Guide to Getting Started with ActivTrak

Welcome to your new ActivTrak account! You’re on your way to gaining all sorts of invaluable organizational insights, backed by your very own workforce data. Whether you're on a free trial or a paid plan subscription, setting up your ActivTrak account is straightforward with this step-by-step guide.

Do you prefer self-paced courses or live training? Check out the ActivTrak Academy. (Note: Only available for paid plans and free trials).

1. Log into ActivTrak

To log into ActivTrak, visit app.activtrak.com and enter your credentials. Alternatively, SSO and MFA can be enabled. Learn more.

The ActivTrak Login Page

2. Complete Guided Account Setup

The first time you access your account, you’ll be prompted to complete Guided Account Setup. This feature allows you to tailor your account to your organization's use cases and privacy preferences. Your selections will determine which dashboards and reports are displayed in the left app navigation and the level of data displayed in reports and dashboards. Learn more about Guided Account Setup here.

Notes:

• Guided Account Setup determines how your ActivTrak account looks, including hiding or exposing certain features. Your preferences can be updated at any time by visiting Settings > Access > Role Access to relaunch Guided Account Setup or to make individual selections.
• If Guided Account Setup does not launch, it may be because another Admin on the account already completed this step.

3. Deploy ActivTrak Agents 

ActivTrak is powered by the Agent — the mechanism by which digital workforce activity is collected for analysis in reports, dashboards and other features. Without at least one deployed Agent, reports and dashboards will appear empty.

After completing Guided Account Setup, you will land on the Agent Activation Page, which includes links to deploy the Agent on your own computer and to share the installation file and deploy Agents on other devices. There are multiple methods of deploying ActivTrak Agents.

Review the ActivTrak Agent Deployment Guide for detailed instructions on each option.

The Agent Activation Page

When installing the Agent on your own device, the app detects your workstation’s operating system and automatically pushes the appropriate Agent version. When sharing the installation file, you will be prompted to select the operating system for the device where the Agent will be installed.

You will see the Agent Activation Page each time you log in until you have deployed at least one Agent.

You can also download and install an Agent at any time from The Admin Panel by clicking the "Install/Share Agent File" button in "Quick Actions" at the top of the dashboard, as shown in the screenshot below.

The Admin Panel

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please ensure that you place the ActivTrak Agent on the whitelist of your antivirus and/or firewall so that your Agent does not get blocked. Failure to do so tends to be one of the major reasons new users experience Agent issues. Click here to follow a step-by-step guide on how to place your Agent on the whitelists.

4. Create user and computer aliases

Change the viewable name of a computer or user with an alias. When the Agent is installed on a computer, it shows the registered name of the computer on all associated computer data. You can also use aliases to change the names of users in dashboards and reports as well as combine variations of user names into a single alias.

Learn more about creating and changing aliases here.

5. Organize users into groups

Organizing Users into Groups is essential to ensure accurate reporting and the responsible sharing of employee data. Typically, Groups are aligned to teams within an organization, enabling managers to determine which activities should be classified as productive or unproductive, set goals, and assess team health and performance. When inviting users to access your ActivTrak account (see Step 7), you’ll select their Viewable Groups to determine whose data they can access. This ensures that employees’ activity data is only visible to the appropriate people — typically their direct manager. Learn more about creating and managing groups here.

6. Classify applications and websites

Activity classification is essential to ensuring your reports and dashboards accurately reflect how users spend their time. ActivTrak's intelligent Auto Classification feature uses crowd-sourced data to automatically categorize commonly used websites and applications and classify them as productive or unproductive.

You can override automatic productivity classifications and create custom categories (e.g. chat & messaging, project management, accounting tools) to meet your organization’s unique requirements. Classifications can be assigned at the Group level to account for differences in roles and responsibilities — for example, social media may be unproductive for the Accounting team, but productive for the Marketing team.  Learn more in our step-by-step guide to activity classification.

7. Configure Active Time & Passive Time settings

In ActivTrak, activity time is captured and categorized as either Active or Passive.

Active Time includes activities that involve active mouse and keyboard movements (such as composing an email).

Passive Time includes activities that do not involve mouse and keyboard movements (such as watching a video).

Time types in ActivTrak

Active Time and Passive Time durations are set by default in your account, however, you can customize these settings for your organization's needs. Learn more about Active Time and Passive Time in this guide.

8. Invite app users & assign user roles and permissions

Many people in your organization — from team managers to executives to HR and IT leaders — can benefit from the workforce insights in ActivTrak. With configurable User Roles and Viewable Groups, you can give each app user access to the specific insights they need without compromising employee privacy or providing access to administrative settings within your account.

