When searching for the best time-tracking software, it is important to not only consider what it offers and how much it costs but also look at the features that set it apart from others. We all know that not all time trackers are created equal. Therefore, it’s important to stack up and determine which among the contenders is worthy enough to be given a try.
Of course, we mustn’t forget to look into the aspect of personal feelings as well. The final decision you make will affect your personal feelings and impact the productivity of your team.
Out of all the top apps taking over today’s productivity scene, Time Doctor has teams and solo users in a trance for its jam-packed time- and task-monitoring capabilities. Is it the same app that has captivated us? This comprehensive review will help you find out.
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Frank on his YouTube channel Franklin Rivera. You can still read our article to get a complete overview of Time Doctor.
A Closer Look at Time Doctor How Does Time Actually Work
Time Doctor is a time tracking and project-monitoring tool that’s best suited to small and large businesses, freelancers, remote teams, and freelance workers. Its lineup of tools and features aims to help teammates and individuals improve their productivity by an average of 22%.
Time Doctor was launched in 2012, a little over a decade ago. It has gradually gained a large audience and is now a well-known time management tool for companies, no matter how established or new to the field. The client portal feature has made it a favorite among freelancers, who frequently work for multiple clients.
Time Doctor has accumulated a user base that exceeds 250,000 over its 20-year history. Among those who’ve used the service for time and employee management matters include Apple, Ericsson, Better Business Bureau (BBB), Verizon, Boost Media, and Thrive Market.
Some of the features Time Doctor has been renowned for are its robust time and activity tracking functions and advanced capabilities, such as setting reminders for when to start and stop the timer. These features may be enough to help Time Doctor stand out from other time management apps. However, it is unable to do so because of its lack of consistency in user useability.
Despite this, we believe that Time Doctor has the potential to be a wonderful addition to any individual or team looking to expand their productivity levels. Keep reading to know more about what else this one-of-a-kind platform has to offer and how well each of them works! How Does Time Actually Work
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The Pros
- Time Doctor is most well-known for its easy-to-use, time- and activity management tools and functions.
- It includes outstanding features like pinpoint-accurate reports, idle alerts and automatic reminders.
- Its accessible and comprehensive client portal makes freelancer-client interactions a convenient experience.
- It offers a smooth and sizable list of integrations with third-party platforms.
The Cons
- Its messy user interface makes navigating through the platform quite different for most users, especially first-timers. How Does Time Actually Work
- Its mobile apps are not as flexible as its web and desktop counterparts, despite their potential.
- It does not allow for smooth switching between web-based client apps and desktop apps, particularly if you are both the administrator or the user.
- You can only access the time tracking feature if you download and install the desktop app or web extension.
Pricing and plans
Before we move on to everything else, let’s talk about the plans and how much they cost first. Time Doctor currently has three paid subscription tiers. Each tier offers a unique set of tools and features that get more expensive as they become more complex.
Pricing will increase depending on how many users are added to a team. Let’s take a look at the three plans available on the Time Doctor platform.
- Basic – $70/user annually or $7/user monthly
The Basic tier of Time Doctor includes access to core platform features such as task and project management and time and activity tracking. It also allows unlimited screenshots. However, you can only use them if you download the desktop application or web extension. Plus, you’re limited to one month’s worth of data storage.
- Standard – $100/user per year or $10/user per month
The Standard plan unlocks the opportunity to access a few advanced features, such as tracking the apps and website URLs used by any of your teammates, the payroll tool, reporting, and an additional 60 integrations with third-party apps. The Standard plan also has a new time limit for its customer support hotline, which is now limited to three days instead of 24 hours.
- Premium – $200/user annually or $20/user monthly How Does Time Actually Work
The Premium tier is the most complete yet out of the three. Those subscribed to it are given access to all of what Time Doctor has to offer – on top of the core tools, they can also explore the client portal, take video screen recordings, and receive VIP-style support.
Those who choose to pay yearly will receive a free charge for the first two months. Time Doctor doesn’t offer a free plan. However, each of the three plans offers a limited 14 day trial that allows you to try it out and decide if it is the right tool for you.
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The User Interface
Time Doctor is a robust tool for managing time and activities. However, it’s well-known for its awkward and poorly designed user interface. It can be a pain to navigate the platform. This is especially true if you are just starting to explore the dashboard and other features.
For instance, many who’ve used Time Doctor have found issues accessing its range of functions. They’ve complained about the lack of in-app centralization, which would have saved a lot of time and effort. Until now, users can only access the time tracking feature through the desktop app or web extension. The website version only has project management, reporting, as well as other admin features. With that in mind, switching between the two portals is more frequent – you usually wouldn’t see this on other time management platforms.
Time Doctor users also need to be helped with the overall design and look. The website-based dashboard lacks key features that would make it easier to use, except for the desktop app. It also needs the diversity of data graphs used for reporting – sure, and the bar graphs are great and all, but what about the circle graphs? You might also like pie graphs. Line graphs, perhaps?
