Activity Alignment Configuration Guide

The Activity Alignment Configuration Guide provides best practices to ensure you get the most value from this powerful feature. Learn to define Core Activities for different teams and set up the dashboard for accurate, actionable insights.

Contents

• Understanding Core vs Non-Core Activities
• Defining Core Categories
  • Common Pitfalls
  • Core Categories by role
  • Non-Core Activities
• Best practices for configuration
  • Configure Core Categories by team
  • Expedite configuration with templates
  • Include managers in the process
  • Refine based on data
• Step-by-step configuration instructions
  • For a single team
  • For multiple teams
• Learn more

Understanding Core vs Non-Core Activities

Not all work creates equal value. ActivTrak research shows that top performers spend 70-80% of their time on high-value work, as defined by their managers. Activity Alignment addresses this issue, enabling managers to measure and maximize time spent on the high-value activities that drive business results and minimize time on lower-impact work.

In Activity Alignment, Productive Time is divided into:

• Core Activities: The high-value work critical to a role's success
• Non-Core Activities: Business-related tasks that are necessary but not primary value drivers

Core vs Non-Core Activities

Note: In ActivTrak, applications and websites roll up to categories based on business function. Most activities are assigned to a default category (e.g., Accounting, Customer Service, Chat & Messaging), but Admins can also create custom categories based on the needs of your business. Learn more about classifying and categorizing activities.

Defining Core Categories

Core Activities directly contribute to the primary value an employee delivers. Think of them as "what you're paying an employee to do" or the activities you'd list in a job description.

When selecting Core Categories, ask yourself: "What are the 3-5 applications or websites most critical to my team's role?" Focus on the desired state, not what team members currently spend time on.

Common Pitfalls

• Selecting too many Core Categories: Core Activities should be a limited subset of Productive Activities
• Equating "top categories" with Core Categories: Just because employees spend most of their time in specific applications (e.g., email or Slack) doesn't mean those should automatically be classified as Core

Core Categories by role

The table below shows typical Core Categories by role based on anonymized analysis of thousands of ActivTrak customers. View the complete list of examples.

During configuration, you can use a role-based template with recommended Core Categories.

Non-Core Activities

Non-Core Activities include business-related tasks incidental to an employee's job rather than primary value drivers. Examples include:

• Administrative tasks (data entry, status reports)
• Internal chat and messaging
• Carrying out internal processes (IT service desk requests, expense reports)

Best practices for configuration

Configure Core Categories by team

Set up Core Categories for specific roles rather than broad departments. Responsibilities can vary widely within a single department.

For example, a Sales department might include sales development reps, account executives, and relationship managers. While they all report to the VP of Sales, each role requires different Core Categories.

Note: If a user belongs to multiple Groups, Activity Alignment will use their Primary Group to determine which Core Categories to apply. Admins can change a user's Primary Group on the user page. Learn more here.

If Groups in your ActivTrak account do not currently exist at this level of granularity, we recommend that an Admin create them to ensure proper configuration. Groups can be created manually or automatically via our Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) integration.

Expedite configuration with templates

For a more straightforward setup, especially in large organizations, take advantage of the functionalities of the Configuration Wizard:

• Role-based templates: Select the role that best matches your team for pre-populated Core Categories based on industry research (available for single team configuration)
• Bulk upload: Configure multiple teams at once via an Excel template (available for multiple team configuration)

These options provide a starting point that managers can later adjust according to their team’s specific roles and responsibilities.

Include managers in the process

Team leaders and managers should have input on Core Categories since they understand role expectations best. Make sure managers have the following:

1. Access to your ActivTrak account
2. Permission to view Activity Alignment (this feature is only accessible to Admins and Configurators by default; Power Users and Viewers can be granted access via the Role Access page)
3. A Group that includes only their direct reports in their Viewable Groups

Refine based on data

After initial setup, regularly review and adjust Core Categories based on the data:

• If most team members show as "Increase Core Activity" or "Misaligned" in the Assessment column in the User Details panel of the User tab, check if an application or website in the Non-Core column should be a Core Activity for the team.
• If most team members show as "Fully Aligned" in the Assessment column in the User Details panel of the User tab, you may need more specific categories

Needing to refine the Core Categories as you learn from the data is expected, and we recommend doing so to ensure the correct configuration. Once a team has been configured, you can edit Core Categories and the Core Activity Goal from the Configuration page. Find the team in the list, click the 3-dot icon on the right-hand side of the appropriate row and select Edit. The Activity Alignment dashboards will immediately reflect any changes (data will be updated retroactively).

