Non-Core Activities

All Productive applications and websites that do not roll up to a Core Category are considered Non-Core. These are business-related activities that are incidental to an employee’s job, rather than being the “value driver” of the job. In many cases, they are unavoidable, but employees should aim to minimize time on these tasks in favor of more critical work.

Examples of Non-Core Activities:

• Administrative tasks (ex. data entry, status reports)
• Internal chat and messaging
• Carrying out internal processes (ex. submitting an IT service desk request, an expense report or a time-off request)

Best Practices for Configuring Activity Alignment

Leaders and managers should own configuration

Leaders and managers are best positioned to configure Activity Alignment for their direct reports, as they are most familiar with the expectations for the role. This requires that:

• Managers have access to your ActivTrak account
• Managers have permission to view Activity Alignment
  • The feature is only accessible to Admins and Configurators by default; Power Users and Viewers can be granted access via the Role Access page
• There is a Group that includes only the manager’s direct reports, and this Group is in the manager’s Viewable Groups

If your organization would prefer to have an Admin configure the feature, the Admin can share this template with managers to collect input on their team’s Core Categories.

• Note: If managers are not familiar with the contents of each category, they should list the specific apps and websites that are “core” for their team. During the configuration process, the Admin can search by app or website to identify the corresponding category.

During Early Access, each team must be configured manually. We anticipate that bulk uploads will be supported when Activity Alignment is generally available, allowing multiple teams to be configured at once.

Configure teams at the functional level

Core Categories should be configured at the manager / direct report level to ensure accurate, meaningful data. Within a department, roles and responsibilities can vary widely, and it’s critical that Core Categories reflect this.

• Example: A Sales department may consist of sales development reps, account executives and relationship managers. While the VP of Sales oversees the whole department, Core Categories should be configured for each unique function.

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.

Understanding Primary Team

In ActivTrak, a user can belong to multiple Groups, each with its own Productive Time Goal and Core Categories. When viewing data for multiple Groups, we use the concept of Primary Team to determine which goal and Core Categories to apply to each user.

Primary Team is determined by the Group with the highest Productive Hrs/Day Goal. If this goal is the same for all Groups a user belongs to, the following “tie-breakers” apply:

• Group with the highest Focused Hrs/Day Goal
• Group with the lowest user count
• Group that was created first

In the Activity Alignment - Users tab, you will see the Primary Team for each user. If Core Categories have not been configured for a user’s Primary Team, their Performance Assessment will show as “Undetermined.”

Primary Team is not currently configurable. In future releases, Admins will have the option to manually select a user’s Primary Team and override the default.

Refine Core Categories based on the data

Once Core Categories have been configured, they can be easily edited at any time. It is common to refine Core Categories as you learn from the data and, in fact, we recommend doing so to ensure the correct configuration.

• To edit a team’s Core Categories, go to the Activity Alignment - Configuration tab. Find the team you want to edit, then click the 3 dot icon on the right-hand side of the row and select “Edit.”

After completing the configuration for a team, go to the Users tab and assess performance:

• If you see a high prevalence of “Increase Core Activity” or “Intervene” in the Performance Assessment column, drill in to determine whether these users really do have room for improvement or if their status may reflect a configuration error. Is there an app or site in the Non-Core column that should be Core for the team?
• On the other hand, a high prevalence of “Praise & Support” may indicate that some of the Core Categories selected are too broad. If this is the case, you may need to contact your Admin to modify one or more Categories at the account level.
  • For example, if the Chat & Messaging category includes your company’s internal messaging tool (such as Microsoft Teams or Slack) as well as the external chat platform where customers go for help, you will almost certainly want to move the external chat tool into a different category (for example, Customer Service).

Step-by-Step Configuration Instructions

To configure Core Categories and Core Activity Goal for a team, navigate to Insights > Activity Alignment, then click the Configuration tab at the top of the page.

Note: If Core Categories have not yet been configured for any of your Viewable Groups, you will automatically land on the Configuration page the first time you visit Activity Alignment.

Click Add configuration to launch the Configuration Wizard.

On the Welcome screen, click the Get started button to advance to the first step. The Configuration Guide (the one you’re currently reading!) can also be accessed from this screen.

Step 1: Select a team

• Select a team from the drop-down or enter the team name in the ‘Search Teams’ field.
• Click Go to step 2 of 4.

Note: During Early Access, teams must be configured one at a time. Bulk configuration via CSV upload will be supported in future releases.

Step 2: Choose how you want 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. (For next steps, click here.)
• Select Manually select categories if you know what categories you need and want to select them yourself. (For next steps, click here.)
• Click Go to step 3 of 4.

NEXT STEPS WHEN USING A ROLE-BASED TEMPLATE

Step 3: Choose the role that best describes your team

• In the dropdown list, select the role that most closely aligns with the team you selected in step 1.
• A list of recommended categories for the selected role will pre-populate. (Recommendations are based on aggregate data from ActivTrak customers.) You can remove categories from this list by clicking ‘X’ next to the corresponding category. To add categories, search for the name of the category or a specific application or website, then check the corresponding box.
• Click Go to step 4 of 4. (Click here to jump to step 4.)

NEXT STEPS WHEN MANUALLY SELECTING CATEGORIES

Step 3: Define Core Categories

See the Defining Core Categories section for guidance on how to determine the appropriate Core Categories for a team.

• In the search field, type in the name of a category, or enter the name of a website or application to locate the category it matches.
• Occasionally, searching for a website or app may return more than one category. In many cases, it will be clear which category best corresponds to the team you’re configuring. If not, try entering a more specific URL or app name. For example, instead of ‘Zoom,’ enter ‘companyname.zoom.’
• After selecting all relevant categories, click Go to step 4 of 4.

Step 4: Set Core Activity Time Goal

• The Core Activity Time Goal is the amount of time that a team is expected to spend on Core Activity. It is defined as a percentage of the team’s Productive Hours/Day Goal.
• The default goal of 70% is based on 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, then adjusting as needed after reviewing the team’s data.
• If you would like to change the default goal, enter a value (1-100) in the text field.
• Click Save configuration.

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 Dashboards immediately after completing the configuration process. Navigate to the Users tab or the Team tab at the top of the page, then enter the name of the team or select it from the drop-down list.

Learn more:

• Activity Alignment (Early Access)
• ActivTrak Academy Courses: Performance Coaching with Activity Alignment
  1. Praise & Support
  2. Increase Productive Time
  3. Increase Core Activity
  4. Intervene
• "Core Categories" Templates by Role based on anonymized analysis of thousands of ActivTrak customers