Guide to Activity Classification in ActivTrak

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 Classification Page (Settings > Classification) 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

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 Classification page (Settings > Classification) 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. 

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.

• By default, only activities with over 5 minutes of cumulative duration are shown. If you need to classify activities accessed less than 5 minutes, select ‘Show All Activities’ from the three-dot menu.
• 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 Classification 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 Classification page (Settings > Classification) 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 over 5 minutes 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.

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.

• By default, only activities with over 5 minutes of cumulative duration are shown. If you need to find activities accessed less than 5 minutes, select ‘Show All Activities’ from the three-dot menu.
• 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 of an activity 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.

Classification Settings

The Settings tab on the Classification page (Settings > Classification) 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, however, it’s important to note that some activities are productive only for certain teams. Group classifications allow Admins to create exceptions and indicate a particular site or app is productive for one team, but not for others.

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. 

Applying a classification to a group is just as easy as assigning global classifications. From the Classification Page (Settings > Classification), click on the ‘Details’ button within the Activity cards. From there, click "Add Group Classification" to add one or more group-specific categories and productivity. Click on the "Details" button to access the Group Classification Settings, as shown in the screenshots below.

Given that many employees are members of multiple groups (for example, Management and HR) you can set the priority of which group classification is applied. Reorder the groups within the Group Classification settings on the details page to indicate the priority order of which category and productivity assignment is applied.

In addition to the Settings page, the Top Websites and Top Applications reports include icons that indicate when a website or application has a mixed productivity status. All other reports will display the category and productivity assigned to the individual employee. Learn more about how to classify groups here.

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: The activities listed on the Classifications Page are limited to activities that have a total duration of greater than 5 minutes over the last 90 days. There is no way to classify activities that are not shown on the Classifications Page.

The Ignore Category

ActivTrak offers the option to exclude activities from reports and dashboards by utilizing the Ignore Category option. Any time associated with 'Ignored' activities will NOT be factored into any calculations or reports except for the Activity Log.

Assigning Ignore to Activities

1. Navigate to Settings > Classification

2. Click on either Pending or Classified tabs, then search for an activity by scrolling or using the search bar in the top right.

3. Once you have found the activity, click on 'Select Category'. From the dropdown menu, select 'Ignore'.

Finding Ignored Activities

1. Navigate to Settings > Classification

2. Click on the Classified tab, then click the filter button. A drop-down menu with appear. From here, select 'Ignored'.

Learn More:

• View our Classification 101 on-demand training 
• How to Classify Productivity and Categories by Groups
• How to Use the Ignore Category
• Contact Support