DeskTime users can set up default working days as well as default tracking days. Working days are used to keep track of everyone's schedule, whether they arrive late, are absent, or leave early. Meanwhile, tracking days are used to set up a schedule when automatic time and activity tracking of users is allowed.
Working days
To set up the default times when your employees are supposed to start and finish working, you must go to Settings → Account (for the whole account), Teams (for specific teams), or Team members (for a certain team member).
In the Working days section, select the days of the week and assign tracking start and tracking end times. This will show you if the employee is late or left earlier than supposed to, or is absent in general on their work day.
These settings are not restrictive in any way - the desktop app or any manual tracking option will track the user's activities as usual.
- The Minimum hours field indicates the amount of time each employee must spend working. This includes both productive and unproductive time. Effectiveness will be calculated using these assigned Minimum hours.
Enable Flexible work hours: Check this box if team members do not have set daily working hours.
- Late / Left Early tracking: Team members can log in and out anytime without being flagged as late or having left early, unless they have an assigned shift in Work Schedules.
Work Schedule priority: Shifts created in Work Schedules always take priority over flexible hours. If an employee has an active shift assigned, arrival and departure tracking will follow that shift schedule.
Extra hours: Extra hours are not calculated for flexible schedules. Consequently, the Extra Hours widget and related metrics in Reports will not display data for users with this setting enabled.
Overnight tracking: Overnight settings do not apply to flexible schedules. All time tracked is recorded under standard calendar days (00:00 to 23:59), and any work after midnight will be recorded on the following day.
- Use Create new group if the work schedule differs on different days of the week.
If your employees work night shifts (PM–AM hours), you can enable the Night shift work hours setting. This setting is only available in account-level settings.
To set specific working times for specific dates and employees, use the Work schedules feature. The shifts will always override the Working day settings. Learn more about it here.
Tracking days
In the same Settings page, you have the Tracking days section, where you can set up a schedule for when the desktop app will allow automatic time and activity tracking of users. Select specific days of the week and assign tracking start and end times.
If you want the app to start automatic tracking whenever the user logs on to their computer or is working night shifts (PM–AM hours), you must select all the days and a 24-hour time period. Tracking starts at 00:00 and ends at 23:59.
Keep in mind that the Tracking days do not allow to set up tracking starts time later than tracking ends time.
DeskTime will not enable automatic tracking on days and in time periods not added as tracking days. The desktop app will have a restriction icon outside the assigned schedule.
The manual time tracking is possible regardless of the time and days set in Tracking days.
You can read about the difference between automatic and manual time tracking here.