Understanding schedules is crucial to maximizing the benefits of ActivTrak's workforce analytics. Both Work Schedules and Track Schedules play essential roles in how the platform collects and analyzes your team's data, but they serve different purposes.
Setting up these schedules correctly from the start ensures your analytics are more accurate and meaningful. Whether you're measuring focus time, collaboration patterns, or overall productivity trends, having the proper schedules in place ensures you're analyzing the data that matters most to your business goals.
Contents
Work Schedules
A Work Schedule defines your team's expected working hours, helping ActivTrak accurately measure productivity during those times. It ensures that data analysis focuses on when Users are actually supposed to be working rather than during off-hours or breaks. The time zone used to evaluate work schedules is determined by your account's Time Zone Settings.
Navigate to Settings > Schedules in the left navigation menu; you will land on the Work tab
Note: Agent Schedules are now found in the Track tab. For information on Tracking Schedules, see the second half of this article.
ActivTrak Academy
Prefer to watch? Check out Creating Work Schedules course in ActivTrak Academy (available with paid plans and free trials).
Default Work Schedule
Every account includes a Default Schedule that:
- Cannot be deleted (only edited)
- Cannot be renamed
- Automatically includes all Users who aren't assigned to another Schedule
- Comes pre-configured with standard business hours:
Start: 09:00 AM
End: 05:00 PM
Break: 60 Mins
Days: Monday–Friday
User assignment to Work Schedules
- One Schedule per User: Each User can only be assigned to one Schedule at a time. When a User is not assigned to a Schedule or has been removed from an assigned Schedule, they will automatically be assigned to the Default schedule.
- Reassignment protection: If you try to assign someone who's already on another Schedule, you'll get a confirmation prompt
- Search functionality: Use the search bar to find Users by name (groups appear for filtering, but you still select individual Users)
Creating additional Work Schedules
- Click + Add Schedule
- Configure your new Schedule from the panel on the right. For schedules with specific Start and End times, you will fill out the following fields:
- Schedule Name: Give it a descriptive name (e.g., "Remote Team," "Night Shift," "Part-Time")
- Start and End Times: Define the work window
- Break Time: Set total break minutes allocated
- Days of Week: Click the day(s) of the week included in this Schedule
For schedules with Flexible Hours, utilize the toggle at the top and select the included Workdays.
Note: Users with flexible schedules will have blank fields in dashboards, including Schedule Adherence and Schedule Adherence Trends for metrics such as Break Time, Late Start, and Early End.
- Assign Users: Search and select individual Users for this Schedule
- Click Save
Note: Work Schedule limits vary by plan: Essentials/Advanced plans allow up to 3 Schedules; Essentials Plus allows up to 20; and Professional/Premium plans allow up to 50.
Edit a Work Schedule
Click on the pencil icon in the upper-right corner of a Schedule. The following fields can be modified:
- Change name (except the Default Schedule)
- Modify start/end times
- Adjust break time
- Update days of the week
- Reassign Users
Delete a Schedule
Click the trash icon in the upper-right corner of the schedule card. Any users assigned to the deleted schedule will automatically be reassigned to the Default schedule.
Note: The Default schedule cannot be deleted.
Dashboards utilizing Work Schedules
Best practices
If your focus is on workforce management or schedule compliance features: Configure schedules for all tracked Users, depending on whether they have a fixed schedule or work flexible hours.
If your goal is basic monitoring: Schedules are optional but enhance reporting accuracy.
Fixed Hours schedules
Users with fixed schedules have predictable work hours that repeat weekly or on a regular cadence
- Define exact start and end times for each workday
- Include breaks if they affect expected productive hours
Flexible Hours schedules
Users working flexible hours may have non-standard schedules or be held to daily productivity goals rather than specific hours of the day.
- Enable the Flexible Hours toggle on the schedule to hide start, end, and break time fields
- Assign which days the users work (for example, Monday through Thursday)
- Time-specific features are automatically disabled for these users (i.e., Late Start or Early End)
Mixed teams
Many organizations have teams with different schedules or a combination of fixed and flexible hours schedules.
