Best Productivity Tracking Software Shortlist
Here’s the shortlist of the best productivity tracking software systems that I’ll cover in this article, with detailed summaries below:
- 4. ActivTrak — Best productivity tracking software for setting productivity benchmarks and tracking focus trends
- 5. Traqq — Best productivity tracking software for comprehensive insights on employee efficiency levels
- 8. EmailAnalytics — Best productivity tracking software for charting email trends and improving email response rates
- 9. DeskTrack — Best productivity tracking software for setting time-bound restrictions to applications
- 10. ClickUp — Best productivity tracking software for automating sales processes and managing accounts
Productivity tracking software is another layer of icing on the delicious technology cake. Productivity is such an integral attribute of the modern employee. With tons of distractions and endless notifications, many employees secretly crave workplace productivity hacks. But how can you track something intangible and intricate, like productivity?
Productivity tracking software lets you track your employees’ work habits that influence their productivity. Instead of manually updating attributes on an excel spreadsheet, productivity tracking software helps automate and streamline the entire tracking process. Especially in the work-from-home and remote work era, productivity tracking software can give you an extra sense of governance over your employees.
Keep reading for my summaries of the best productivity tracking software on the market today. Any one of these systems would make a positive addition to your corporate tool belt.
If you have general questions about how productivity tracking software works or how to pick the best option for your organization, look at my People Also Ask section below. Or, if you’re interested to learn more about how I prepared this list, see How I Selected the Best Productivity Tracking Software below instead. Otherwise, let’s jump right in.
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Overviews of the 10 Best Productivity Tracking Software
Here’s a brief description of each productivity tracking software that showcases each system’s best use case, their noteworthy features, and some pros & cons. I’ve also included screenshots to give you a snapshot of their user interface.
Teramind
Best productivity tracking software for analyzing user activity data
Teramind is a productivity tracking software that's designed to help businesses keep an eye on their employees' activities. It offers a range of features including user activity monitoring, insider threat detection, and data loss prevention. It's not just about tracking time, but also about understanding how your team works and where there might be room for improvement.
Why I picked Teramind: I included Teramind in this list because of its comprehensive set of productivity tracking and employee monitoring features. With Teramind, you can see what apps and websites your team is using, how much time they're spending on each task, and even get alerts if there's any suspicious activity. It's like having a bird's eye view of your team's work, which is super helpful for managing a team that's spread out across different locations.
Teramind collects a large amount of employee data points to analyze employee productivity in detail. Using that data, it provides users with insights to help increase the effectiveness of their workforce as a whole, while also helping managers zero in on individual performance as well.
Teramind Standout Features and Integrations
What makes Teramind stand out from other productivity tracking tools is its advanced features. The user behavior analytics feature, for example, uses machine learning to identify patterns in user behavior and detect any anomalies. This can be really useful for preventing data breaches or other security issues. The productivity analysis feature is another standout, as it provides detailed reports on employee productivity, helping you identify any bottlenecks or areas where your team could be more efficient.
Integrations include ArcSight ESM, IBM Security Jira, QRadar, Redmine, Splunk Enterprise, and Zendesk.
Pros
- You can send automated alerts to employees who are unproductive
- Works for in-office, remote, or hybrid teams
- Very detailed user behavior analytics
Cons
- Free trial period is very short
- Occasional false positives with anti-virus software
Insightful
Best productivity tracking software for automated and simple time mapping
Insightful lives up to its name, with the tool promising to deliver several project-related insights and employee productivity attributes. Many small businesses rely on Insightful for spiking productivity and tracking employee efficiency.
Why I picked Insightful: I like Insightful primarily because of the automated time mapping feature. By implementing automatic time data mapping, insightful delivers accurate project insights that eliminate human error. Insightful provides you with a comprehensive view of the time spent by your employees at distinct stages of a project. The tool also offers precise statistics to help you better justify your projects' budgets and billable hours.
Proof of work is another challenge for employers hiring freelancers or contractors who invoice against billable hours. Insightful implements a real-time monitoring method that gives a snapshot of employees' website and app usage. Additionally, you can personally label apps and websites that are productive for your project or organization.
Insightful Standout Features and Integrations
Features include automated screenshots, verified attendance, automated time entries mapping, attendance tracking, historical timekeeping, productivity labeling, and different logins for clients, managers, and employees.
Integrations include 5+ tools like Data Studio, IBM Cognos Analytics, Looker, Power BI, Slack, Tableau, and others.
