Activity Classification lets you categorize websites and applications by business function and mark them as productive or unproductive. This improves the accuracy of your ActivTrak reports and dashboards, making it easier to analyze team and individual productivity.
Visit the Classifications Page by navigating to Settings > Classifications to start classifying activities.
Contents
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Classification Methods
- Group classification
- Manual classification
- Classification by Custom Rules (Early Access - Opt In)
- Intelligent Auto-Classification
- Classified Activities
- Classifications Settings
- Bulk Classification
- The Ignore Category
- Browser Activity
- Classifying from Admin Panel or Live Reports
- Learn More
Classification Methods
ActivTrak applies classifications in this order of priority:
- Group-based classifications apply first
- Manual classifications for specific websites are prioritized over everything else
- Custom Rules are evaluated next
- Intelligent Auto-Classifications apply last
Group classification
Most classifications work across your entire organization, but paid plans can assign different categories and productivity settings to specific groups. This accounts for situations where the same site or app is productive for one team but not another. For example, a social media site might be unproductive for engineers but productive for marketing managers.
To set up Group Classification
- Go to Settings > Classifications
- Search for an activity on the Pending or Classified tabs
- Click anywhere in the white space of its row to open the detailed view
- Find the Group Classifications section
- Click Select Group and choose from your existing groups
- Define the category and productivity status for that group
- To add more groups, click + Add New Group Classification
When users belong to multiple groups, their first-listed group takes priority. You can reorder group classifications by dragging the six-dot icon next to each group.
Reports reflect your group classifications. Reports like Top Websites or Top Applications show a special mixed productivity icon for mixed productivity activities, while other reports display the category and productivity assigned to individual employees.
Pro tip: Filter the Classified tab to quickly view all Group Classified activities.
Manual classification
The Classifications page defaults to the Pending tab, showing activities that need categories, productivity status, or both. The table sorts by duration (longest first) and includes activities over 5 minutes from the last 30 days (up to 500 rows).
Detailed View: Click in the white space of any activity row to see additional details, including total users, top users, total durations, and when the activity first appeared. From here, you can add categories, productivity classifications, and group classifications.
You can filter by Classification Type:
- Pending: New sites or applications not automatically associated with a category or productivity status
- Pending Category: Activities without an assigned category. Categories define the type of activity (like email or project management) instead of analyzing each individual website
To categorize an activity, select from the dropdown or add a new category. This applies to all previous and future uses of the website or application.
- Pending Productivity: Activities not auto-classified as productive or unproductive
Select productive or unproductive from the dropdown. This applies to all previous and future uses.
Note: Sites with and without 'www.' prefixes are classified the same automatically.
Troubleshooting missing activities
If an activity shows as 'Unclassified' in reports but doesn't appear on the Pending page:
- Only activities over 5 minutes appear by default. For shorter activities, select Show all Activities from the three-dot menu
- Only activities from the past 30 days show. For older activities, briefly open the site or app on a tracked device to make it reappear
- New activities can take up to an hour to appear
- The table displays 500 records maximum — use the search bar for specific activities
Classification by Custom Rules (Early Access - Opt In)
Admins can create custom rules for website patterns that they expect to have specific categories and productivity settings. This automatically classifies websites matching your defined patterns, saving time on manual classification.
Basic requirements
- Only lowercase letters, numbers, period (.), hyphen (-), underscore (_) and wildcard (*) are allowed
- Must be unique
- Must contain at least one letter
- Must have at least three segments (URL parts separated by periods, where the last segment is the “top-level domain” and the second-to-last segment is the “second-level domain”)
- Maximum 20 rules per account
Wildcard rules
- Maximum one wildcard per rule
- A single wildcard (*) is not allowed
- Wildcards must be in the first segment only
- Cannot use wildcards in top or second-level domains
- A wildcard in a lower segment can match higher segments
Examples of valid rules
- *.activtrak.com (matches a.activtrak.com, a.b.activtrak.com)
- abc*.blah.com
Invalid examples
- *.com (wildcard in second-level domain)
- abc.*.def.com (wildcard not in first segment)
Rules are evaluated in the order they appear, with top rules taking precedence. The order of the rules may be modified within the table. Changes to the Custom Rules will adjust existing and future classification events based on the new set of rules.