- Create different templates for each unique schedule
- Assign team members to their respective schedules
- View all team members in the same Schedule Adherence reports or apply filters to focus on Users with specific schedule types
Why this works: Keeping everyone scheduled ensures day-level insights stay accurate across your entire workforce.
Timezone Considerations
Understanding how time zones affect schedule evaluation helps ensure accurate reporting. The time zone used to evaluate Work Schedules depends on your account's Time Zone Settings.
If your team spans multiple time zones, review your Time Zone Settings to determine whether separate schedule templates are needed for users in different regions. If you're using User Time Zone mode, schedules automatically adjust to each user's local time, so separate templates for different regions aren't necessary.
Note: Schedules that cross midnight are not currently supported.
Time Off and HRIS integration
Connect your HRIS from day one to automatically sync time-off data with schedules.
- For Time Off periods that span multiple days (like “40 hours” or “10 days”), we allocate those days according to the working days defined in each User’s schedule – whether fixed hours or flexible hours
- If a User has Time Off but no assigned schedule, we default to a Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule to allocate Time Off days
Rollout steps
Follow these steps to configure schedules across your organization:
- Set your organization's default schedule template: Create a baseline that reflects your most common work pattern.
- Assign Users working Flexible Hours to schedules, too: Ensure the accuracy of productivity and time off calculations by identifying each user’s expected work days
- Enable Productivity Signals for fixed schedule Users: Turn on attendance alerts and validate reports with a pilot group before full rollout.
Quality checks
After configuring schedules, validate your setup:
- Review false positives: If certain Users consistently trigger Late Start and/or Early End alerts, they may be working Flexible Hours. Validate and modify their schedule as needed.
- Check weekend and holiday flags: Compare detected weekend/holiday work against your organization's actual policies
- Audit low-activity alerts: Review low activity on active days flags to ensure they reflect real attendance issues, not schedule mismatches
Track Schedules
A tracking schedule defines when ActivTrak monitors and records User activity data. It determines the specific days and hours during which the software actively tracks computer usage, ensuring data collection aligns with your business needs and User work patterns.
The default schedule in ActivTrak is 24/7; however, Admins can set Agent schedules to limit tracking to specific hours for each user. To make adjustments, navigate to Settings > Schedules > Track tab.
Notes:
- The schedule dictates when the Agent gathers user activity and when it does not, so changes to the schedule are not retroactive, and data cannot be generated later to account for schedule changes.
- Tracking Schedules are always evaluated against the device's local time zone, regardless of your account's Time Zone Settings configuration. It is important to understand the impact of both local time zones and daylight saving time (DST) when deviating from the default 24/7 schedule, as tracking may occur at unintended hours.
- Your Account Time Zone affects how activity data is displayed in reports and dashboards, but does not affect when the Agent collects data.
There are three sections on the Tracking tab:
- The left side displays a list of all Tracking Schedules in the account. New accounts begin with the 24/7 “Default Schedule (Auto)”. All users are assigned to the Default Schedule when they first report to the account.
- The top-right half of the page shows a list of all Users for the Tracking Schedule selected on the left side. If "All Schedules" is selected, it will list all users along with the Tracking Schedule that applies to each.
- The bottom-right half of the page will show a preview of the tracking hours for the schedule selected on the left side. A yellow rectangle indicates the current time in the Account Time Zone.
Create a Tracking Schedule
Clicking the teal Create Schedule button will open a new, editable page with a default 24/7 schedule. Name the Schedule and click Custom, or click the Regular Working Hours button for a pre-filled Monday-through-Friday schedule from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM with a 12:00-1:00 AM lunch break.
- Click and drag the edges of a segment to modify the start and end times
- Click and drag within the middle of a segment to shift it
- Double-click a segment to delete it
- Add a new segment by hovering over the desired start time and clicking within the schedule. Then drag to adjust as usual.
- The Clear All button can be used to start from scratch
- Click the Save button at the bottom of the page
Select any Tracking Schedule (excluding the Default Schedule) from the left to Edit, Duplicate or Delete the schedule using the buttons that appear on the right side of the screen.
Frequently asked questions
When does a week start and end in ActivTrak?