Pros
- Includes a REST-based API for custom integrations
- Screenshots depicting window changes
- User-friendly user interface
Cons
- Can't delete users in some cases
- Occasional automation bugs
Height
Best productivity tracking for project, task, and workflow management
Height is a cloud-based project management software with workflow management and team collaboration tools. Its reporting function can be used to track productivity across tasks, projects, and workflows.
Why I picked Height: This software is highly customizable for various use cases and team needs. Each team member has their own personalized inbox to keep track of all their ongoing work and priorities. Teams can manage their projects using a spreadsheet, calendar, Kanban board, or Gantt chart view. Projects are determined with infinitely nesting subtasks, and higher-level roadmaps can be configured to create the bigger picture.
Because of the software's robust project management functionality, it can be used to track productivity and resource utilization. Reports can be drawn up with filters to track things such as team velocity over time. In addition to tracking productivity, users can implement the automation capabilities of the software to improve their productivity. Auto-assignment of tasks and automated workflows help speed up processes and contribute to better team performance.
Height Standout Features & Integrations
Features include multiple task views, personalized inboxes, task forms, no-code automations, in-app messaging and collaboration tools, multi-step workflows, and custom reports.
Integrations include Slack, Notion, Figma, Zapier, Github, Notion, Sentry, Zendesk, Discord, and Slab. Zapier can also be used to configure additional integrations.
Pros
- Project communication and collaboration tools
- Flexible views and personalized look and feel
- Highly customizable project management system
Cons
- Somewhat rudimentary tracking abilities
- Product focus is on project management
ActivTrak
Best productivity tracking software for setting productivity benchmarks and tracking focus trends
ActivTrak specializes in productivity tracking software that collects different kinds of attributes and metrics. ActivTrak strives for transparency and adopts an ethical approach to the whole notion of productivity tracking. You can set customized productivity benchmarks and then track employees’ progress against your goals.
Why I picked ActivTrak: I’m particularly impressed with the dashboard views and productivity reports that ActivTrak offers. The dashboard isn’t a cluttered board with random data points but a neatly organized space that provides critical insights at a glance. The dashboard can unravel your employees’ website and application usage patterns. Additionally, you can leverage historical data to compare various teams’ productivity levels, for instance, before and after the holidays.
The productivity reports garner valuable insights about your employees. You can apply filters and drill down the detailed reports by users, date range, and other factors to discover trends. ActivTrak also helps you enforce organizational compliance policies via alarms. You can leverage alarms to get notified about employees sharing sensitive files or accessing blocked domains.
ActivTrak Standout Features and Integrations
Features include customizable dashboards, productivity reports, location insights, impact analysis, website & application usage, productivity coaching, team summaries, website blocking, and more.
Integrations include 10+ tools such as Asana, Azure, Google Calendar, Jira, Lattice, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Viva, Workday, Zendesk, Zoom, and others.
Pros
- Substantial data points for better analysis
- High level of accuracy
- Alarms for proactive monitoring
Cons
- The main page is a little cluttered
- A limited number of built-in reports
Traqq
Best productivity tracking software for comprehensive insights on employee efficiency levels
Traqq enables businesses to retrospect and analyze internal processes. With Traqq, your teams unlock a new dimension in understanding various aspects of work productivity. As a result, you can conduct root cause analysis of low productivity times and quickly implement a workaround to boost efficiency.
Why I picked Traqq: I love how the developers at Traqq have created a simple yet comprehensive productivity tracking software. The activity levels generated on the Traqq dashboard have an interesting algorithm. The tool tracks your employees’ keyboard clicks and mouse movements. Consequently, the activity page populates your employees’ daily activity in different coloured blocks depicting sessions of low, average, and high activity levels.
Traqq detects and reports websites and apps on which your employees spend over 10 seconds. As a result, you can get a quick overview of what distracts your employees. Traqq also takes random screenshots at 10-minute intervals and uploads them to a secure online storage space.
Traqq Standout Features and Integrations
Features include application and URL tracking, activity level generation, desktop screenshots, desktop screen recording, idle time and attendance tracking, team management, analysis and reporting, and others.
Integration details are currently not available.
Pros
- Automation of email reports (daily/weekly)
- Screenshot-taking can be paused
- Accurate employee tracking
Cons
- No support for third-party integrations
- No support for foreign languages
We360.ai
Best productivity tracking software for garnering real-time productivity analytics
We360.ai started in Q4 of 2020 and has made significant strides in productivity-tracking software. The software offers many tools, including project management, tracking productivity logs, and real-time analytics.
