ActivTrak’s workforce analytics help address various business challenges — from ensuring compliance against expected hours and hybrid work policy to improving productivity and workforce planning. To customize your experience within the ActivTrak platform, including surfacing the most relevant data insights, we recommend setting up your account according to your organization’s specific use case via Guided Account Setup.
Guided Account Setup is a feature that asks you a series of questions to determine your organization’s use cases and privacy preferences. Based on that information, it tailors how your account looks and functions, including showing or hiding specific reports and dashboards.
Before You Begin: Understanding Data Collection and Privacy
Important: ActivTrak will not collect or display any data until you deploy the ActivTrak Agent to your devices. The setup process below customizes your account interface and preferences, but actual workforce analytics begin only after agent deployment.
What is the ActivTrak Agent?
The ActivTrak Agent is a lightweight software application that you install on employee devices (computers, laptops) to collect workforce analytics data. The agent runs quietly in the background and captures information about application usage, website visits and activity patterns while respecting the privacy settings you configure.
Privacy and Data Protection
ActivTrak is designed with privacy as a priority. During setup, you'll configure:
- Role-based access controls: Assign user roles that determine which data and settings each person can view and configure, enabling data sharing while protecting sensitive information about other users
- Sensitive data visibility controls: Configure data privacy levels to hide granular details like title bars, detailed URLs and screenshots from reports while still tracking general application and website usage
- Activity classifications: Define what constitutes productive vs. unproductive time for your organization
- User permissions: Control which team members have access to different types of data
Your privacy settings take effect immediately, ensuring that when you do deploy agents, data collection aligns with your organization's privacy standards and employee expectations.
Key Points
- Set Up First, Data Later: Complete account setup to customize your experience, then deploy agents to start collecting data
- Privacy by Design: Configure data visibility, exclusions and access controls before any monitoring begins
- Tailored Experience: Answer questions about your use case, company size and role to see relevant dashboards and reports
- Agent Required: No workforce analytics data appears until you install the ActivTrak Agent on devices
- Guided Process: Step-by-step setup includes account preferences, alarm configuration, activity classification and team insights
- Flexible Deployment: You can explore the platform interface first, then deploy agents when ready to begin data collection
Contents
- Getting started
- Account data settings
- Out-of-the-box Alarms
- Classifications
- Top Users and Groups
- Learn more
Getting started
- When you first create a new ActivTrak account, you'll see a welcome message with the option to customize your experience. Click 'Get started' to launch Guided Account Setup. Guided Account Setup appears immediately after account creation. If you’re an Admin and don’t see it appear, another Admin likely completed it.
- Once launched, you’ll see a prompt to select a workforce priority your organization wants to solve with ActivTrak.
- Tell us a little about yourself. We'll ask about your role and why you're setting up ActivTrak. This helps us tailor your experience to better match your needs and goals.
- What's your company size? Select the option that best represents your organization's employee count. This information helps us provide relevant benchmarks and recommendations.
- How do you want to see your data? Choose your preferred Sensitive Data Visibility level:
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- Basic Details: High-level data on the applications and websites will be shown (e.g., Slack, Excel, activtrak.com, app.activtrak.com)
- Advanced Details: Basic details plus the title bars and full URLs (e.g., Slack Company Updates - ActivTrak - Slack; Excel Q3 Budget Spreadsheet; activtrak.com/resources ActivTrak Resources; app.activtrak.com/#/app/homepage/management Home - Team Management - ActivTrak)
- Full Details: All Advanced details plus Screen Details (Add-on)
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- Ready to see your data in ActivTrak? You can download the ActivTrak Agent to start collecting data right away, or skip this step to explore the application first.
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- I want my data now: Click the teal Download Agent button to download the ActivTrak Agent and start collecting data immediately. Then, use the Share dropdown menu to share the agent link with others.
- Let me explore: If you choose this option, you can navigate through ActivTrak's Dashboards, Reports and Features to understand the platform layout and capabilities before deploying agents. This allows you to see how data will be organized and presented once collection begins.
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For other installation methods, including remote and silent installs, see the ActivTrak Agent Deployment Guide. For assistance, contact ActivTrak Support.
Important
You will not see any workforce analytics data until you deploy the ActivTrak Agent to your devices. The platform will display sample layouts and empty reports until agent installation is complete.
- If you choose to skip installing the Agent, you'll see a blue banner with a download agent button on all pages until at least one agent is deployed. This reminder ensures you can quickly start data collection when ready.
- After you either install the Agent or if you choose to explore the ActivTrak App, you'll land on the Team Pulse page. If one or more agents are activated, you'll see those users' data displayed here.
Please note: The Team Pulse page, along with other Live Reports, will load data right away. Anything under the Insights menu will populate data within 24 hours.
- In-app checklist with guided tours, education and progress tracking. The Get started with ActivTrak checklist walks you through configuring critical settings, turning on out-of-the-box alarms, handling pending classifications and exploring the Top Users & Groups report.
Note: If you close the checklist, you can always reopen it by clicking the purple question mark icon in the bottom right corner of the ActivTrak App.
Account data settings
- Review your data settings. Check and confirm the privacy and data collection preferences you selected during initial setup. These settings determine what information ActivTrak collects and how it's displayed in your account.
- Sensitive data visibility. Choose how to handle potentially sensitive information. You can exclude specific applications or websites to protect employee privacy while still gathering productivity insights.
- Passive Time settings. Configure how ActivTrak monitors and records periods of inactivity. These settings help distinguish between actual breaks and times when users are engaged in offline work activities.
- Active Time settings. Define parameters for what constitutes productive working time. These settings help create accurate productivity reports that reflect your organization's unique work patterns.
- Walkthrough complete. Once you've completed your account data settings, you'll receive confirmation that your preferences have been saved. Your ActivTrak account is now configured to deliver insights based on your specific needs.
Upon exiting Guided Account Setup, your privacy settings will apply across your ActivTrak account. Make updates to these settings in Settings > Account Configuration.
Out-of-the-box Alarms
- How to turn on ActivTrak's out-of-the-box alarms. Enable preset alarms to receive notifications about important productivity trends, potential security concerns or unusual activity patterns. These ready-to-use alarms help you stay informed without requiring complex setup.
Classifications
- Classify & categorize activities. Organize applications and websites into categories that align with your business objectives. This categorization forms the foundation for meaningful productivity analysis.
- Ordered by total usage. View applications and websites ranked by the amount of time spent using them. This helps you focus on classifying the most frequently used tools first.
- See all activities. Review a comprehensive list of all applications and websites used across your organization. This complete view ensures nothing is overlooked in your classification process.
- Choose a category. Assign each application or website to a specific category that represents its purpose or department, such as Communication, Design, or Finance.
- Choose a productivity status. Based on your organization's unique definition of productivity, determine whether each application or website should be considered productive, unproductive, or neutral.
- Walkthrough complete. After completing your classifications, you'll receive confirmation that your changes have been saved. Your productivity data will now reflect these customized classifications.
Top Users and Groups
- Welcome to Top Users and Groups. This is an introduction to the Top Users & Groups report, which provides insights into productivity patterns across your organization.
- Add to Favorites. Save the report to your favorites for quick access to this important data in the future.