Hubstaff Review

Founded in 2012, Hubstaff has quickly grown to become a well-known software to manage remote employees. It’s a simple solution that takes the virtual workspace to a new level. Everyone wants their employees to be productive, and Hubstaff provides the tools to ensure this.

In its essence, Hubstaff is an employee tracking software with monitor options. It increases employee productivity, provides you with detailed reports, and shows the team manager if everybody is working on their assigned tasks. It tracks time, measures activity levels, take screenshots, and more.

Hubstaff Features

Let’s take a look at the features of this workstation monitoring software in more detail. 

Employee Time Tracking

With the time tracking feature, team members and supervisors can track time, tasks, and location. Users can log time via their devices or with the Hubstaff Google Chrome extension. Everything is recorded in one place. 

This feature is essential for paid-per-hour projects, as it saves money that would be wasted on unproductive employees.

Geofencing

Business owners can set up job locations where crews get to work. Once the employee enters, Hubstaff instantly logs it in, using their phone GPS. Time and place are recorded until the workers leave the spot. Managers won’t have to worry about whether their teams did the jobs on location.

Employee Monitoring

Many managers find employee tracking to be one of the best ways of monitoring a remote team. With the Hubstaff time tracker, you can track hours worked, activity levels, screenshots, and idle timeouts. App usage, URL visits, and GPS can also be set but aren’t automatically turned on in the default setting.

This feature also tracks mouse movements, clicks, and if a keyboard is used. You can combine these to spot trends and behavioral changes. With Hubstaff, efficiency is monitored and improved.

Project Budgeting

Budgeting is essential to keep the operations running. With 30+ integrations, staying on a budget is easy. With this feature, users can track:

• If a project passed the budget limits
• Costs per project or team member 
• Client’s profitability
• Budget allocation 

You can turn projects to hourly, with an option of complete analyses of all activity. Payment options can be automatic and manual.

Detailed Reporting

Business owners can use reports to analyze events and projects. They are divided into general, payment, budgets, time off, invoice, schedule, and job site categories.

Online Timesheets

With a Hubstaff web timer feature, there’s no need to download the software. It’s built in the dashboard and can be used on its own to track time without the desktop client.

Hubstaff Online Invoicing

Hubstaff users can set up client details, send invoices via email, and record payments. All bills are assigned a status to see whether it was paid partially or in full.

Employee Scheduling

With this feature, every employee will know what their assignment is. Here’s what users can do through Hubstaff schedules:

• Assign work shifts
• View schedules of teams and individuals
• Create one-time or recurring shifts
• Send reminders to late employees
• Get notices of missed shifts

Backups

Like other computer monitoring programs, all recorded screenshots are stored on the cloud or the user’s desktop, depending on whether an internet connection is available. Once the user is back online, all the screenshots will be uploaded to the cloud.

For this, Hubstaff uses Amazon S3 services. AWS uses an incremental back system. Once the first complete copy of data is stored, all other changes are periodically logged in.

Hubstaff Integrations

Hubstaff offers 30+ integrations for better communication, payment, activity, and more. Our Hubstaff review will cover the most important ones.

Project Management Integrations

Project management integrations provide an automated kanban workflow dashboard. You can move tasks with a few clicks and send alerts selectively. There’s also an automated time tracking for tasks, screenshots, activity levels, and timesheet of finished work.

GitHub and GitLab integrations let users track the time they spend on GitHub and GitLab issues and repositories. Some integrations, like Trello, can be used through the Hubstaff Chrome extension. 

Other project integrations include:

• Hubstaff tasks
• Active collab
• Asana
• Breeze
• Podio

Communication Integrations

Slack is one of the most commonly used communication apps for teams, and it can also be integrated with Hubstaff. Alerts will be instantly visible in Slack, and the availability of a team member will show others if they’re working. 

Payments, Accounting, Invoicing Integrations

Bitwage provides insight into how an employee worked, what websites they visited, and what programs they used. You can set up payments to work automatically. Freshbooks, Payoneer, and PayPal integrations are similar to this one.

Quick Books for Windows/Online can be used to automate payrolls and streamline accounting.

With Transferwise, teams are paid for the exact hours worked in a seamless process. Low international fees, automatic payment, budget limits, and customizable reports are available. 

CRM Integrations 

The Salesforce integration provides automatic screenshots, activity levels, and reports.

Help Desk Integrations

Tracking the customer support team is easy with the Freshdesk integration. The Hubstaff app lets users see assigned tickets and follow their time on solving them.

That concludes the most popular add-ons and integrations. For a full list, visit the Hubstaff website.

Hubstaff Security

Hubstaff doesn’t record keystrokes, but it only registers that a key is pressed. Owners or managers can delete individual screenshots, while other users can only delete activity. All the images are uploaded via SSL over the HTTPS port, directly to Amazon S3. The screens are also made unreadable for the Amazon server. 

The app tracks GPS location, but this information is collected only when the mobile app is in use.

Interface and Ease of Use

We have to join other Hubstaff reviews in praising the software for its usability. 

Downloading and setting up the software is very easy. After you’ve created your account and customized the dashboard to your liking, you can invite your team members. They will get links to download Hubstaff on necessary devices and join with just a few clicks.

The interface itself is clear and straightforward to use. You can find all recent activity on the dashboard. From the homepage, you can go to activity, timesheets, add reports, and more.

Hubstaff System Requirements 

These are the system requirements for Hubstaff:

• Windows - Vista and up
• Mac - 10.6 and up
• Linux - Ubuntu 10.04 and up
• Chromebook app - Google Chrome 46 and up
• Chrome extension - Google Chrome 46 and up
• iOS app - 8.0 and up
• Android - 4.1 and up

Browsers support URL tracking: 

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Internet explorer
• Safari 

Customer Support

The knowledge base provides you with information on common issues. The company has posted all relevant articles together with screenshots to make your problem-solving simple. Still, opening a ticket is the most effective way of getting your problem solved. Hubstaff reviews on its customer support are quite positive.

Work hours and phone numbers of customer support are currently unknown. 

Hubstaff Pricing

Hubstaff has a free version that’s perfect for personal use. It includes tracking of activity levels and limited screenshots/payment options. If you want to use all features or use it for business, we recommend upgrading to one of the premium plans:

• Basic: $/7/user/month (minimum of two users)
• Premium: $10/user/month (minimum of two users)
• Enterprise: $20/user/month (minimum of two users)

All plans come with a free 14-day trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee. 

Verdict

With an increasing number of remote companies, the need for computer activity monitoring software is also on the rise. With time tracking, project management, task management, and features to help managers boost their teams’ productivity, Hubstaff provides precisely that.

This all-in-one employee computer monitoring software works for businesses of all sizes. With a friendly interface, and more than 30 integrations available, Hubstaff is one of the most powerful software of this kind on the market. Our Hubstaff review also states that it’s great to use for individuals who aim to improve their work habits.