Contents
- What are Productivity Signals?
- Before you start
- Plan availability
- Productivity Signal types
- Notification timing
- Setting up a Productivity Signal
- Managing your Productivity Signals
- Viewing Productivity Signal history
- Best practices
- Learn more
What are Productivity Signals?
Productivity Signals deliver bite-sized, actionable workforce insights directly into leaders' and managers' workflows. Think of them as your early warning system for schedule adherence and productivity patterns.
Productivity Signals help you:
- Monitor team schedule adherence in real time
- Get timely alerts about attendance issues
- Take quick action when team members need support
- Reduce time spent checking reports and dashboards
Signals vs. Alarms
While Compliance Alarms focus on IT security and compliance monitoring with immediate alerts, Productivity Signals are designed for workforce management productivity optimization. They use server-side intelligence to generate team-level digest summaries that are delivered at optimal times, making them ideal for managers and operational leaders.
Before you start
You will need Work Schedules set up before you can use Productivity Signals. Signals evaluate user activity against assigned schedules to determine when to send notifications.
Don't have Work Schedules configured yet? Check out our Creating Schedules guide to get started.
Plan availability
Productivity Signals work across all paid ActivTrak plans.
All paid plans include:
- Three types of Schedule Adherence Productivity Signals
- Email delivery to all admins or any recipient (with or without ActivTrak App access)
- Basic configuration and logging
Enterprise Signals (Add-on) includes:
- Multi-channel delivery (Teams, Slack, webhooks)
- Deep links to filtered reports
- Advanced configuration options
Note: The Enterprise Signals (Add-on) launches soon
Productivity Signal types
Choose from three kinds of Schedule Adherence Productivity Signals:
Late Start
Triggers when users begin working 15 minutes after their scheduled start time.
What you'll see:
- Summary: "3 members of the Sales team logged on late"
- Details: List of affected users with their assigned start times
- Action: Direct link to Schedule Adherence
Important: The Late Start column on the Schedule Adherence dashboard flags any start that occurs after the scheduled start time, while the late start Productivity Signal triggers when an employee starts 15 or more minutes after their scheduled time. This means an employee can show Yes in the Late Start column without generating a signal notification.
Early End
Triggers when users stop working before their scheduled end time.
What you'll see:
- Summary: "2 members of the Support team logged off early"
- Details: List of affected users with their actual end times
- Action: Direct link to Schedule Adherence
Incomplete Day
Triggers when users work fewer productive hours than expected based on their schedule.
What you'll see:
- Summary: "4 members of the Marketing team didn't complete a full day"
- Details: List of affected users with their total productive hours
- Action: Direct link to Schedule Adherence
For Users assigned Flexible Hours schedules: Schedule Adherence Productivity Signals will not trigger, since there are no defined start/end times to measure against
Notification timing
Attendance notifications are designed to run at specific intervals to minimize false positives while providing timely alerts:
Late start
ActivTrak checks for late starts hourly throughout the workday; notifications are sent at least 30 minutes after the late start was recorded, based on data refresh.
Example: If an employee is scheduled to start at 9:00 AM but their first activity is at 9:16 AM, the Late start notification will be triggered at 10:00 AM.
Early end
ActivTrak checks for early ends at the start of the following workday to ensure all activity data from the previous day has been fully processed.
Example: If an employee is scheduled until 5:00 PM but their last activity is at 4:37 PM, the notification will be sent the next workday.
Incomplete day
ActivTrak checks for incomplete days at the start of the following workday to ensure all activity data from the previous day has been fully processed.
Example: If an employee is scheduled for 8 hours but records only 7 hours of total work time, the notification will be sent on the next workday.
Note: Early end and Incomplete day notifications are processed the following business day to account for any delayed data uploads from users with intermittent network connections. This is subject to change during Early Access.
Setting up a Productivity Signal
Ready to create your first Productivity Signal? Here's how:
- Navigate to APIs & Integrations > Productivity Signals and click the Configuration tab.
- Click Add Signal
- Configure your new Signal from the panel on the right:
Groups: Pick which teams to monitor or select "All Groups"
Type: Choose Late Start, Early End, or Incomplete Day
Delivery: Choose a delivery channel
- Email: Available now - just enter recipient email addresses (e.g., managers, HR and other stakeholders) - they don’t need ActivTrak App access
- Microsoft Teams: Coming with Enterprise Signals (Add-on)
- Slack: Coming with Enterprise Signals (Add-on)
- Custom Webhooks: Coming with Enterprise Signals (Add-on)
- Review your settings and click Add Signal
- On the Configurations tab, make sure your Productivity Signal says “Enabled” in the Status column. If it doesn’t, click Enable from the three-dot menu to the right.
Note: Productivity Signals evaluate activity against each user's assigned Work Schedule, so make sure your team members are properly assigned to schedules.
Managing your Productivity Signals
Configuration overview
The Productivity Signals Configuration tab shows everything at a glance:
- Type: Late Start, Early End or Incomplete Day
- Groups: Which teams you're monitoring
- Recipients: Who gets a Productivity Signal
- Channels: Email, Teams, Slack, or webhook icons
- Last Triggered: When a Productivity Signal last sent a notification
- Status: Quickly check if a Productivity Signal is enabled
- Three-dot menu: Edit, Disable and Delete a Productivity Signal
Making changes
Click Edit from the three-dot menu next to any Productivity Signal to update the type, groups, recipients, or delivery channels. Your changes save immediately.
Quick controls
Use the three-dot menu to temporarily disable any Productivity Signal without losing your configuration. Perfect for vacation periods or schedule changes.
Viewing Productivity Signal history
The Log tab tracks every Productivity Signal sent:
- Type: Which Productivity Signal triggered
- Groups: Which teams were evaluated
- Recipients: Who got notified
- Sent At: Exact timestamp
- Channels: How it was delivered
Finding what you need
Filter the Log by:
- Date range: Focus on specific time periods
- Type: Look at Late Start, Early End or Incomplete Day
- Group: Check activity for specific teams
Note: The Log shows when a notification went out, not the detailed content. For specifics on which users triggered each Productivity Signal, check the notification itself or use the provided report links.
Best practices
Start small
Test with one Productivity Signal type for a specific team. This helps you understand how Productivity
Signals work and fine-tune your approach.
Choose the right recipients
Send notifications to people who can actually respond - usually direct managers or HR partners who work with those teams.
Include key stakeholders
Add HR team members or other leaders who need visibility into attendance patterns, even if they don't have access to ActivTrak.
Monitor and adjust
Check your Signal Log regularly. If you receive too many notifications, consider adjusting schedule expectations or recipient lists.
Plan for different channels
Email works well for detailed information and report links. When you upgrade to Enterprise Signals, use Teams and Slack for more immediate alerts requiring quick responses.
Use Groups effectively
Organize your teams into logical Groups before setting up Signals. This makes configuration easier and notifications more relevant.
Learn more
Questions about Productivity Signals? Our Support Team can help you get everything set up and running smoothly.