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Staying on top of everything that happens in the team at all times presents quite a challenge for executives. There’s no way to know for certain if the employees are actually working when they say they are and what exactly they’re busy with. Another challenge arises when the team is rather large or it mostly comprised of remote employees. These conditions also make it harder to monitor the subordinates – with so many people working, either physically in the office or on the corporate network, keeping track of all the employees, users, and data gets complicated. To streamline the process of employee monitoring, companies are turning to automated solutions.
In this article, we’ve decided to focus on user activity monitoring as a business process and take a closer look at how it works, what its benefits are, and what issues may arise with its implementation. We’ve also analyzed several UAM tools and put together a comparison table that provides comprehensive overview of these solutions.
User Activity Monitoring Software: What It is And How It Works
User activity monitoring software (UAM) is mainly used to track end user behavior on company-owned devices, networks, and other IT resources.
UAM records user digital behavior using various features, such as:
- screen video recording;
- log collection and analysis;
- keystroke logging;
- file capturing, and so on.
Besides monitoring employee computer activity, corporate data usage, attendance records, employee behavior and productivity, UAM also notifies supervisors of any suspicious or unauthorized activity. For example, by tracking and recording web browser activity supervisors can prevent employees from moving sensitive data out of the company network.
Supervisors then analyze the information obtained to determine its compliance with the company policies and assigned user roles, which ultimately helps track any malicious activity. Determining what constitutes inappropriate user activity is up to the company. It can include pretty much anything – from scrolling through newsfeed and checking social media to misplacing or even stealing sensitive company data such as financial information or intellectual property.
But in what ways do UAM solutions differ from all the variety of software that’s available on the market? Its main difference from other solutions such as time trackers or employee monitoring software is its in-depth usage of employee behavior analytics that help understand what exactly employees are engaged in during their working days.
Benefits of Using User Activity Monitoring Software
There is a multitude of different tools that offer UAM functionality. Like we’ve mentioned above, the main benefit of implementing UAM is its ability to assess data on employee activity more comprehensively. For example, EMS solution will show supervisors whether their employees were working productively during the day, whereas a UAM tool will analyze what exactly they were busy with and how engaged they were in work operations.
Moreover, here are several reasons why supervisors should incorporate UAM into their daily business operations:
- It reduces employee complacency
Let’s admit, when the job is monotonous by its very nature, it’s rather easy to become complacent. Suddenly, minor mistakes start slipping through the cracks. People may even start to subconsciously believe that if nothing significant has happened for a certain period of time, nothing ever will.
By having employee monitoring practices in place, you can set up alerts that will let employees know when something has gone awry, which will be more useful than them staring at computer screens all day long trying to catch these mishaps. - It identifies suspicious user behavior
Monitoring employee computer activity during working hours helps supervisors detect suspicious unauthorized attempts to access sensitive data or abnormal file operations. Malicious intent can be established by analyzing every fraudulent activity in the all-encompassing context provided by UAM solutions. Such features as file capturing, screen video recording, keystroke logging, and application usage tracking help spot suspicious activity and minimize the risk of potential insider threats.
Configurable reports generated by UAM tools provide real-time insights into sensitive data location, usage and insider threats. With such solutions you’ll be able to detect and promptly investigate any suspicious user activity. You’ll know when your employees try to upload sensitive data to public clouds, utilize non-approved services and apps or engage in any other type of risky digital activity. UAM tools also help ensure that the employees who’re leaving the company don’t take any of its confidential information with them. - It provides evidence to prove malicious intent
Any data collected by UAM software – employee emails, messages, web activity, keystrokes, screenshots, etc. – can be used as evidence in court, for example, in fraud or harassment cases. Collected forensic evidence helps reconstruct incidents in their full context.
Such irrefutable evidence eliminates the need for ceaseless attempts to catch the culprit. When required, that evidence can also be used for external investigations outside the company’s jurisdiction. - It improves employee productivity
With the implementation of proper employee monitoring software, you’ll even notice your employees becoming more productive. When subordinates are aware that their every action is being monitored by the supervisor, they typically start to put more effort into their work.
Moreover, some UAM solutions provide employees with self-monitoring interfaces that make it easier for employees themselves to keep track of their performance and know what areas need to be improved.
