Time Tracker

A Windows desktop app that measures real working time — active, idle and break — against the schedule, and feeds attendance, reports, alerts and (optionally) payroll.

Overview

Attendance shows when someone checked in and out; it cannot show how much of that time they actually worked. The Time Tracker closes that gap. Employees sign in to a small Windows app with their normal HRM email and password. The app clocks them in on the same attendance record as the web, then counts mouse and keyboard activity minute by minute. When there has been no input for longer than the idle threshold, that time is recorded as idle and left out of active hours.

A day reads like "Active 4h 00m of 8h 00m scheduled — 50%", with the gap visible and the idle, break and overtime figures beside it. Administrators see who is online right now, each person's daily timeline, and reports by employee, team, department and date range that can be exported.

The app is deliberately limited. It shows the employee's own tracker dashboard and nothing else from the HRM, and it records only counts and categories — never what is typed, never the screen, camera or microphone. Employees accept a written monitoring policy before the first tracked session, see everything collected about them, and can pause tracking for personal time.

Who uses it

Employees: Install the app from the landing page or Time Tracker › My day, sign in, and work as normal. They see today's active time against their shift, their last 7 days, exactly what was collected about them, and can request manual time or claim idle time as work. They can download all their own data.
Managers: See the live status, timelines, reports and flags of their direct and indirect reports only. They receive short-hours and overtime alerts for their team. Every look at someone else's data is written to the Audit Logs.
HR / Admin: By default see every tracked employee, approve idle-time claims and manual time requests, export reports, and sign devices out. Tracker settings are managed by the Super Admin unless HR has been granted that permission in Roles & permissions.
Super Admin: Turns the module on, chooses who is tracked, sets the idle threshold (for the whole organization, a department or one employee), edits the monitoring policy, and decides whether verified active hours feed attendance and payroll.

What you can do here

In the desktop app

Sign in with the same email and password as the web. The sign-in is tied to that computer and can be ended remotely from Time Tracker › Devices.
Tracking starts when you sign in (clock-in happens with the same shift, IP-restriction and late rules as the web check-in). If you already checked in on the web, the app simply joins that shift. Clock out from the app or the web; either stops tracking.
The tray icon is always visible while tracking and shows Tracking, Idle, Paused or Clocked out. Use Pause for personal time — paused time is not tracked and shows as break.
After you have been idle, the app asks when you return: keep the time as a break, or mark it as work (a meeting, a call, an offline task) with a reason. Work claims go to HR for approval. The idle time is stored either way, never deleted.
Pick the project and task you are working on so your active time is attributed to it.
Work offline: everything is stored on the computer in an encrypted buffer and uploaded when the connection returns, without duplicated or lost minutes.
Request manual time for work the app could not see, with a reason.

Reports and monitoring (web)

Live: who is active, idle, away, paused or offline right now, with what application they are in and their active time so far. Refreshes every 30 seconds.
Employee timeline: a coloured bar of the day (active, idle, locked or asleep, paused), active time by hour, top applications and websites (domain only), productive / neutral / unproductive split, time per task, idle periods and any flags.
Reports: filter by date range, department and employee; see active % of scheduled, idle, overtime, average activity score and short-hours days per person, a daily trend, a department comparison and a leaderboard. Export to PDF, Excel or CSV.
Approvals: HR approves or rejects idle-time claims and manual time requests, with a note. An approval immediately counts as active hours everywhere.
Flags: long runs of perfectly identical input (a possible mouse jiggler, auto-clicker or macro) are flagged for review. A flag never changes anyone's hours.
Projects & apps: create projects and tasks employees log time to, and set which applications and websites are productive, neutral or unproductive.
Alerts: managers and HR are told when someone's active time falls below the minimum for their shift; employees and managers are told about very long days. HR gets a weekly summary on Mondays.

Settings (Super Admin)

Turn the module on and choose opt-in (only people or departments you switch on) or track everyone.
Idle threshold (default 5 minutes), recording interval (default 1 minute), minimum active % of shift (default 50%), meeting-app exemption, application and website recording, mouse-jiggler detection.
Retention (default 365 days): activity data older than this is deleted automatically.
Overrides per department and per employee for tracking, idle threshold and minimum active %.
The monitoring policy employees accept. Changing the text makes everyone accept it again before their next tracked session.
Use verified active hours for attendance and payroll — off by default. Changes reach the desktop apps within about a minute; the apps have no settings of their own.

Step-by-step: Start tracking as an employee

1Open Time Tracker › My day (or the landing page) and click Download for Windows, then run the installer.
2Open Workyla HRM Desktop and sign in with your normal HRM email and password.
3Read the monitoring policy and click I have read and accept.
4Tracking starts and you are clocked in. Check the tray icon: it shows your state at all times.
5Choose a project and task if your team uses them. Use Pause for personal time.
6When you return from being idle, choose Keep as break, or Mark as work and give a reason.
7At the end of the day, click Clock out. Your day appears under Time Tracker › My day.

Step-by-step: Switch tracking on for a team

For Super Admin

1Go to Settings › Time Tracker and turn the module on.
2Leave Track every employee by default off. Under overrides, choose Department (or Employee), pick it, set Tracking: on, and save.
3Tell those employees to install the app. The Settings page shows how many have accepted the policy and how many devices are signed in.
4Check Time Tracker › Live once they are working.

Step-by-step: Decide an idle-time claim

For HR

1Open Time Tracker › Approvals. Pending claims and manual time requests are listed with the person, period and reason.
2Optionally open the person's day from Live or Reports to see what surrounded the idle period.
3Add a note and click Approve or Reject. The employee is notified and the day's active hours update at once.

How it connects to other modules

Attendance: the desktop app clocks in and out on the same attendance record as the web, using the same shifts, IP restriction, late and half-day rules, and Team attendance shows an Active column beside logged hours. A web or biometric check-out stops the app.
Leave and holidays: no short-hours alert is raised on an approved full-day leave, a holiday or a weekly off; time worked on those days counts as overtime. A half-day leave is treated as a working day.
Payroll: off by default (tracker data only informs). When switched on, after clock-out the attendance record carries verified active hours, with overtime and half-day following, so payroll picks them up with no manual entry.
Employees and roles: accounts, departments, reporting lines, shifts and permissions are the HRM's own. Changing a role or deactivating someone changes their tracker access immediately.
Activity Logs: every desktop sign-in appears in Activity Logs beside web sign-ins, labelled Desktop App with its device.
Audit Logs: sign-ins, policy changes, approvals, exports, device sign-outs and every admin or manager view of an employee's data are recorded.
Notifications: alerts, approval requests and decisions arrive as normal HRM notifications (under Attendance alerts and Approval requests).

Good to know

Only counts and categories are recorded: how many mouse and keyboard events per minute, the application name, and the website domain. Never keystrokes, page contents, messages, screenshots, camera or microphone.
Tracking runs only between clock-in and clock-out. Time the computer is locked or asleep is recorded as away.
Idle time is excluded from active hours but stored separately and never deleted. Quiet time shorter than the threshold still counts as work.
Approved idle claims and manual time count as active; they cannot exceed the idle time that exists and cannot overlap tracked time.
Nobody approves their own request.
A person is tracked on one computer at a time. Signing in on a second one is refused until the first signs out or stops reporting.
Active hours are not output. Read them with context and the employee's own explanation before drawing conclusions.
Website domains need a browser the app can read; where it cannot, only the application name is recorded.