Why I picked We360.ai: I'm particularly interested in the real-time productivity analytics that We360.ai offers. We360.ai gives you live statistics about your employees' activities: what applications they use, their usage duration, and their availability status. It's like a live stream of your employees' online activities.
Additionally, We360.ai has a nifty leave management system that tracks employee leaves, aiding with payroll processing. As a result, you can easily track, approve, or reject leave requests. The Health360 segment of We360.ai helps you manage your employees' well-being. You can swiftly analyze which employees are overworking or underworking and then intelligently shift workloads.
We360.ai Standout Features and Integrations
Features include real-time analytics, desktop screenshots, a time tracking app, leave management, user data import, CSV report export, cross-OS compatibility, automated attendance, domain blocking, a mobile application for admins, and task & project management tools.
Integrations include 10+ tools like Asana, ClickUp, GitHub, Google Calendar, Insightly, Jira, PayPal, Slack, Trello, Zapier, Zendesk, and others.
Pros
- Dedicated account manager
- Free and detailed live training
- There is an option for a Lifetime Deal (LTD)
Cons
- The monthly plan requires a minimum of 10 users
- Issues with bulk downloading screenshots
Hubstaff
Best productivity tracking software for easy budgeting and automated payroll
Founded in 2012, Hubstaff boasts over a decade of experience creating workforce and productivity management solutions for enterprises worldwide. The Hubstaff productivity suite consists of Hubstaff Time, Hubstaff Desk, Hubstaff Field, Hubstaff Tasks, and Hubstaff Talent - with each offering focused on improving different nuances of productivity.
Why I picked Hubstaff: I’m impressed by the automated payroll feature that Hubstaff features. When you hire freelancers and contractual employees, time/effort tracking and releasing payments can be a hassle. Hubstaff offers an automated payment process which rides upon the precise timesheets that the tool generates.
Hubstaff provides actionable insights for you to improve employee productivity. With accurate timesheet reports, you can clearly understand how various teams spend their time. You can look at activity levels (in percentages), idle time, and other critical metrics influencing an employee’s productivity. Additionally, the Hubstaff reports help you make meaningful inferences, such as your team’s most productive hours in a day or the most efficient days in a week.
Hubstaff Standout Features and Integrations
Features include productivity monitoring tools, time management, workforce management, flexible payroll, project budgeting, cost management, custom roles, advanced reporting, and others.
Integrations include 10+ tools such as Asana, Breeze, ClickUp, GitLab, Jira, Paymo, Podio, Redbooth, Salesforce, Trello, Unfuddle, Wrike, Zoho Projects, and others.
Pros
- Automated reports
- Productivity line charts
- Chrome extension
Cons
- Occasional data mismatch between calculated time in employee and admin panels
- User interface navigation is a little tricky
EmailAnalytics
Best productivity tracking software for charting email trends and improving email response rates
EmailAnalytics is a very niche focussed productivity tracking software that drills down into your employees’ email habits to draw meaningful trends. EmailAnalytics claims that teams using their software can spike up response times by 42% - which is quite significant.
Why I picked EmailAnalytics: EmailAnalytics visualizes your employees’ email activity. As a result, you can measure and improve their productivity. The tool is a blessing for client management and service teams whose key responsibilities include replying to emails quickly. You can also understand how your sales teams deal with nurtured leads.
I’m impressed by the ability to monitor critical email statistics like day-to-day inbound and outbound email traffic, and typed words per minute. Additionally, you can also figure out which clients take up most of your employees’ time. These metrics will help you discover a whole new dimension of employee productivity.
EmailAnalytics Standout Features and Integrations
Features include day-to-day email traffic monitoring, top recipients & senders, labeling emails as Outlook or Gmail, email response time analysis, hourly email traffic volumes, and others.
Integrations include 5+ tools like Gmail, Hubspot, Outlook, and others.
Pros
- Enhanced tracking of email campaigns
- Visual dashboards collate key information
- Trigger sending of weekly or daily email reports
Cons
- Absence of goal-setting capabilities
- Integrations available only with Gmail and Outlook
DeskTrack
Best productivity tracking software for setting time-bound restrictions to applications
DeskTrack is a fantastic productivity tracking software that helps a wide array of industries to understand employees’ work trends better. The analytics team at DeskTrack claim that the tool allows enterprises to save 40+ working hours per week.