Best Practices and Tips for Efficient User Activity Monitoring
When you make the decision to add user activity monitoring to your company protocols, it’s wise to take a look at some of the best practices regarding its implementation and usage. Here are some helpful tips to keep in mind:
- Be open and transparent about monitoring. Your employees should be aware of your decision to introduce employee monitoring, and they should give consent to having their activity recorded and monitored. While your software may run in a stealth mode, we advise you, when applicable, to notify your employees of the monitoring. It builds trust and helps reduce unnecessary tension within the company.
- Determine what to watch and cut through the noise. A solution that has the capacity to sort through the large volumes of generated data and present it in a comprehensible format is crucial for reducing the time it takes to spot and react to a potential data breach. Since user activity monitoring involves quite a few things you could potentially prioritize, you need to decide what’s important to you, whether that be screen video recording, event logging, and so on. What you want to monitor ultimately determines what UAM solution you should opt for.
- Monitor privileged users as a priority. The users who have access to your sensitive data are the ones that pose the greatest risk to your data security. You should identify which users have such access and create strong authentication procedures for these privileged accounts.
- Implement appropriate policies. In addition to implementing the UAM solution, you should establish and enforce comprehensive data protection policies, such as appropriate file sharing activity, instructions for handling sensitive data, authorized services and applications, etc. Educate your employees on these policies as well as on effective cybersecurity habits, seeing how they may unintentionally become the cause of data breaches.
- Refine your incident response plan. When your UAM solution detects unusual user activity or potential violation, it’s important for you to react quickly and efficiently. To do this, you need to have a well-thought-out incident response plan. All members of your team should know what to do in the event of a data breach to mitigate any potential damages.
- Review data gathered. It’s not enough to simply accumulate the data and leave it at that; you should then extensively review it. Set aside time to look through all the data, analyze it and take appropriate actions when needed. While it’s pretty simple to pass unusual activity as nothing and move on, it can actually have dire consequences. We advise you to act on such issues when they arise, regardless of how trivial they may appear at first glance.
Potential Challenges of Implementing User Activity Monitoring
While employers usually welcome the practice of employee monitoring with open arms, severe issues may arise if it’s implemented improperly, which may affect the whole company negatively. Your employees may lose their trust and even feel like their privacy is being threatened, and that may create a toxic environment at the workplace, which will lead to them quitting. Moreover, some legal issues may arise, since some types of surveillance and subsequent usage of data gathered might violate laws specific to certain countries.
ETHICAL ASPECT
To begin with, UAM should always be introduced in a thoughtful way. Unless you want your team to express negative attitudes toward monitoring and reject its very basis, you need to make sure that it’s carried out as unobtrusively as possible.
UAM will be quite a change for your team. They might feel confusion, frustration and even anger toward this innovation. All these feelings may lead to them experiencing burnout, and then you’ll see a significant drop in productivity.
But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t implement UAM altogether. You just have to make sure it’s conducted as comfortably for your team as possible. Keep in mind that it’s not a punitive measure, be as open about it as possible, and don’t go crazy on micromanaging.
LEGAL ASPECT
Another quite important point to distinguish between is the rights of employees and those of their employers.
Everybody involved in the process of UAM – employers, employees, and even software providers – must acknowledge boundaries. Keeping tabs on what your employees are doing during the working day is completely legal. What’s illegal is positioning surveillance tools in areas that presuppose privacy, such as dining halls or toilets; places where people feel safe to talk about their personal issues. You should keep in mind that invading spaces like these could get you penalized or even sued.
Top-10 Available UAM Software
All the aspects we’ve mentioned above are quite important, but what’s even more important is utilizing the right kind of UAM software that’s suitable for your specific needs. That’s why we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of available solutions that can help you optimize user activity monitoring in your company.
1) KICKIDLER
Offers transparent user activity monitoring with its customizable features and reports
The solution provides detailed reporting on your employees’ habits, how they work and distribute their working hours, letting you measure their productivity. Its comprehensive functionality helps you identify existing bottlenecks, improve workflow and increase your company’s profit.
Pricing options
Kickidler offers a Freemium option with limited functionality. All of its features are provided in all its plans, and the cost of licenses varies depending on the chosen duration of purchase. 1 month per user per month costs $9.99, 1 year – $5.5, 3 years – $3.67. The price of the software’s offline version is provided on request. Additionally, depending on the number of users that will be monitored, a discount of up to 30% may be applied.
User experience
“In my opinion, Kickidler’s best part is its advanced employee analytics. Our company has employees working from home in many different locations. We needed to find the way to keep track of all of them and monitor their performance. With this solution we’ve been able to make more informed business decisions overall. It has eliminated the need to physically micromanage and freed up our time for actual work. What’s more, team productivity has increased significantly.”
