Cross-Device Active Window Tracking
ActivTrak Product Team
ActivTrak can leverage Cross-Device Active Window Tracking (CDAWT) to ensure that time is not double-counted when switching between multiple devices. This is particularly important in environments where users may work on several devices simultaneously, such as a laptop and a virtual machine.
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Requirements
Cross-Device Active Window Tracking (CDAWT) only applies to merged users. Aliased users will show as a single reporting user in reports, but any overlaps in their data will still be double-counted.
Automatic Merge
On domain-joined networks, a user’s activity is associated with a single reporting user who consumes a single license. That is, a user can work at multiple workstations and appear as a single ActivTrak user, so long as they log in with the same username on the same logon domain on each device – a configuration controlled by their IT administrators. Learn more about how ActivTrak licensing works.
In this scenario, the "merge" is automatic and no action is needed for CDAWT to work.
Manual Merge
When a user logs in using different usernames or on workstations that do not share a common logon domain, multiple reporting users are created. The User Merge action allows administrators of paid accounts to funnel the activity records from multiple Agents into a single reporting user, freeing up licenses.
Once users are merged, either automatically or manually, CDAWT will apply. CDAWT is retroactive, so any historical overlaps in the data will be corrected.
Reporting Impact
When the Agent detects a user has switched to a new active window on a single device, the previous activity entry is ended and a new one begun. As of June 2024, reporting across multiple devices works the same way – the latest activity across any of the merged user's devices is found, the previous activity is ended, and a new activity entry begins. Cross-Device Active Window Tracking (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. If two activities happened at the same time, only one of them is added to totals. For example, if a user is working simultaneously for one hour on their desktop PC and a terminal server or VDI, both of which have an Agent installed, the reports will reflect 60 minutes of active time instead of 120.
It is very important to understand that the Activity Log contains raw data and displays the original activity durations detected on each device. Therefore, trying to reproduce ActivTrak reports by adding up the durations in the Activity Log may lead to inflated totals. There will also be discrepancies if comparing totals from the Activity Log to totals from other reports (unless users only access one device). Reports such as Working Hours or Top Users and Groups "clean up" the over-reporting from the Activity Log by eliminating overlaps, so it is expected that their totals match each other, but not the Activity Log.
Validation
You can perform an independent calculation to validate our methodology by exporting a small sample of the Activity Log, subtracting overlaps, then comparing against the other reports. If you need assistance with creating the correct formulas, please contact Support.
The Ignore Category
Prior to Cross-Device Active Window Tracking, remote terminal applications were typically added to the Ignore Category in order to prevent over-reporting. This is no longer recommended.
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