Why I picked DeskTrack: I’m intrigued by the intelligent application and website tracking features that DeskTrack promises. You can monitor your team’s productivity by analyzing their total time expenditure.
You can also set time limits on applications. For instance, you can set a threshold of 30 mins a day for Facebook, and if an employee exceeds this limit, the additional time gets counted as unproductive hours. Similarly, you can blacklist social media URLs to track how your employees get distracted.
Additionally, DeskTrack enables you to log sub-URLs of a primary domain. For instance, if you want to track time spent by your HR team on LinkedIn, you can assign sub URLs for messaging, profiles, etc., to get a refined view of how your employees spend time within LinkedIn.
DeskTrack Standout Features and Integrations
Features include whitelisting and blacklisting URLs, document tracking, work-from-home attendance, workforce analytics, screenshot monitoring, tracking time spent on mobile applications, and others.
Integrations include DocHub and Dropbox. DeskTrack also has a custom API for more complex integrations.
Pros
- Mobile app available for Android and iOS
- Great customer support
- Helps easily distinguish between average and top performers
Cons
- Email reporting isn’t very robust
- Occasional wrong tagging of apps as unproductive
ClickUp
Best productivity tracking software for automating sales processes and managing accounts
ClickUp firmly believes in simplifying the world of productivity. Many tools are increasingly becoming available for the tiniest of services, and ClickUp wants to reduce time spent switching between apps to boost productivity. Interestingly, ClickUp’s motto is “Save one day every week.”
Why I picked ClickUp: I like the fact that ClickUp is so versatile and has a lot to offer to diverse stakeholders, be it sales, marketing, product, or engineering. ClickUp allows sales account managers to automate manual sales processes. Sales folks can keep deals flowing through their pipelines with automated follow-ups for leads.
ClickUp also adds an extra dimension to sales teams by helping them track prospects, deals, and clients on a shared list or board. Additionally, the real-time reporting features help senior sales management stakeholders to visualize how productive the sales teams are: who’s closing more deals and how the overall sales performance for a quarter or year is panning out.
ClickUp Standout Features and Integrations
Features include multiple views, custom dashboards, team collaboration, a whiteboard, real-time reporting, goal and milestone setting, useful templates, and others.
Integrations include 10+ tools such as Dropbox, Everhour, Figma, GitHub, Google Calendar, Google Drive, HubSpot, Loom, Outlook, Sentry, Slack, Toggl, Vimeo, Webhooks, Zoom, and others.
Pros
- Generous free plan with unlimited projects
- Great collaboration tools
- Customizable automation builder
Cons
- Limited time tracker capabilities
- Steep learning curve
The 10 Best Productivity Tracking Software Comparison Chart
Here’s a comparison chart that summarizes basic details about each of my top productivity tracking software selections. You can view pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best software for your budget.
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Teramind Best productivity tracking software for analyzing user activity data | 3-day free trial | From $15/user/month | Visit Website |
2 | Insightful Best productivity tracking software for automated and simple time mapping | 7-day free trial | From $8/employee/month | Visit Website |
3 | Height Best productivity tracking for project, task, and workflow management | 30-day free trial | From $8.50/user/month | Visit Website |
4 | ActivTrak Best productivity tracking software for setting productivity benchmarks and tracking focus trends | 14-day free trial + free plan available | From $10/user/month | Visit Website |
5 | Traqq Best productivity tracking software for comprehensive insights on employee efficiency levels | 21-day free trial + free plan for up to 3 users | From $7/seat/month | Visit Website |
6 | We360.ai Best productivity tracking software for garnering real-time productivity analytics | Free trial available | From $6.99/user/month | Visit Website |
7 | Hubstaff Best productivity tracking software for easy budgeting and automated payroll | 14-day free trial | From $7/user/month | Visit Website |
8 | EmailAnalytics Best productivity tracking software for charting email trends and improving email response rates | 14 days free trial | From $15/user/month | Visit Website |
9 | DeskTrack Best productivity tracking software for setting time-bound restrictions to applications | Free trial available | From $2.99/user/month | Visit Website |
10 | ClickUp Best productivity tracking software for automating sales processes and managing accounts | Freemium plan available | From $9/user/month | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few other options worth mentioning that didn’t make the best productivity tracking software list:
- monday.com
Best productivity tracking software for codeless automation of manual and repetitive tasks
- Profit.co
Best productivity tracking software for aligning with organization-wide objectives and key results (OKRs)
- Peoplebox
Best productivity tracking software for implementing automated engagement surveys
- Wrike
Best productivity tracking software for monitoring team progress and identifying potential roadblocks
- Hive
Best productivity tracking software for visualizing progress made towards pre-defined goals
- Time Doctor
Best productivity tracking software for business process outsourcing and organizations with offshore functions
- Kickidler
Best productivity tracking software with keystroke logging features
- DeskTime
Best productivity tracking software to identify employees experiencing burnout
- Monitask
Best productivity tracking software to discover imbalances in employees’ work patterns
- Qbserve
Best productivity tracking software for organizations using macOS
How I Selected the Best Productivity Tracking Software
To compile this top 10 list, I evaluated and compared a wide range of productivity tracking tools with positive user ratings.