The bottom line
We’ve ranked Kickidler first, because it’s a versatile and incredibly customizable solution. Its features include real-time screen video recording, keystroke logging, analyzing and reporting on productivity, work time, and so on. Another nice UAM feature that’s worth highlighting is Kickidler’s Autokick tool. It helps supervisors carry out in-depth behavior analysis. Its functionality includes automatic notifications on workplace violations as well as a custom interface that allows employees to see analytics on their own productivity. Its self-monitoring feature helps employees get a clear picture of their workday. By identifying key features like employee burnout and their level of engagement Kickidler helps address workload inefficiencies and improve business processes.
In 2023, Kickidler's software developers unveiled two cutting-edge functionalities in their user activity monitoring software:
- The introduction of an "Activity History" report, which delivers a thorough overview of an employee's complete computer activity history.
- The incorporation of a feature enabling the recording of audio from both incoming and outgoing phone calls, as well as video conferencing applications.
What’s more, recently the software has been updated to include comprehensive project & task monitoring features that help managers to set specific tasks for the employees and monitor their completion, as well as get understanding of where the company finances go and what tasks employees spend their time on.
Kickidler by generating a map of tasks and activity of each employee, Kickidler provides managers with the ability to track employee performance and empowers employees to carry out self-monitoring.
2) ACTIVTRAK
Helps with monitoring employee behavior, productivity and workload balance
The solution gathers a variety of data, such as the amount of time your employees engage in productive or unproductive behavior as well as the amount of time they spend being idle. It analyzes mouse movement, keyboard activity, website and application usage. Its other helpful features include USB activity tracking, automated responses, and risk scores.
Pricing options
ActivTrak offers its users a Free option (monitoring up to three users; 3GB of storage space). The Advanced plan costs $9 per user per month on an annual basis. The Premium plan costs $15 per user per month, billed annually. Both the Advanced and the Premium option offer unlimited storage space and allow monitoring unlimited number of users (with a minimum of 5 workstations). The software also offers the Enterprise option that’s tailored to the needs of specific organizations.
User experience
“In my opinion, ActivTrak’s advanced insights are rather helpful. When we were choosing between different monitoring options, our main focus was the ability to see an activity log and screenshots of employee activity at their PCs. And I actually think we’re not even utilizing all of its capabilities.”
The bottom line
We ranked ActivTrak second, because it’s an easy-to-use UAM solution that provides supervisors with user-friendly insights into how productive and efficient their teams are. It carries out productivity monitoring, provides workforce insights, compiles reports on employee activity, and offers productivity coaching.
3) CLOUDDESK
Provides real-time visibility into employee engagement and productivity.
The solution helps increase employee productivity. Its functionality and analytics help optimize the workflow and engagement of remote teams.
Pricing options
CloudDesk comes with a single package that offers all the features of the solution for $15 per user per month within its monthly subscription option. Its yearly subscription option costs $10 per user per month. The software doesn’t have a free option, but it provides a 14-day free trial.
User experience
“CloudDesk has helped us catch up on our business processes and even enhanced the productivity of our team. It could definitely use some help with its UX design, though. It’s also quite difficult to monitor the employees who aren’t confined to their desks.”
The bottom line
We ranked CloudDesk third, because it’s better suited for monitoring activities of those employees who work with data and spend most of their workdays at their PCs. The limited UAM functionality of the software will be less ideal for creative workers, seeing how their work isn’t easily measured with fixed metrics. Its features include tracking employee productivity, screen capturing, and monitoring of website & application usage.
4) CONTROLIO
Helps with synchronized tracking of employee productivity
The solution is capable of tracking every aspect of employees’ activities with its main focus being employee productivity and threat prevention.
Pricing options
Controlio doesn’t offer a free option. Its Cloud plan, which is geared more towards SMBs, starts at $7.99 per user per month (or $79.90 for a yearly subscription). Its features include real-time screen monitoring, video screen recording, 6-months data storage, web filtering, attendance tracking, keystroke logging, file usage, behavior rules and alerts. A 14-day trial is available for this option. Another tier is an on-premises solution, which is geared more towards medium businesses and enterprise clients, and it has no limit on data storage. The software also has a private cloud tier, which is specific to Amazon Web Services and also has no limit on data storage. The pricing for both these options is provided on request, seeing how they vary depending on specific business needs and require customization.