Step-by-step configuration instructions

To begin configuring Activity Alignment:

1. Navigate to Insights > Activity Alignment
2. Click the Configuration tab at the top of the screen
3. Click the Add configuration button in the top left to launch the configuration wizard

Configuration Tab

Your ActivTrak user role determines which configuration options you have access to. Admins and Configurators can configure multiple teams in bulk, while Power Users and Viewers must configure one team at a time.

For a single team

1. Select a team from the dropdown or use the search bar

Select a Team

2. Choose how to define Core Categories

• • Select Start from a role-based template if you want guidance on the Core Categories appropriate for your team’s role
  • Select Manually select categories if you know what you need and want to choose the categories yourself

Define Core Categories

4. Set Core Activity Time Goal

The Core Activity Time Goal is the amount of time a team is expected to spend on Core Activities. It is a percentage of the team’s Productive Hours per Day Goal.

The default Core Activity Time Goal of 70% is based on an analysis of ActivTrak customer data, which indicates that top performers spend 70-80% of their time on high-value work, as defined by their managers. We recommend starting with the default goal and adjusting as needed after reviewing team data.

If you want to change the default goal, enter a value (1-100) in the Percent of Productive Hrs/Day Goal field. Click the Save configuration button.

Set your Team’s Core Activity Time Goal

You will see a Success! message confirming that the team’s configuration has been saved. Click Configure another team to repeat the process for another team, or click Exit to return to the Configuration page.

You can view the team’s data in the Activity Alignment Dashboard immediately after configuration. Navigate to the Team tab or User tab and use the Team filter at the top of the page to select your team of choice.

Success message

For multiple teams

Note: Configuring multiple teams is only available for Admin and Configurator roles.

1. Download the template

Click the Download template here button to access the template to configure multiple teams. Open the file in Excel or a supported program. The default file name is core-categories-template.xlsx.

Configure Multiple Teams via Excel Upload

The template includes three columns:

Column A, group_name: This column will auto-populate with the Groups configured in your ActivTrak account. You can delete the rows for the teams you do not wish to configure for Activity Alignment at this time.

• Note: Use caution when editing Column A; the group_name must match the name of an existing Group in your ActivTrak account. You will receive an error message when uploading the template if there is a mismatch.

Column B, role: This column contains dropdown menus with a list of roles or job functions crowdsourced by ActivTrak to align with that team’s function. Select the appropriate role for each team you want to configure for Activity Alignment.

Column C, core_activity_goal_percentage: In this column, you can set each team’s Core Activity Goal Percentage as a whole number from 1 to 100 (the amount of time each team is expected to spend on Core Activities). The Core Activity Goal Percentage will be preset to the default value of 70%.

• The Core Activity Goal Percentage is a percentage of a team’s Productive Hours/Day Goal. For example, if a team’s Productive Hours/Day Goal is seven hours and the Core Activity Goal Percentage is 70%, the Core Activity Goal will be 4.9 hours.
• The default goal is 70% based on an analysis of ActivTrak customer data, which indicated that top performers spend 70-80% of their time on high-value work, as defined by their managers. We recommend starting with the default goal and adjusting as needed after reviewing team data.

Example Excel Template for Activity Alignment Configuration

2. Upload the template file

Once you have finished filling in the template file, save it as a .xlsx or .xlsxm file. Return to the Configuration Wizard and upload the file to the Configure multiple teams via Excel upload window.

A “File upload successful message” in the center of the window will indicate that the template was uploaded successfully. Click the Save configuration button.

The Excel template was uploaded successfully

If the uploaded file contains errors, you will see an error message with details of the issues to be corrected. If you proceed without fixing the errors, any row containing an error will be ignored (i.e., the corresponding team will not be configured in Activity Alignment).

Delete the uploaded Excel file using the trash icon to the right of the file. Modify the template to correct the listed errors and reupload the file. Once you are ready to proceed, click the Save configuration button. 

Excel template upload error message

You will see a Success! message confirming that the team’s configuration has been saved. Click Configure another team to repeat the process for another team, or click Exit to return to the Configuration page.

You can view the team’s data in the Activity Alignment dashboard immediately after configuration. Navigate to the Team tab or User tab and use the Team filter at the top of the page to select your team of choice.

Success message

Learn more

• The Activity Alignment Dashboard
• ActivTrak Academy Courses: Performance Coaching with Activity Alignment
  • Fully Aligned
  • Increase Productive Time
  • Increase Core Activity
  • Misaligned
• Insights Overview