Admin Guide

1. Dashboard Overview

The admin dashboard is your command center for remote employee tracking. At a glance you see:

• Employee grid: Every employee with their real-time status — Online, Away (with duration, e.g. "Away for 12m"), Paused, or Offline.
• Latest screenshot: The most recent capture for each employee, refreshing automatically.
• Activity percentage: A productivity score based on app and website usage for the current day.
• Quick actions: Click any employee card to open live view, playback, or reports.

The status system works like Microsoft Teams — Away status includes a duration counter showing how long the employee has been inactive, triggered by idle timeout, screen lock, or manual pause. Keepalive pings from the agent prevent false offline marking.

2. Managing Employees

The Employees section lets you add, edit, and manage all monitored team members.

• Add Employee: Enter name, email, assign to a group, and set work hours. An Agent Key is generated automatically.
• Edit Employee: Update details, reassign groups, change timezone, or modify work schedule.
• Deactivate: Pause monitoring for an employee without deleting their data.
• Delete: Permanently remove an employee and all associated data.
• Bulk Import: Upload a CSV file to add multiple employees at once.

3. Live Screen Viewing

Watch any employee screen in real time. Click the Live View button on any online employee to open a live stream of their desktop.

• Screenshots refresh automatically at the configured interval (as fast as every 5 seconds).
• See the current active application and window title.
• View activity metrics alongside the live feed.
• Switch between employees without leaving the live view.

Live view is available on the Growth plan and higher. It works best with a screenshot interval of 5-10 seconds.

4. Screenshot Playback

Playback lets you review an employee entire workday as a visual timeline. This is one of the most powerful features for employee screen monitoring and time tracking.

• Timeline scrubber: Drag to jump to any point in the day.
• Play/pause: Watch screenshots play back like a video at adjustable speed.
• Date picker: Review any past workday within your retention period.
• Activity overlay: See which application was active at each moment.
• Gap detection: Periods of inactivity or paused monitoring are clearly marked on the timeline.

5. Daily Reports & AI Summaries

DeskTrust generates daily productivity reports automatically for every employee. Each report includes:

• Total hours worked and active time percentage.
• Top applications and websites used with time breakdowns.
• Productivity score based on your custom app categories.
• AI Summary: A Gemini-powered natural language summary of what the employee worked on.
• Comparison to their own average and team averages.

Reports can be emailed to managers daily or accessed from the dashboard at any time.

6. Timesheets

DeskTrust auto-generates accurate timesheets from real activity data — no manual time entry required. This is a major advantage over traditional time tracking software.

• Clock-in and clock-out times derived from first and last activity.
• Break time automatically calculated from paused periods.
• Weekly and monthly views with exportable data.
• Admins can toggle whether employees see their own timesheets in the portal.

7. AI Activity Transcripts

Powered by Google Gemini, AI transcripts provide a minute-by-minute written account of what each employee worked on throughout the day.

• Transcripts are generated from screenshots, active app data, and window titles.
• Summarizes tasks, projects, meetings, and communication activity.
• Useful for performance reviews and project tracking.
• Available on the Growth plan.

8. App & Website Tracking

DeskTrust tracks every application and website used during work hours with automatic productivity scoring.

• Apps are categorized as Productive, Unproductive, or Neutral.
• Default categories are pre-configured (e.g., VS Code is productive, YouTube is unproductive).
• Admins can fully customize categories. For example, business social media (LinkedIn, Twitter for marketing) can be marked as productive.
• Time spent per app/website is tracked and displayed in reports.
• macOS uses AppleScript for accurate active window detection.
• Admins can toggle whether employees see app usage data in their portal.

9. Groups & Departments

Organize employees into groups for easier workforce management and reporting.

• Create groups like Engineering, Marketing, Sales, Support, etc.
• Assign employees to one or more groups.
• Filter the dashboard, reports, and analytics by group.
• Set group-level policies for monitoring settings.
• Assign group managers who can view their team only.

10. Geofencing

Geofencing allows admins to restrict monitoring to specific geographic locations or allow monitoring from anywhere.

• Define approved work locations by address or coordinates with a radius.
• The agent only activates when the employee computer is within an approved location.
• Useful for hybrid teams with office and remote policies.
• Available on the Growth plan.

11. Settings & Configuration

The Settings page gives admins full control over monitoring behavior and employee experience.

• Screenshot interval: 5 seconds to 5 minutes.
• Work hours: Set per-employee or company-wide schedules.
• Idle timeout: How long before an employee is marked Away.
• App categories: Customize productive/unproductive/neutral classifications.
• Employee portal visibility: Show or hide app usage and timesheet data for employees.
• Notifications: Configure email alerts for unusual activity.
• Data retention: Set how long screenshots and data are stored.
• Admin users: Add additional admin accounts with role-based access.

12. Billing & Plans

Manage your subscription, payment method, and invoices from the Billing section.

Both plans include a 30-day free trial with full access. Cancel anytime.

13. Tips & Best Practices