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 these and other courses in ActivTrak Academy:

• Getting Started with ActivTrak
• Getting Started with ActivTrak for Admins
• Getting Started with ActivTrak for Executives - COMING SOON

Note: ActivTrak Academy is only available for paid plans and free trials

Contents

1. Log into ActivTrak
2. Complete Guided Account Setup
3. Deploy ActivTrak Agents
4. Create Aliases and Display Names
5. Organize Users into Groups
6. Classify applications and websites
7. Configure Active Time & Passive Time settings
8. Configure User Roles & Permissions
9. Create Tracking Schedules for data collection
10. Explore Dashboards, Features and Reports
11. Create shortcuts with Favorites
12. Get additional training & support

1. Log on to ActivTrak

To log on to ActivTrak, visit app.activtrak.com and enter your credentials. Alternatively, SSO and MFA can be enabled.

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 included on those pages.

3. Deploy ActivTrak Agents 

ActivTrak is powered by the Agent — our lightweight software 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.

During Guided Account Setup, you will have the option to download 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.

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 can also download and install an Agent anytime 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.

4. Create Aliases and Display Names

Modify the viewable name of a computer (i.e., Alias) or User (i.e., Display Name) in the ActivTrak App for easy and clean reporting. When the Agent is installed, the data associated with that device will be labeled with the computer's registered name. Creating a computer alias is helpful when the registered name lacks important information, such as who uses the computer or the device's location.

Similar to computer aliases, display names are helpful when a User’s naming convention is not indicative of who it is. When you create a display name, it is retroactive and appears in place of the underlying User name in all ActivTrak Reports and Dashboards, resulting in easier readability and quick identification. Alternatively, random aliases could be assigned to conceal the User's true identities and anonymize data.

5. Organize Users into Groups

Organizing Users into Groups ensures 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, you’ll assign them to Viewable Groups to determine the data they can access. This ensures that employees’ activity data is only visible to the appropriate people, typically their direct manager.

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 by creating Custom Rules and/or 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.

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 (e.g., composing an email). Passive Time includes activities that do not involve mouse and keyboard movements (e.g., watching a video).

Your account defaults to ActivTrak's recommended Active Time and Passive Time durations; however, you can customize these settings to fit your organization's needs. 

8. Configure 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 access 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 various 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.

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. Create Tracking Schedules for data collection

You can define custom Tracking 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.

10. Explore Dashboards, Features and Reports

Now for the fun part—it’s time to explore the ActivTrak App and check out your workforce data!

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. 

Next, check out ActivTrak Coach (an Insights feature available in select plans). Our Coach analyzes teamwork 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.

Lastly, familiarize yourself with Live Reports and Insights Dashboards. Live Reports are a set of pages in the ActivTrak App that provide valuable near-real-time and short-term historic workforce data. Live Reports are included in all ActivTrak subscription plans

Insights Dashboards provide advanced AI-powered analytics and pattern detection. Insights Dashboards are only available in select plans. Importantly, unlike Live Reports, Insights allow organizations to:

• Set goals and measure progress toward goals
• Share Insights outside of the ActivTrak app with convenient email subscriptions
• much, much more

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 are only available for paid plans and professional trial accounts.

You can add Favorites by hovering over a page name within the left navigation and clicking the star icon to the right of the page name, or clicking Add Favorite at the top of any page.

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

12. Get additional training & support

There's a lot to explore in ActivTrak! We are here to support you through every step of your ActivTrak journey.

• Do you need to get up to speed on using ActivTrak to reach 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.
• Want to be kept informed 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.

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.