Free DeskTime Alternative for Employee Monitoring: Traqq vs DeskTime

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Choosing the Right Tracker

Seeking to manage and control how employees spend time at the workplace? You need an excellent time tracking tool to make the process smoother, faster and more effective. A good time tracker should help you analyze productivity, understand daily habits, and detect unproductive workflow patterns.

When researching time tracking solutions, it's useful to check out the comparisons between different apps. Today, we explore Traqq, one of the best DeskTime alternatives. While DeskTime can help teams manage their productivity and performance, it's far from perfect.

Traqq is one of the few time trackers that can help boost your team’s productivity while promoting ethical employee monitoring.

Below, we take a closer look at their main differences and where each program excels. We will also show you why Traqq is the best DeskTime alternative.

All the information provided in this article is published in good faith and for comparison purposes only. We do not intend to imply that our product is better than other time trackers on the market. The information is well-researched and unbiased to help you choose the right software for your business. While Traqq strives to make the information as accurate as possible, liability for errors, omissions, accuracy, or completeness of the contents is hereby expressly disclaimed.

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What Is Traqq?

Traqq is a lightweight, yet powerful time tracking software that simplifies
time tracking for you and your teams. It's easy to set up, and you can start
tracking in less than two minutes. The program combines time tracking
with activity monitoring to give insights into your workforce performance.

Traqq works for both in-house and remote teams and creates detailed
timesheets to help you analyze team productivity.

Traqq lets you:

  • Track time accurately for an individual or the entire team.
  • Generate powerful reports and analytics to help you measure your team’s performance.
  • Detect idle time and make sure employees are actively tracking work hours.
  • Monitor app and website usage to give you an understanding of their work habits.
  • Track billable hours and calculate amounts earned.
  • Be more organized and make informed decisions.
  • Traqq’s user-friendly interface and scalability makes it suitable for freelancers, as well as big organizations.

What Is DeskTime?

DeskTime is an employee time tracking tool for teams looking to improve time management and boost productivity. The automated time tracker ensures accurate work hour recording and integrates with other apps for seamless workflow management.

DeskTime lets you:

  • Plan and create shifts for your teams
  • Track your employees’ time and productivity
  • Monitor employee absences
  • Integrate with 3rd party apps

Traqq vs DeskTime: Detailed Feature
Comparison

Both Traqq and DeskTime offer time and employee monitoring features. However,
they do differ when it comes to functionality.

User Experience

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Getting started with Traqq is fast and easy

  • You first need to create a free account for your organization.
  • After verifying your account, download and install the lightweight Traqq desktop app on your computer.
  • Invite team members to download the app. Once everyone has installed Traqq, they can start tracking time.

As an efficient DeskTime alternative, Traqq lets you configure the settings to suit your preferences. For example, you can customize whether you want to receive a notification of every hour tracked and get notified if you are being tracked while idle. Other options include:

  • Notify me when screenshots and videos are taken
  • Play sounds
  • Show timer in different formats
  • Notify if activity is detected while tracker is off
  • Launch time tracking on system startup

Traqq lets you add people or create Groups and categorize teams based on their roles. This way, tracking their activity and performance levels becomes more manageable.

If you work with a team, you can invite them by sending an email with a link to download the Traqq desktop app. The employee will receive the invitation and be nudged to download the app to their computers.

You can select the Role or Groups they will be assigned to, as long as you have a group already created.

Once the team members register and install Traqq, they will appear on your Dashboard and People pages.

You need to sign up to start using DeskTime. Once you set up your account and download the desktop tracking app, you can add team members by sending invites. During setup, you can choose the preset team categories, which can later be edited.

You’ll need to select the features you're interested in, such as automatic time tracking, screenshots, and URL and App tracking. Or, you can select all the features.

You can view your team members under the Team Members tab.

Time Tracking

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Interactive Time Tracking

To start tracking time on Traqq, locate the Traqq widget on your taskbar or mini window and select Start Working. The tracker will be activated, and your work hours will automatically be logged.



If you want to take a break, simply stop the timer. When you resume working, you can continue tracking with just one click.

Traqq will automatically track your team’s activity levels based on computer usage. It collects all the data on online timesheets, which are more accurate and convenient compared to filling out a manual timesheet.

Traqq can track:

  • Users’ activity levels
  • Applications used
  • Websites accessed
  • Total number of hours logged

Traqq’s time-tracking system gives users more control over what they want tracked. Employees don’t need a separate 'Private time’ option for separating work from non-work-related stuff.

The tracker runs in the background while remaining visible in your taskbar, so you can keep tabs on how much time you're spending on projects.

Offline Time Tracking

If you’re looking for a DeskTime alternative that offers offline time recording, opt for Traqq. Its time clock keeps capturing time even without Internet access. The tracker must be running to record your offline activity. Once you get back online, all your activities, including screenshots, will be synchronized with your online account.

Idle Time Detection and Reminders

Traqq focuses on accurate time and activity tracking. The tool detects idle time and reminds users that the tracker is running. This can help minimize distractions and encourage your staff to focus on the tasks at hand.

Add Time Manually

Apart from tracking offline activity, the powerful Traqq time tracker also allows you to edit entries. This way, users can account for company time spent away from the computer. For instance, you may have forgotten to turn on the tracker when you resumed work or turn it off when you stopped working.

The manual time adjustment feature lets you correct the time for accuracy. To add or edit time, click on the 'Add/edit time' option right from the desktop app and select Add time. Specify the date, period, and reason for adjusting. Once you save the changes, they will reflect on your reports.

Automatic Time Tracking

As long as you're logged in to the DeskTime app, it automatically starts tracking time whenever you use your computer. It stops tracking time after you turn your computer off or if you log out.

The tracker captures all time spent while its running, and among things, records:

  • Applications accessed
  • Website URL’s
  • Document names

DeskTime has no manual input, giving users less control over what they want tracked. However, employees can turn on the 'Private time’ option when they want to take a digital timeout on their computer. Once turned on, automatic tracking is paused, and activities won't be tracked.

Offline Time Tracking

DeskTime lets you add time spent away from the computer and provide the reason for carrying out tasks offline. You can mark the offline time as productive, unproductive, or neutral.

Unlike Traqq, DeskTime doesn't support full offline mode. That is, it can't track time and activities if you don’t have internet access. It only allows the team leader or employees to add their offline time on the app.

Employee Monitoring

If you pay your staff by the hour, you want every minute to be accounted for. An employee monitoring tool allows you to monitor workers’ performance and check their computer usage.

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Automated Screenshots and Video Recordings

Traqq automatically captures screenshots of employees’ computer screens to show what they are working on. The screenshots specify the time and date they were taken and can prove useful when analyzing your team’s productivity levels.

When the tracker is running, it takes random screenshots every ten minutes and adds the data to your timeline. Administrators and Owners have full rights to view the screenshots and activity stats for everyone on the team.

While users can delete screenshots and video recordings, they can't disable the screenshot feature. Only admin accounts can do that.

Keep in mind that deleting a screenshot also removes the corresponding time from your work log, reducing your total hours.

Ethical Time Tracking

When it comes to employee monitoring, most people are worried about being spied on. With Traqq, teams can rest assured that their privacy is protected. The screenshots and video clips are intentionally blurred to prevent any sensitive information on the screen from being legible.

The recordings are only intended to give employers and team leaders a sense of what the team is working on.

App and Website Monitoring

Efficient monitoring ensures you stay on top of everything that goes on during work hours. With Traqq, you’ll get insights into the applications and websites your employees frequently use while working. The data is presented on a pie chart, giving you a quick overview of productive and non-productive activities.

By collecting this information, you can point out common time wasters and devise better time management strategies.

Screenshots

DeskTime takes screenshots of employees' screen time at random intervals. You can pick a time interval for capturing screenshots, from 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes. The tool captures everything, but only highlights apps it deems unproductive or suspicious.

Unlike Traqq, which blurs all images by default, DeskTime gives you the option to blur or not to blur the screenshots. Doing so may leave your team feeling like their privacy is being invaded.

App and Website Tracking

DeskTime lets you monitor employee computer usage by recording the websites, applications, and programs they use while working. These are categorized as productive or unproductive. The data shows the time spent on every work or non-work-related task and may help measure their performance.

Reports and Timesheets

Traqq offers in-depth reports compared to DeskTime, and managers can use the stats to compare past and present accomplishments. Reports are also useful when calculating earnings.

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The reports generated by Traqq are insightful and show a breakdown of everything that happened within the selected period. Traqq generates the following reports:

Weekly Summary: View a weekly report on your personal or your team’s overall performance for a given week.

Time and Activity: View the activity levels and the total number of hours you or your team worked over a selected period.

Apps and Websites: View reports on the amount of time you or your team spent on apps and websites for a selected period.

Manual Time Adjustments: View how much time was manually added during the selected period.

Amounts Earned: View the total amount earned by you or your team during the period you select.

Idle Time: View the amount of time that’s being spent with zero activity during work days with the timer on.

Deleted Tracked Time: View the number of minutes the user deleted during each day in the selected time period.

To view a report, select your desired report period and filter it by user or group. The time tracker allows you to share the reports with your clients for faster payroll processing. You can save the reports on your computer or send them via email in .csv or .pdf file format.

DeskTime lets you create custom reports but with limited analytics. The reports section is divided into five sections:

Overview: Displays the general data about time spent at work, productivity, time spent on apps and URLs, and absences.

Compare: Shows comparisons between teams or specific team members and their performance.

Compare by Time: Compares data from two separate periods.

Extra Hours: This shows the extra hours your employees worked before and after work, including the apps and URLs they used during these extra hours.

Projects Overview: Displays projects teams or individual team members have been tackling and the total hours spent.

Projects: Lets you specify details about projects and how much time was spent working on them.

You can filter the reports by day, week, or month. There are tabs to compare apps and workers by time and productivity, as well as extra hours worked. You can export reports in XLS or CSV format.

Activity Level Tracking

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Traqq utilizes mouse and keyboard activity tracking to show how productive a team member is. It then uses this information to provide statistical data of the employee’s most and least active hours. The data, shown in percentage, is attached to each of the screenshots captured. Meanwhile, you will see the total activity level for the day in the upper-right corner of the timesheet.

Traqq uses different colors to describe the activity levels on the dashboard. Green depicts high activity level, yellow shows normal activity, and red implies low activity or idle time. The simplified view enables the team leader to easily monitor individual or the entire team’s activity levels.

DeskTime gives you an overview of the productivity levels of your teams and displays their effectiveness for the selected period in percentage. It shows the total time spent on your computer and how much of that time went to production applications.

If you manage a team, you can see employee attendance, the number of top-performing employees, and those with low productivity.

In Conclusion…

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Traqq is right for you if you value that it:

  • Offers easy time management for small to large teams
  • Encourages full accountability from your staff
  • Monitors employees’ activity and performance levels ethically
  • Detects time wasters and restores time efficiency to boost productivity

DeskTime is right for you if you need a tool that:

  • Supports integrations with multiple project management apps
  • Offers simple project and task tracking
  • Tracks employee attendance and absence.

Get a competitor discount

If you use another time tracker or employee monitoring software, you can get Traqq at up to 30% off.

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