use, without the need to place mstsc.exe (or similar) in the Ignore Category.
Any Admin or Configurator has the ability to add and remove activities from the Ignore Category. To Ignore an activity, navigate to Settings > Classifications and search for it on either the Pending or Classified tabs. Click on the current category or 'Select Category' (if unassigned) and choose 'Ignore' from the dropdown menu.
TIP: Filter the Classified tab on the Classifications page to quickly view all activities that have been Ignored:
An important note about browsers
When browser activity is collected, ActivTrak looks for a URL. If a URL is detected, the activity is treated as a website and classified by its URL. If no URL is detected (for example while performing a search within the URL bar), it is treated as an application and the browser itself is shown as the activity to be classified.
If a browser application such as Google Chrome (chrome.exe) is classified as Ignored, this does NOT ignore all websites accessed via the Chrome browser. Instead, ActivTrak would only ignore activity within that browser for which there was no complete URL.
Classifying from the Admin Panel or Live Reports
Designed for ActivTrak Admins, the Admin Panel (Home > Admin Panel) serves as a “one-stop-shop” for all essential account configuration and management tasks and actions. The 'Pending Classifications' widget on this homepage surfaces any websites or applications that have yet to be classified. Click on a site or app to be taken directly to its detailed view.
The Top Categories report has an 'Update Category Classifications' button on the right of the page which will take you directly to the Settings tab of the Classifications page.
If a specific website or application is selected on the Top Websites or Top Applications reports, click the button on the right of the page (labeled 'Update Website Classifications' or 'Update Application Classifications', respectively) to go directly to its detailed view.
Learn More: