Manual and Project-based attendance tracking scenarios both require user input to start the tracking. The key difference is how time is tracked on individual projects.
Unlike the Manual tracking option, where employees Clock-in and Clock-Out to track total active time, Project-based tracking allows for a more granular view of how employees allocate their work hours.
Here's how it works:
Manual Attendance: Clock-In when you start work and Clock-Out when you finish. This tracks your total active time in Insightful. If you need to track your time on a specific project - you can do that separately with the needed permission granted.
Project-based Attendance: Start the time on a task in the widget, when you start working on a project, to automatically trigger activity tracking. This links your time directly to specific projects.
Permissions requirements and Project assignment
In both Tracking scenarios, to be able to work with Projects/Tasks, users need some Permissions assigned to them by their Admins (either on the Tracking Settings page, or on an individual Employee's page - by opening up the specific employee's Insightful page, clicking on Settings in the upper right corner and then ticking the needed box in the Permissions section).
These are:
Track time on tasks;
Allow employees to add new tasks;
Users also need individual projects to be assigned to them by their Admins (or Managers with the needed Permissions), as explained in this article.
Manual Attendance
When Manual Attendance is in effect, Insightful will record time and track Productivity between Clock-In and Clock-Out. Every app and website visited, every Idle time moment, screenshots, and all other features will be analyzed or not analyzed, depending on the fact if the employee is Clocked-In or Clocked-Out.
Take a break button
If the Take a break button is not visible on the Widget it means that Breaks have not been set up for the user in question.
To track time on a specific project simply switch on the Time Tracking tab of your Insightful Widget and select the project your need.
Permission required
For an Employee with Manual attendance scenario to be able to view the Time Tracking tab on their Widget they need the Track time on tasks permission granted (either on an organization level in Tracking Settings or on an individual user level.
Project-based Attendance
Project Based Attendance tracking will, on the other hand, grant you the option to create and track work on Projects and Tasks but also to track employee Attendance via the Projects and Tasks feature. Meaning, that only for the time when a certain Task Timer is active, computer activities will be analyzed and recorded by Insightful along with time spent on tasks.
Shift ending difference
The other important difference between the two scenarios is that with Project-based attendance a user's shift will be automatically ended after 20 minutes of recorded inactivity whereas with Manual attendance that will not be the case.
Switching between scenarios
You can easily switch between Manual and Project-based tracking methods any time after onboarding: via Tracking Settings on an organization level or a specific employee's page on an individual user level.