When measuring active time, productive time, etc. Teramind will only take into account the focused/active window. For example, if you see that a user was active on "youtube.com" for X amount of time, it means the user remained on the YouTube window/tab for X amount of time and didn't change to any other window/tab or application.
Overview
Teramind offers several reports, including BI Reports > Productivity and Employees > Time Worked, to help you understand and measure employee productivity. Additionally, you can create productivity rules to encourage optimal workforce efficiency.
Teramind tracks various productivity metrics, such as Active Time, Idle Time, Productive Time, and Unproductive Time. While some of these are straightforward, others may require a bit more explanation for new users.
This video provides an overview of some of the key metrics we track:
The following section provides a more detailed explanation of each metric:
Key Time Measurements
Active Time
This simply measures the time the user spent actively using their keyboard or mouse.
Idle Time
This is the time when there was no activity on the keyboard or mouse.
It's important to know that idle time only starts being counted after a certain period (called "Idle Time Threshold"). You can define it in the Applications monitoring settings panel.
Example: If the threshold is 10 minutes, and someone doesn't touch their mouse or keyboard for 15 minutes, the recorded Idle Time will be 5 minutes (the time after the 10-minute threshold).
Work Time
This is the time an employee was actually doing work.
It's made up of Active Time and Idle Time.
This helps you see how many hours an employee has "clocked in" during a specific period.
For Hidden Agents: It's the time they were logged into their computer, not including periods when their screen was locked.
For Revealed Agents: It's the time a task was started and active within the Agent interface.
Worktime: Wage
This shows the total amount of wages an employee earned during the selected time frame.
This calculation is based on the hourly or salary rate you've entered for that employee in their profile.
To set up wages: Go to the EMPLOYEES menu, select an employee, click EDIT INFO, and find the PERSONAL INFO tab where you can set their pay rate.
For more details, see the Entering / Editing Employee Profiles section in the Teramind User Guide.
Session Time
This is the total time a user was logged into their computer.
Think of it as the entire duration their "work session" was active on the computer.
It includes the time they were actively working (Work Time) plus any time their screen was locked (like when a screensaver was on or they used the Lock command).
For Hidden Agents: It's all the time they were logged into their Windows or macOS account, minus any time the monitoring was disconnected.
For Revealed Agents: It's the total time the Revealed Agent was running, excluding any disconnections.
Productive Time
This is the time spent on websites and applications you've classified as "Productive."
Like Work Time, this metric includes both the Active Time and Idle Time.
To learn how to classify websites and applications as productive, check out the CONFIGURE > Productivity Profiles section in the Teramind User Guide.
Productive No Idle Time
This is similar to Productive Time, but it only includes the Active Time spent on "Productive" sites/apps by the user.
Productive Idle Time
This is similar to Productive Time, but it only includes the Idle Time spent on "Productive" sites/apps by the user.
Unproductive Time
This is the time spent on websites and applications you've classified as "Unproductive."
Like Work Time, this metric includes both the Active Time and Idle Time.
It's important to note that only activities specifically labeled as "Unproductive" will count here. If something isn't classified, it won't be included in this measurement.
To learn how to classify websites and applications as unproductive, check out the CONFIGURE > Productivity Profiles section in the Teramind User Guide.
Unproductive No Idle Time
This is similar to Unproductive Time, but it only includes the Active Time spent on "Unproductive" sites/apps by the user.
Unproductive Idle Time
This is similar to Unproductive Time, but it only includes the Idle Time spent on "Unproductive" sites/apps by the user.
Unclassified Time
This is the time spent on websites/applications for which you haven't been assigned any classification label, such as "Productive" or "Unproductive".
It's import to note that it also includes time spent on websites and applications you've specifically classified as "Unclassified".
To learn how to classify websites and applications, check out the CONFIGURE > Productivity Profiles section in the Teramind User Guide.