Note: These changes will not affect existing Group or Manual Classifications, as these have higher priority over Classification by Custom Rules. Changes to the Custom Rules will affect Pending Items and Intelligent Auto-Classification.
Sites classified by custom rules show "Custom Rule Matched" on the Classified tab.
Availability: Custom rules are currently opt-in. Contact support@activtrak.com to enable this feature.
Intelligent Auto-Classification
ActivTrak's crowd-sourced Intelligent Auto-Classification automatically classifies over 90% of activities with categories and productivity settings. The system uses anonymized customer data and role-specific information for Design, Marketing, Sales, Development, and other common roles, plus industry-specific data.
Auto-classifications won't override existing manual classifications in your account — they only apply to new or undefined activities.
Classified Activities
The Classified tab shows activities with both category and productivity classifications, either from Intelligent Auto-Classification or manual classification. Like the Pending tab, it sorts by duration and includes activities from the last 30 days (up to 500 rows).
You can filter by Classification Type:
- Intelligent Auto-Classified: Activities classified by ActivTrak's system based on crowdsourced information. You can adjust these to fit your specific needs.
- Custom Rule Matched: Activities classified by your custom rules based on the website patterns you've defined.
- Group Classified: Activities classified based on groups, like Facebook, are productive for marketing but unproductive for engineering.
- Ignored: Activities categorized with the Ignore option. These don't appear in reports except the Activity Log.
Use advanced search to find activities assigned to specific categories.
Troubleshooting Missing Classified Activities
Similar to the Pending tab, activities might not appear if they're under 5 minutes, older than 30 days, or not visible due to the 500-record limit. Use the same troubleshooting steps as the Pending Activities section.
- Only activities over 5 minutes appear by default. For shorter activities, select Show all Activities from the three-dot menu
- Only activities from the past 30 days show. For older activities, briefly open the site or app on a tracked device to make it reappear
- New activities can take up to an hour to appear
- The table displays 500 records maximum — use the search bar for specific activities
Classifications Settings
The Settings tab displays all categories and the number of activities assigned to each. Here you can:
- Add new categories by clicking + Add New Category
- Delete existing categories using the three-dot menu (the Ignore category cannot be deleted)
- Update category names by clicking in the box, which turns it green
Bulk Classification
Paid plan users can classify multiple similar activities at once using Bulk Classification. Select activities using the checkboxes, choose a category from the dropdown, then classify as productive or unproductive.
The page displays activities from the last 90 days with a duration of over 5 minutes by default. You cannot classify activities not shown on the Classifications page.
The Ignore Category
The Ignore category lets you customize reports by excluding specific activities. Time associated with ignored activities won't factor into calculations or reports, except the Activity Log. In all other reports, this time appears as if the user were offline.
Note about Remote Terminal Applications: Prior to Cross-Device Active Window Tracking (CDAWT), remote terminal applications were typically ignored to avoid over-reporting when users worked on multiple devices simultaneously. This is no longer recommended. As of June 2024, CDAWT finds the latest activity across merged user devices, ends previous activity, and begins new activity entries. This "clips" time to ensure total reported time doesn't exceed actual work time, regardless of device count, without needing to ignore mstsc.exe or similar applications.
To ignore an activity, go to Settings > Classifications, search for it, click the current category or 'Select Category', and choose Ignore from the dropdown.
Pro tip: Filter the Classified tab to quickly view all ignored activities.
Browser Activity
When ActivTrak collects browser activity, it looks for URLs. If it finds a URL, the activity is treated as a website and classified by that URL. Without a complete URL (like when searching in the URL bar), it's treated as an application, and the browser itself appears as the activity to classify.
If you classify a browser application like Google Chrome (chrome.exe) as Ignored, this does NOT ignore all websites accessed through Chrome. It only ignores activity within that browser where no complete URL was detected.
Classifying from Admin Panel or Live Reports
The Admin Panel (Home > Admin Panel) serves as your one-stop shop for account configuration and management. The 'Pending Classifications' widget surfaces unclassified websites or applications — click any item to go directly to its detailed view.
The Top Categories report has an 'Update Category Classifications' button that takes you directly to the Classifications Settings tab.
For specific websites or applications in Top Websites or Top Applications reports, click 'Update Website Classifications' or 'Update Application Classifications' to go directly to the detailed view.
Learn More