Active time
Time with real keyboard or mouse input while the tracker runs. This is the number hours-based billing and capacity planning should be built on.
Time tracking
Employee time tracking software
Work hours measured from real activity rather than estimated at the end of the week, attributed to the project they belong to, and reported over any date range. Screenshots are a separate setting you can leave switched off.
- Windows · macOS · Ubuntu
- Works offline
- Screenshots optional
- Hours per project
What gets measured
Time tracking here answers one question: how many hours went into which project, and how much of that time had someone actually working. It is not a productivity score and it does not rank employees against each other.
Idle time
Reported as its own figure rather than folded into the total. A long meeting looks like idle time, which is exactly why the two are never merged.
Hours per project and task
Time lands against the project and task the employee selected, so the client report and the sprint retrospective read from the same record.
Application and window titles
Sampled through the day so a manager can see the shape of the work. Content inside those applications is never read.
Activity percentage
A simple ratio of input activity to elapsed time, shown alongside each period so a low number can be explained rather than assumed.
Screenshots, if you enable them
At a random gap between 2 and 10 minutes by default, capped at 15. Off by default on new teams.
Reported time versus measured time
Both are legitimate. They answer different questions and cost different amounts of trust, so it is worth being deliberate about which one you need.
| Daily work reports (browser only) | Desktop tracker | |
|---|---|---|
| What it gives you | Hours and completion as reported by the employee | Hours as measured from activity |
| Install needed | No | Yes, a native app |
| Good for | Salaried teams, internal projects, low-friction rollout | Client billing, remote teams, hourly work |
| Employee friction | Low | Higher — needs a conversation before rollout |
| Works offline | Written later | Yes |
| Included in | All plans | Growth and above |
What the tracker will never do
Published up front, because the question your team will ask is not what it records but what it does not.
Recorded
- Active and idle time from real input activity
- Application and window titles, sampled
- Keystroke and click counts, as a number only
- Screenshots, only when you enable them
- Start and stop times against the employee account
Never recorded
- What is typed. There is no keylogger in the product
- Camera or microphone, on any plan
- Anything after the employee stops the tracker
- Personal files, browser history or message content
- Anything hidden — the tray icon stays visible while recording
The full position, including what employees can see about themselves, is on the privacy page and the employee monitoring page.
Frequently asked questions about time tracking
What is employee time tracking software?
Employee time tracking software records how much time was spent working and, usually, on what. Employee Desk measures active and idle time through an optional desktop app, attributes hours to projects and tasks, and reports the totals over any date range.
How is active time measured?
From real keyboard and mouse activity while the tracker is running, not from the application simply being open. Periods without input become idle time, which is reported separately rather than counted as work.
Does time tracking require screenshots?
No. Screenshots are a separate setting on the Pro plan and can be left off entirely. Plenty of teams run time tracking with screenshots disabled, which gives them hours and activity without any image capture at all.
Can employees see their own tracked time?
Yes. Every employee sees their own day, their active and idle split and their screenshots if screenshots are enabled. There is no view a manager has that the employee cannot see about themselves.
What happens if the internet drops?
The desktop app keeps recording and queues everything on the local disk. When the connection returns it uploads the backlog in order, so a dropped connection does not leave a gap in the timesheet.
Can we track time without installing anything?
Attendance and daily work reports work entirely in the browser, which gives you hours per day and hours per project from what people report. The desktop app is what turns that into measured rather than reported time.
Is tracked time suitable for client billing?
Yes. Hours are attributed to a project and a task, so per-client and per-project totals export as CSV for an invoice. Teams billing hourly usually run the tracker with screenshots off and rely on the activity percentage instead.
Measure the hours before you plan around them
Roll the tracker out to one team first. Screenshots off, activity on, and see whether the numbers change how you plan the next sprint.
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