After preparing a primary shortlist, I refined my list using the selection criteria below to see how each tool ranked against the next. I also drew on my previous experience monitoring employee productivity as an HR administrator to pinpoint the features that add value.
Selection Criteria
Here’s a summary of the primary selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best productivity tracking software featured in this article:
Dashboard Views
For administrative purposes, summary dashboards are the most effective way to draw inferences. As a result, I’ve analyzed each tool’s dashboarding capabilities regarding data collected and visualization parameters.
Tracking Mechanism
Data points in the backend of a productivity report determine the authenticity of your depiction. As a result, tools that have sophisticated methods to track and collate data score high in my books.
Automation Capabilities
Automation is a real game changer for any tool, and productivity tracking software is no exception. I’ve analyzed the automation features of each tool that can make your tracking activities a walk in the park.
Software Integrations
Integrating a productive tracking software with your existing time-tracking app or project management tools can save time and help with easy onboarding. Consequently, I’ve listed out the top integrations supported by each tool.
Pricing
Productivity tracking software generally follows the software-as-a-service (SaaS) pricing model with a recurring monthly or annual cost. Selecting a tool that provides the best value-to-cost ratio is essential. I’ve included each tool’s pricing information and noted whether it offers a free trial you can test drive.
People Also Ask
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions that you might have about productivity tracking software:
What is productivity tracking software?
Productivity tracking software consists of tools that measure several aspects of productivity like focused time versus idle time. The tool then combines data points pertaining to these attributes and assigns a productivity percentage value to each employee, thus allowing administrators to identify those who need guidance to perform better. By effectively utilizing productivity tracking software, you can reduce time wastages and enforce corporate policies.
How does employee monitoring help measure productivity?
Employee monitoring reveals employees’ most and least productive periods. As a result, you can use this data to streamline operations and make the most of your workforce.
Additionally, employee monitoring also illustrates when an employee feels overburdened with tasks. Consequently, you can efficiently balance workloads amongst employees and promote corporate well-being.
Interestingly, there’s some psychology behind productivity measuring software. The Hawthorne Effect states that when someone is mindful of being observed, their behavior tends to change. When employees are aware of productivity tracking software, they tend to be the best versions of themselves and perform better.
What are some common approaches to boosting productivity?
While the productivity world offers you tons of tips and tricks, here are some easy and actionable tips to boost productivity:
- Journal every day to become aware of time-wasting habits.
- Avoid multitasking and focus on one task at a time.
- Utilize the Pomodoro technique to get started and beat procrastination.
- Check emails in designated blocks of time. For instance, check your inbox once every 60 minutes. During this period, you can mute all notifications to focus on high-value tasks.
- Cancel meetings that are avoidable by sending an extra email.
- Use productivity tools like Trello, Todoist, Evernote, and Google Keep, etc., to break big tasks into smaller chunks.
Wrapping Up
Productivity tracking software does promise many benefits. Consider trying a productivity tracking tool to unravel insightful findings about your employees’ work habits that influence their productivity levels.
If you’re curious about spiking your workspace productivity, check out these thought-provoking resources:
- A Better World of Work is One with Improved Productivity
- 10 Best Employee Monitoring Software
- 10 Best Remote Employee Monitoring Software Systems
- How to Build an Energized and Productive Team (a podcast)
- 10 Best Task Management Software for Team Efficiency
- 10 Best Goal Setting Software for Keeping Teams on Track
Lastly, sign up for our People Managing People newsletter for the latest articles, podcasts, and tool recommendations in the HR space.