Insightful goes beyond manual time entries and offers automated employee time & attendance tracking (specifically designed for users with company computers) providing accurate data and a more streamlined and seamless process.
Learn about the difference between company and personal computers by reviewing this article.
Automatic Attendance Tracking provides more options compared to what's available for personal device users. In addition to Manual and Project-based attendance tracking, company computer users can be set up with Unlimited, Fixed, Network-Based or VPN-based automatic attendance tracking scenarios.
Setting the Tracking Scenario
If an Admin wishes to set or change the Attendance Tracking scenario they can follow these steps:
Go to Settings.
Select Tracking Settings.
Click on the three dots to the far right of the shared settings group they want to change the tracking scenario for.
Unlimited
Insightful will track Attendance automatically while the computer is turned on, on selected days of the week.
Does Insightful Track Time Usage in Unlimited Scenario?
Clock-In: The first computer activity of the day will be recorded as Clock-in time. This usually happens when the computer boots up.
Clock-Out: The last computer activity of the day will be recorded as Clock-out time. This can happen when the computer is shut down, or if there is no activity for 4 hours or more.
Changing the 4-Hour Threshold
A threshold in this context is the amount of time of device inactivity that triggers an automatic Clock-out for users within the Company Computer program, with the default being 4 hours.
This can be changed in the Settings. To do this:
Go to Settings.
Select Tracking Settings.
Click on Advanced Settings.
In this scenario Insightful tracks attendance only on the days of the week that are selected.
To ensure accurate time tracking, it's important to keep in mind that the last recorded computer activity can be counted as a Clock-out. Even if the computer was not shut down but left idle for 4 hours or more.
Last computer activity can also be computer shut down, but if the computer was left turned on and there was no activity for 4 hours or more Insightful will count last recorded computer activity as a clock out.
Fixed
Insightful can be set to automatically track time during specific hours of the day and on selected days of the week.
For example, if an employee works from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday, Insightful will automatically:
Clock them in at 9 am.
Track their time throughout the day, without them having to do anything.
Clock them out at 5 pm.
If they use their computer before or after their scheduled work hours, Insightful will not track that time.
Network based
Insightful can track attendance based on network connection. This means that Insightful will only track employee time when they are connected to a specific Wi-Fi network.
How to set up a Network-based tracking scenario
To set up attendance tracking based on a network connection, an Admin will need to:
Register the MAC addresses of the routers that employees connect while in the office.
Create a unique Wi-Fi network name.
Connect the computers to the Wi-Fi network.
Insightful will then automatically:
Clock employees in when they connect to the Wi-Fi network.
Track their time while they are connected to the Wi-Fi network.
Clock them out when they disconnect from the Wi-Fi network.
VPN based
Insightful offers automated attendance tracking that monitors employee activity while they are connected to a company's Virtual Private Network (VPN). This ensures that Insightful only operates when the computer is connected to the VPN.
When employees connect or disconnect from the VPN, their Clock-in and Clock-out times are automatically recorded. This eliminates the need for employees to manually input their time.
To set up a VPN accessibility endpoint, an Admin can either use an existing endpoint or create a new one. If they create a new endpoint, it should be in the following format: http://insightful-backend.yourcompany.io/.
Each server has to have a unique endpoint that is only accessible to users when they are actively connected to their VPN client. The Insightful Agent application will regularly check communication with this endpoint. As long as the endpoint is accessible, tracking will remain active.
If the Agent cannot reach the endpoint, tracking will be paused for up to 2 minutes. Once the connection to the VPN endpoint is reestablished, tracking will resume.
By using this VPN accessibility endpoint, Insightful can accurately confirm the presence of an active VPN, providing reliable attendance monitoring without any additional effort from employees.