• User Roles: When inviting new app users to your account, you will assign them one of four user roles: Administrator, Configurator, Power User, or Viewer. Each role can be configured to provide access to the appropriate dashboards and settings.
• Viewable Groups: Assign Viewable Groups to each app user to determine whose data they can see in dashboards and reports. Users can be part of multiple Groups, so it’s easy to create cohorts to suit a variety of needs. For example, you might have a Group for each department within your organization (engineering, sales, finance) which is viewable to the department head, and separate Groups for smaller teams within a department, which are viewable to the respective team manager.

Learn more about assigning user roles and permissions and inviting users to your ActivTrak account here.

Note: Alternative methods are available for stakeholders across your organization to view and utilize ActivTrak's valuable workforce data insights without direct access to the ActivTrak app. They include Insights email subscriptions (available in select plans) and integration with external applications like BI tools (available with the ActivConnect API add-on).

9. Define custom working hours

You can define custom schedules to prevent the Agent from collecting user activity data outside of working hours. Unique schedules can be applied to individual users to align with each employee’s standard working hours. Learn more about using the scheduling feature to reflect employee working hours here.

10. Explore dashboards, features & reports

Now for the fun part - it’s time to dive into the findings!

We recommend starting with Homepages — streamlined dashboards that simplify workflows and provide key insights at a glance for ActivTrak app users:

• The Admin Panel
• The Organization Overview
• Team Management
• The Activity Dashboard

Note: The Admin Panel, Organization Overview and Activity Dashboard are available in all paid plans and Professional trials. Team Management is only available in select plans. 

The Team Management Homepage

Next, check out ActivTrak Coach. Coach analyzes team work habits to identify early indicators of disengagement, burnout and declining productivity and provides advice so managers can take action and prevent a negative impact on performance. 

Tip: To ensure managers never miss a Coaching Opportunity, we recommend subscribing them to emailed reports of all Coach tabs. Learn more.

Note: Coach is an Insights feature available in select plans.

ActivTrak Coach

Lastly, familiarize yourself with Live Reports and Insights Dashboards.

Live Reports is a set of reports that provide valuable near real-time and short-term historic workforce data to answer the question, "Is my team working as expected?".

• Learn about all Live Reports in Live Reports Overview.
• Live Reports are included in all ActivTrak subscription plans

The Working Hours Report  (Live Report)

Insights Dashboards and features provide advanced AI-powered analytics and pattern detection to answer the question, "Is my team working and collaborating to maximize results?".

Importantly, unlike Live Reports, Insights allow organizations to:

• Set goals and measure progress to goals. Learn how to set goals in Insights.
• Share Insights outside of the ActivTrak app with convenient email subscriptions. Learn how to create and manage Insights email subscriptions.
• Learn about all Insights Dashboards & features in Insights Overview.
• Insights are only available in select plans.

The Executive Summary Dashboard (Insights Dashboard)

11. Create shortcuts with Favorites

Save time accessing your most-used reports, dashboards, features and pages with Navigation Favorites. Favorites is a great way for all users to build out their workflows and customize their in-app experience. (Note: Favorites is only available in paid plans and Professional trial accounts).

Add Favorites by hovering over a page name within the left navigation and click the star icon to the right of the page name OR click "Add Favorite" at the top of any page. Learn more about Favorites and other ways to customize your ActivTrak UI here.

Note: Each user can create their own Favorites list — the selections you make will not impact other users' Favorites.

Sample Favorites list

12. Get additional training & support

There's lots to explore in ActivTrak!

• Do you need to get up to speed on using ActivTrak for your goals? Access a mix of self-paced courses and live training in the ActivTrak Academy. (Note: Only available for paid plans and free trials).
• Are you looking for product information and documentation? Our Help Center has it all.
• Want to learn about new product updates? Latest Updates is the place to go.
• Interested in shaping ActivTrak's future product roadmaps with ongoing feedback? Join our Customer Research Panel.
• Need technical support with your account? Reach out to our amazing Support team.
• Wish to be kept in the loop about ActivTrak's performance and operational status? Visit and subscribe to the ActivTrak Status Page.
• Want to learn more about ActivTrak's security and data privacy safeguards & measures? Visit our Trust Center.
• Interested in workforce productivity research, best practices and trends? Explore our Productivity Lab.

The ActivTrak Help Center

NOTE: Certain Support plans include a dedicated Customer Success Manager who will reach out to schedule customized onboarding training and support. Learn more about ActivTrak's Support plans here.