Boost Productivity and Easily Track Hybrid Teams With Insightful.io - 56juqingba: How-to instructions you can trust

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Table of Contents

Pros

Easy setup
Track time, attendance, and projects
Detailed insights
Real-time data

Cons

Can get expensive for larger teams
No automatic project tracking with base plans

Our Rating

Trying to manage a remote team isn’t easy, especially when you’re trying to keep everyone productive. Keep track of who is actively working and who is not by using an employee monitoring tool like Insightful.io. Use it to track time for your entire team, and get reports to better understand how your employees work.

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by Insightful.io. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author, who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.

Content

What Is Insightful.io?

Insightful.io is a cloud-based employee-monitoring and time-tracking software. It works on both company-issued and personal computers. Simply set up the type of tracking you want to use, such as only while working on a set project or manually clocking in/out, invite your employees, and start monitoring their time.

The tool lets you take screenshots randomly and on-demand to see whether employees are spending more time working or more time goofing off on social media and other distractions.

For remote teams, it’s an easy way to track schedules, no matter what time zone your employees are in.

Setting Up Initial Tracking and Monitoring

Getting started with Insightful.io is a surprisingly straightforward process. They even offer a 7-day free trial with no credit card required. You must have a work email to sign up as an employer. Personal emails, such as a Yahoo address, won’t be accepted. Employees can use any provider.

During the initial setup, you’re asked to choose whether you’re using Insightful on company or personal computers, then choose your tracking type. For my review, I chose Personal Computers so that I could test it on my own laptop.

For the tracking type, I opted for Manual. You can also choose Project-based to only track time when an employee is working on a project. You have to set the rules for projects so that the software knows what to track and when. For Manual, employees clock in/out like they would at the office.

Each time-tracking type allows you to take screenshots. Choose how many screenshots per hour. This lets you quickly see if employees are working on the correct apps/tasks or using personal sites/apps instead.

Finally, you invite employees. If you want to do a little more setup first, skip this step, and proceed to the main dashboard. The dashboard itself is a clean, minimal interface with simple navigation and clear menus. Honestly, you’ll likely learn the basics in just minutes.

Exploring the Insightful.io Dashboard

Obviously, you won’t see much data until you set up your employees. After that crucial step, data starts populating in real time. The dashboard has 11 sections:

Productivity trends – overall trends for productivity, employees, teams, and categories for the day or a set time period. You can also compare the data with previous days.
Real-time insights – see a list of all employees, whether they’re active or not, and what app/site they’re currently using.
Alerts set up and review alerts, such as an employee not clocking in or taking an extended break.
Employees – a list of employees. Set up their pay rate, team, and alias. Click any employee to view more details, including charts, apps used, screenshots, and more.
Teams – a list of any teams you’ve set up. The default is Default Team.
Screenshots – view all screenshots for a selected time period.
Time and attendance – keep track of all employees, their shifts, and attendance.
Activities – view a timeline of an employee’s activity, and see logs of every app/site used, along with how long each was used.

Projects – set up projects and assign tasks to employees. View details of how much time employees have spent on those tasks and projects.
Reports – view reports on apps/websites used, work type, and location.
Settings – set up and customize nearly everything about Insightful.io. You can even search for settings. Change reports, time tracking, organizational setup, security, privacy, locations, and much more.

Assigning Projects and Tasks

To help keep employees on track, assign them to projects and individual tasks. You can assign teams or individual employees to any project or task you want. A nice feature is integrations with projects. Do you currently have projects listed in Trello or Asana or other popular project-management tools?

Insightful.io integrates with numerous other apps. Pull in data from those apps for a more comprehensive look at what employees are doing, and automatically populate tasks so employees know what to work on.

For employees to see tasks, you do have to change a few settings. In the Settings section, select Tracking Settings, and edit your tracking type. Ensure all permissions at the bottom are checked so that employees can view their activity and track time on tasks.

Employees then see details of tasks and clock in on specific tasks when they’re working on them.

Using Insightful as an Employee

The employee side of the Insightful.io platform is just as easy to use, though with far fewer settings. I installed Insightful, the desktop-tracking app, on my Windows laptop. I used a different email and invited myself to the team. Once I received the invitation, I just had to set up a username and password and choose a Windows, Mac, or Linux installer.

I was ready to clock in within a few minutes. Clocking in was as easy as tapping the Clock In button. I could then view my total time and see my assigned tasks in the Time Tracking tab.

Employees also have their own web-based dashboard, which they access from the Insightful app. The dashboard looks similar to the main dashboard and shows them their activity, attendance, and reports on what apps and sites they’ve used. This is a good way to help employees see where their time is being used to increase their productivity.

As with the main dashboard, an employee just needs to click their name to view their activity. Employees can even update their time manually if needed. Of course, the company can review these details and edit as needed.

Using Insightful for Time Tracking

I’ve used other employee-monitoring tools, and Insightful is the easiest to set up and manage. There isn’t any complicated installation, and the settings couldn’t be more straightforward.

For instance, when I installed Insightful and clocked in, my activity immediately appeared in the main Insightful dashboard (company view). Screenshots popped up at regular intervals for me to review. And, from an employee perspective, there weren’t any distractions from the Insightful app, and I never noticed when a screenshot was being taken.

To fully see productive time, you do have to set up tags, sites, and apps for Insightful to know what you consider productive. Otherwise, you just see active and idle time, along with what an employee is actively using. Productivity Trends changes in real-time to show you an overview of all teams and employees.

Of course, you can check Employees and Teams to see more details on them. When you click on an employee, you also see all their screenshots in one place.

Insightful.io Pricing

After the free trial, choose a premium plan. There are four to choose from, along with add-ons:

Productivity Management – $6.40/user/month – includes most tracking and attendance features but doesn’t include projects and tasks.
Time Tracking – $8/user/month – includes everything in Productivity Management and gives you projects and tasks management too.
Process Improvement – $12/user/month – includes everything from the previous plans and offers process optimization and workflow data as well.
Enterprise – Custom pricing – includes all other features, add-ons, extra security features, and better customer service options.

Premium add-ons give you extra features, such as more screenshots, screen recording, better security, and even data warehouse integrations.

Detailed Tracking and Easy Management

Personally, I loved using Insightful.io. The tracking was accurate, including idle time. Apps and sites immediately appeared in the dashboard when I used them. Plus, it’s simple to use and understand for both management and employees. Whether you want to improve productivity on site or better manage remote employees, Insightful has you covered.

Start with a free trial to see how everything works. Most features are included in the trial to help you see which features you need most. Try Insightful.io to boost productivity and better manage your team.

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Crystal Crowder –
Staff Writer

Crystal Crowder has spent over 15 years working in the tech industry, first as an IT technician and then as a writer. She works to help teach others how to get the most from their devices, systems, and apps. She stays on top of the latest trends and is always finding solutions to common tech problems.