Unclassified No Idle Time
This is similar to Unclassified Time, but it only includes the Active Time spent on "Unclassified" sites/apps by the user.
Unclassified Idle Time
This is similar to Unclassified Time, but it only includes the Idle Time spent on "Unclassified" sites/apps by the user.
Time Focused
The Time Focused and Total Time Focused metrics are specifically used with Activity-based rules for Applications or Websites. You won't see them in the standard productivity reports.
Time Focused detects if a user stayed on a particular application for a specific amount of time, regardless of whether they were actively using it or not. As long as they didn't switch to another app, the rule can be triggered.
Total Time Active / Total Time Idle / Total Time Focused
You'll only find these "Total" metrics when using Activity-based rules for Applications or Websites. They won't appear in standard productivity reports.
While similar to their counterparts in other reports, these metrics track the total time accumulated throughout the day and reset at the end of the day. This reset happens when the date of the last total time update differs from the current date. For the reset, the user's local time zone is followed.
Activity (%)
This shows the average level of activity during the selected time period.
It's calculated by looking at activity levels in 5-minute chunks.
A score of 100% means the user was either typing quickly (40+ words per minute) or actively using the mouse with few breaks.
A score of 0% means the user was completely inactive.
Color Guide: Some reports (e.g., Screen Snapshots, Time Cards, etc.) visually represent the activity levels. The color table below shows the activity percentage for those reports:
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why is the Session Time 0 for the current date?
Session Time, as well as Productive Time / Unproductive Time and some others time values may be calculated with some delay, up to several hours, especially in Cloud hosted deployments.
2. Why is the Session Time greater than 24 hours for a single day?
This can happen if an employee is logged into more than one computer that is being monitored. Each computer's session is tracked separately. You can add the Computer column to your BI Reports > Productivity report to see the time totals for each computer the employee was logged into.
3. Why is the Work Time greater than the Session Time?
This can occur if the Teramind Stealth/Hidden Agent was offline for a period (perhaps due to a network issue). If the "Offline Recording" option is enabled in the Monitoring Profile, the Agent will continue to record activity and Work Time, but it won't be able to track Session Time during the disconnection.
4. Why is the Work Time less than the Productive Time for some users?
This could happen if some applications were running in the background while the user was not actively using their computer (i.e., they were idle). These background apps might have been classified as "Productive," thus contributing to Productive Time but not Work Time (which includes active and idle time without a locked screen).
This was more common in older versions of the Teramind Agent. In the latest versions, Productive Time is no longer tracked when the screen is locked, just like Work Time. If you see this issue, please update your Agent. You can find instructions in the How to update the Teramind Agent remotely article.
5. Why is the Work Time reported on the Productivity Report different from the Dashboard Widgets?
The Online Employees widget on a Dashboard shows the Work Time only for the computer an employee is currently working on. Productivity reports, however, summarize the total Work Time across all computers the user worked on during the day.
For Work Time to be accurately recorded, especially with a Stealth/Hidden Agent, the Agent needs to have a task assigned. A default task is usually configured, but if it has been reset, Work Time might stop being counted.
To fix this issue follow these steps:
Change the Default Task from the Agent Default Settings. After assigning or reassigning a default task, the Agent needs to reconnect.
Restart the computer to ensure the Agent reconnects and starts tracking worked time towards the newly assigned task.
6. How are times recorded for websites that are set to "DON'T MONITOR..."?
When using the DON’T MONITOR WEB TRAFFIC FOR THESE IPS/WEBSITES setting is used (available under Websites Monitoring Settings), the time log is affected as follows:
DON’T MONITOR WEB TRAFFIC FOR THESE IPS will not affect the time log.
DON’T MONITOR WEB TRAFFIC FOR THESE WEBSITES will affect the time log. It will still count Work Time, Active Time and Idle Time. However, the sum of time when excluded webpages are in use will not add up to Time Worked since the webpage activity will not appear in the report.