Understanding how work location of employees impacts their productivity has become a necessity for most businesses. This is why Insightful has developed the Remote Work vs. Office feature that enables businesses to track both in-office and remote employees, compare their productivity and analyze the collected data to design the most optimal working model.
Setting up Remote Work vs. Office
Here is how you can set up the Remote Work vs. Office mode:
In order to add new locations, go to Settings → Office Locations. There you can add a name for each location and define IPv4 address and/or MAC address. You should enter your office network’s public IP or your router’s MAC address.
If you need assistance with obtaining this information, please check out the following links:
There are 2 ways to add office locations:
Adding IP or MAC addresses directly on the dashboard
Importing CSV template with the list of IP/MAC addresses
Once you have defined work locations in Settings, you’ll be able to see where your employees are working from.
If employees work from any of the locations saved in the list, that will be considered working from the office, while anything outside of those locations will be considered remote work.
Employee Location Visibility Across Insightful app
Remote Work vs. Office information is visible across different tabs in Insightful - you can take a look at the most important additions below:
Employees section
An additional column named Location is showing the location from which each employee was working at the time chosen in the calendar.
Individual Employee Page
For each employee, there is an additional graph showing day to day office vs. remote distribution.
Apps and Websites section
Website and/or application usage per location (remote or office) is shown for each app and website.
Reports section
Reports section provides you with insights about productivity comparison between
office and remote working for the selected time period and scope.
The data displayed is productivity comparison and total work time data (Work time, Productive time, Computer Activity, Neutral and Unproductive time).
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Can I track employees’ location if they are using a VPN?
A: Yes, you can track employees’ location even if they are using a VPN. We provide you with several options to choose from, depending on your specific needs and possibilities:
The first option is to use the MAC address of your office routers (default gateways) when defining an office location. This means that your employees will only be considered working from the office when they are connected to office routers.
The second option is to implement split tunneling in your VPN configuration, which allows you to exclude traffic to Insightful endpoints from the VPN tunnel. This can be achieved by modifying your VPN configuration and excluding Insightful’s domain or public IP from the VPN configuration, such as:
Allow connection to IP 34.96.85.57 through port 443
By doing so, employees’ internet traffic will be split between the VPN tunnel and the public internet, allowing you to track their location while still providing secure access to your corporate resources.
The third option is to set up your network in a way that allows employees who are physically in your office and connected to the VPN to have a different public IP address than those who are connected to the VPN from other locations. This will allow you to track the location of employees who are in the office while still allowing remote employees to use the VPN.
What if employees change work location in one day?
A: When employees change locations, the moment when the agent sends data from a new location, we can say that employee is working in both locations, which we refer to as Hybrid.
What permissions do I need to manage work locations?
A: Admins have permission to manage work locations. Managers need to have the Manage Organization permission to manage locations.
Can Insightful automatically recognize MAC/IP addresses?
A: No - for now, you need to manually enter MAC/IP addresses. We are considering automatic recognition for our next updates.
Can I edit or delete locations?
A: Yes, you can edit or delete locations through the Settings page. However, changing the values of existing locations will not affect historic data.