User experience
“We enjoyed Controlio quite a bit. It's nicely priced, and we like that it helps us track our employees’ activities and focus on their productivity. It would be nice, though, if the solution had a bit broader functionality.”
The bottom line
We ranked Controlio fourth, because it’s considerably user-friendly. It does lack features that provide more in-depth supervision, however, it’s a nice choice if you’re just getting acquainted with UAM tools. Its most helpful UAM feature is alerting on behavior deviations.
5) INTERGUARD
Enables a multi-layered approach to productivity monitoring
The solution, in addition to monitoring employee engagement, helps with investigating HR issues and monitoring insider security threats. All the different layers and features of the software work together in one cohesive system.
Pricing options
InterGuard pricing is based on a combination of device types, number of users, and duration of purchase. The software doesn’t have a free option, but it offers a 7-day free trial. Its Cloud-hosted subscription begins at $9 per user per month (with an annual contract of minimum 11 users). It requires no hardware and can be instantly deployed; it also offers a stealth mode option. The Enterprise On-Premise version requires an SQL Server. No publicly accessible pricing options are available for this subscription plan, and sales are to be contacted for a quote.
User experience
“InterGuard offers many different features, which is nice, but it took a newbie like me quite some time to get a hang of it. I can definitely see where the software could be improved. For example, the need to acquire more than 10 licenses for the silent installer posed quite a problem for us, seeing how we only needed a few licenses from the start.”
The bottom line
We ranked InterGuard fifth, because this solution might be too inconvenient and expensive to set up if your organization is on a smaller side, as it’s clearly aimed at enterprise deployment. Its features that enhance employers’ ability to track and manage the performance of their staff include video playback & real-time alerting, social media & file activity monitoring, and web filtering.
6) TERAMIND
Helps automate activity and computer monitoring
If you want UAM software to help you track the patterns of your employees’ engagement levels, then Teramind is a nice option for you. Its user activity monitoring functionality also helps detect malicious activity and behavior deviations.
Pricing options
Teramind, like most other solutions mentioned here, doesn’t provide a free option. Its pricing plans are the same for both its cloud and on-premise versions. The Starter plan for a minimum of five users costs $10 per user per month when billed annually. It includes screen recording, live view, and website & app tracking. The User Activity Monitoring plan also for a minimum of five users costs $20.83 per user per month, and its features additionally include tracking of email, console commands, file transfers, keystrokes, printing, and Optical Character Recognition. Finally, there's the Data Loss Prevention plan, which costs $25 for a minimum of five users, per user per month. It grows its feature set to include content-based data exfiltration rules and DLP features that are unique to this tier. For businesses that require an on-premise installation, there are on-premise options of all these plans with the same prices. The software offers free 7-day trials for all its cloud solutions, and the on-premise offerings are available for a free 14-day trial. It also offers scaled, per-user pricing, with volume discounts for its cloud-hosted solution.
User experience
“Teramind was one of my first experiences with this kind of software, and it seems to be quite advanced from what I’ve seen, however I haven’t been able to use it properly since it hasn’t tracked time properly ever since the beginning. It just times out and tries to reconnect all the time. The version I’ve purchased doesn’t track what apps the employees are using, which would be a nice feature.”
The bottom line
We ranked Teramind sixth, because the software is quite universal and has a robust UAM functionality. Its useful features include overall activity & productivity monitoring, keylogging, and real-time screen video recording.
7) HUBSTAFF
Provides assistance with managing projects and tracking tasks.
The solution monitors employees’ screens and tracks the apps they use as well as the websites they visit, ensuring their attention doesn’t stray from the tasks they’ve been assigned.
Pricing options
Hubstaff offers both free and paid plans. Its Free option is rather limited; it only monitors one user and includes time tracking, one screen capture every 10 minutes, and a measurement of activity based on keyboard and mouse usage. Its Starter plan costs $7 per user per month, with a two-user minimum, and it builds on the features offered in the Free plan. Its Pro version costs $10 per user per month, also with a two-user minimum. It includes all the features of the basic plan as well as application and website monitoring, employee idle time prompts, mobile GPS tracking, time-off and holiday tracking, timesheet approvals, invoices, payroll, and project budgets. The solution also offers the Enterprise option that includes all the features of the Premium plan as well as higher limits on public APIs, unlimited job sites, VIP support, and concierge account setup.