ActivTrak tracks weeks from Monday to Sunday. You can't customize when your week starts and ends – it's set to this standard business week format across all dashboards.
How do I move Users between Tracking Schedules?
To move users between schedules, go to Settings > Schedules > Track tab and find the user you want to move:
- Select a specific schedule or choose All Schedules
- Use the search boxes in the User, Domain, or User Alias columns to quickly find specific Users
- Check the box next to the User(s) you want to move
- Pick the new schedule from the dropdown menu and click the Move Selected Users button
For example, if someone's currently on the Support Team Schedule and you want to move them to the Default Schedule, check their box, select Default Schedule from the dropdown, and hit the teal Move Selected Users button.
How do I "pause tracking" for a period of time?
Sometimes, you may need to “pause” the Agent or stop tracking a specific user for a period. For example, if a User is going on vacation and will be taking their computer with them, instead of uninstalling ActivTrak (which requires a reinstall when they return), you can create a blank schedule and move the user to that schedule. When they return, you can resume their original schedule.
- Click the green Create Schedule button
- Name the schedule (e.g., Blank Schedule, Vacation Schedule, etc.)
- Click Clear All to remove all blue tracking segments
- Click Save
Once saved, users who are moved to this schedule will not be tracked until they are moved to a different, non-blank schedule.
How do Tracking Schedules work with different time zones, Daylight Saving, etc.?
The rule of thumb for Tracking Schedules in ActivTrak is that they always follow the time set on each local device, regardless of your Account Time Zone configuration.
In most cases, computers automatically adjust when daylight saving time (DST) is in effect, so schedules do not need to be modified. One exception is when someone's work hours change due to DST.
For example, a team is based in the United States, with Users in Texas (US Central Time Zone) and California (US Pacific Time Zone). The ActivTrak Account Time Zone is set to US Central Time Zone. The company wishes to track the Support team only during their working hours.
If the team members in California work 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM PT, the ActivTrak schedules should be set from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. In the Activity Log, Activity Date/Time (Account Time Zone) timestamps indicate that team members in California work from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM; ActivTrak is converting their schedule to the US Central Time Zone. However, Activity Date/Time (User Time Zone) timestamps (if displayed) will reflect their 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM schedule.
A different company is based in the United States, and its Support Team operates from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM US Central Time. Most of the team is located within the US Central Time Zone, and the ActivTrak Account Time Zone is set to US Central Time. However, part of the team works out of Jamaica (in the US Eastern Time Zone). Since most of the US observes Daylight Saving Time (DST) but Jamaica does not, the entire team is on the same time for half the year. For the other half of the year, Jamaican team members are one hour ahead. The company wishes to track the Support team only during their working hours.
- Everyone follows an 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM work schedule in their local time zone year-round. Between November and March, Jamaican Users will continue working from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM in their local time zone, while their American coworkers start an hour later and end an hour later. In this scenario, the Tracking Schedule for everyone is set to 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM year-round, as all team members work within this time frame in their local time zone. In the Activity Log, Activity Date/Time (Account Time Zone) timestamps (if displayed) will reflect 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM for all Users for the entire year. Since the ActivTrak account is set to US Central, Activity Date/Time (Account Time Zone) timestamps in the Activity Log will reflect 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM for all Users for half the year, but will show Jamaican Users working between 7:00 AM and 4:00 PM for the other half.
- Everyone follows an 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM work schedule, aligning with the US Central Time Zone. Between March and November, when the US Central Time Zone and Jamaica are in the same time zone, all Users work 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM in their local time zone. Between November and March (DST), Jamaican Users start work at 9:00 AM and end at 6:00 PM. The ActivTrak schedules for Jamaican Users must be shifted from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, then shifted back to 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM between March and November. In the Activity Log, Activity Date/Time (Account Time Zone) timestamps will reflect an 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM schedule for all Users for the entire year. Since the ActivTrak account is set to US Central, Activity Date/Time (Account Time Zone) timestamps (if set to display) in the Activity Log will reflect an 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM schedule for all Users for half the year, but show that the Jamaican Users are working between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM for the other half.