User experience
“We enjoy Hubstaff quite a bit. It helps us with monitoring the time our team members actually spend on each project. It’s really great that the software keeps monitoring employee productivity even when there’s no Internet connection. However, it still has some area for improvement in terms of its flexibility, because it doesn’t allow us to disable manual editing records within certain tasks.”
The bottom line
We ranked Hubstaff seventh, because while it’s a nice solution for SMBs that helps monitor employee productivity, if you're looking for software with more robust functionality to monitor employee behavior or even the nature of their communications, it might not be the right tool for you. Its main useful features include activity monitoring & employee scheduling.
8) TIME DOCTOR
Offers detailed reporting.
The solution provides analytics on how your team spends their time during the working day. Such data can be used to analyze employee behavior patterns and curb unproductive behaviors. Supervisors receive a weekly report that outlines what websites and applications their employees used and for how long. Employees, in turn, receive their own personal reports with their time usage statistics.
Pricing options
Time Doctor doesn’t have a free option, however, like most solutions, it has a 14-day free trial. Its Basic plan costs $7 per user per month, and its main features include time & activity tracking, task & project management, and unlimited screenshots. Its Standard plan costs $10 per user per month and, besides all the features of the Basic plan, it includes app & website tracking, payroll, daily email notifications, and more than 64 integrations with productivity apps. Its Premium plan costs $20 per user per month, and its additional features include client login access, VIP support, concierge account setup, video screen captures, and Internet connectivity reporting. The solution also offers the Enterprise option with custom pricing.
User experience
“Time Doctor is the right choice for you if you’re managing a big team. It’ll certainly save you lots of time, especially now when most of the employees are working remotely due to the global pandemic. It’s a little impractical, since it requires employees to manually enter in the time they spend on certain tasks performed away from the computer. So if you want to track that kind of activity, you’ll still have to rely on the honesty of your team.”
The bottom line
We ranked Time Doctor eighth, because, yes, it’s a nice solution for user activity monitoring, yet it’s not as user-friendly as some other options we’ve mentioned above. It doesn’t offer real-time monitoring, which is an incredibly useful feature. In terms of the features it does provide, productivity measuring and reporting are worth mentioning.
9) INSIGHTFUL
Provides insights into employees’ work habits
The software helps managers take their workforce analytics to the next level through its deep behavioral data insights and workforce analytics. With its real-time visibility, productivity trends and business-powering analytics, Insightful helps companies of all sizes to optimize the performance of their teams.
Pricing options
Insightful offers 3 pricing plans with extensive feature set. Its Productivity Management Plan costs $8 per seat a month, its Time Tracking Plan – $10 seat/month, its Process Improvement Plan – $15 seat/month.
The software also offers tailor-made Enterprise option for teams of 200+ users, the price of which is available upon demand.
User experience
“Personally, our company’s experience with Insightful has been really great. Its reports are quite comprehensive and easy-to-read. It’s also rather easy to manage. However, we have noticed several times its time tracking functionality just flat-out failing and employee time not recording.”
The bottom line
We ranked Insightful ninth, because it has a nice simple interface and tends to be rather easy to manage for most teams. At the same time, the amount of lags and errors in time tracking records is quite worrisome. Its most prominent user activity monitoring features include easy-to-comprehend reports, time & attendance monitoring, as well as real-time monitoring.
10) EKRAN
Offers help with monitoring user activity to identify and prevent insider threats
The platform provides monitoring, recording and auditing of all user activity on various critical endpoints, from physical and virtual desktops to corporate servers.
This powerful and easy-to-manage software provides managers with the ability to record every terminal session for detailed audit, use smart multi-parameter search and reporting tools when investigating incidents, and export forensic data when needed.
Pricing options
No pricing options are available in open sources. To get price quotes, sales department needs to be contacted.
User experience
“There are not many things I disliked about Ekran System. Its complex alerting system detects anomalies, flags risky actions, and provides all the context we might need for adequate response.”
The bottom line
We ranked Ekran System tenth, because, while it’s a simple-to-deploy and use solution that helps managers maintain data security and user accountability, its UI could use a bit of improvement as well for the solution to feel more modern and even easier to access.
Comparison Table of Our UAM Picks
Conclusion
With the help of proper UAM software you can gather credible data and use it to improve employee performance. Employee productivity is a huge factor in the success of any company, and monitoring user activity & their productivity levels can help employees to realize their full potential and businesses to grow.
Good luck!
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