Time Doctor’s interface and design are already a problem. We’ll be reviewing that in a moment! Despite their lackluster appeal, they are not strong enough for the platform to track work activity. Some users don’t even mind the UI issues at all, while others have learned to adjust quickly to it over time. How Does Time Actually Work
There is still hope that Time Doctor’s UX and UI issues could be fixed in the near future. But for now, those new to the platform will have to go through a rather steep learning curve before getting used to its inner workings.
Time Doctor: Key Features
Let’s now dive into the tools and features you might want to explore when you log in to Time Doctor.
Project and Data Management
Time Doctor’s project management capabilities allow individuals and administrators to create tasks and group them in a matter of seconds. Admins may also utilize this feature to assign their employees tasks to offload and maximize their teams’ productivity. Although you can set up standalone tasks, you may group them if you’d like into larger projects to keep things tidy and organized – a great idea for big companies whose stability relies on numerous departments beneath them.
Time Doctor understands that a clean workboard can easily get things done. With that in mind, admins may opt to limit access to select tasks or projects by assigning them to only a specific employee or group of employees within the team. You may want to see who is working on the task or project right now. You may monitor their progress through the dashboard by checking how long they’ve been working, among other things.
Unlike the few other time management platforms out there, Time Doctor allows users to create permanent trackable tasks that can be easily adjusted, edited, or even deleted without having to worry about adding one day by day. Those who work around repetitive tasks will no longer need to face this burden every time – all they need to do is change them to permanent status! How Does Time Actually Work
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Alerts and Time Tracking
As already established, Time Doctor’s signature time-tracking tool can only be accessed through either its desktop application or Chrome web extension. Although it is not available through the web dashboard, its capabilities can be used independently. It’s easy to use – simply add the task to which you are assigned and then click the start button to track your progress. It’s that simple!
All your activities and actions will be recorded as the timer runs through your task. These actions and activities will be recorded and saved to the dashboard. Administrators can then access the dashboard to monitor their employees’ progress. If you’re working solo, you may go through it in the same manner.
Time Doctor’s time tracking tool is unique in that it allows users to set up their own setup until they are happy enough to work. This includes the reminders feature, where the software automatically reminds you when to start or stop your work hours. Another function is the “idle time” function. This allows users to convert the time they’ve been off work into work hours and then reassign it.
The timer will stop the tracking if there is no user activity after a few minutes. If you spot something similar and have gone to attend other things, you can manually click the play button in order to restart tracking. You can also pause the timer if you need to take a break from work. If you need space to take a proper break and don’t want to resume or stop the timer on your own, Time Doctor lets you incorporate time intervals between your daily tasks.
While Time Doctor can track your progress and work hours online, did you know it could also do this offline? Time Doctor, like other time-monitoring apps like Hubstaff, can track your activities and record the hours spent on your task, even without an internet connection. How Does Time Actually Work
Website and App Usage Monitoring
Time Doctor monitors more than just hours spent on a desktop. It also tracks websites visited and keystrokes made while you work. The platform will immediately pause if it detects that your mouse cursor or keyboard is still stationary for longer than a set time and it will stay there until you do something.
Often, it’s hard to tell whether someone seems productive until you find out what they’ve been doing. It’s an easy relief to hear if they are focusing on their tasks. If they’ve been procrastinating by going to other platforms that divert from what they’re supposed to do, that’s a completely different story. Time Doctor lets you check out which websites and applications your colleagues have used during work hours, as well as how long they’ve been looking at them.
Among Time Doctor’s set of robust monitoring capabilities, there is a feature in which admins can easily spot if their employees have either been wasting time or attending to a task by the website URL or application name and the status given to it. This feature is available to managers and administrators to adjust the platform’s productivity rating to any one of the three ranks.
- Productive, if it serves a team/project’s purpose as a key driver to its tasks.
- Unproductive, if it otherwise serves zero purposes and, therefore, a time-waster
- If it is neither productive nor unproductive, it will be considered neutral.
These statuses can be assigned to any app or website and can be set to be restricted to a single user, group/team or company. It is extremely convenient for those who work in specific jobs, such as content writing, to be able to monitor website activity and set productivity statuses per user. For what it’s worth, Time Doctor may be lucky this time to have this crucial function included, unlike other time-tracking software. How Does Time Actually Work
Screen Recordings and Activity Screenshots
Remember when we told you about Time Doctor being able to record your tracked time and activity in the background while they’re posting the data to the web dashboard for admins to see? This is why it has built-in snapshot capabilities.
Admins can set a specific time interval for automatic screen capturing across their project/team, whether it’s fixed to 10 minutes or 30. If they please, they may also opt to select any of their teammates who should be allowed access to this feature.
As a measure of user productivity, each image includes additional information about the mouse cursor activity and keystroke activity. Premium subscribers have unlimited access to screenshots. Those who subscribe to Time Doctor’s Standard and Basic plans have unlimited access to screen shots. However, premium users can record video screens. The platform captures three minutes of actual work activity, instead of just taking photos of the monitor.
There may be rare instances in which someone from a project/team may be at risk of a breach of privacy caused by serious circumstances. To protect their safety, they might be permitted to delete screen recordings or screenshots within the Time Doctor platform. However, this will likely result in the deduction of work hours listed on the day of recording.
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Productivity Reporting and Analysis
Time Doctor lets users view, edit and save pre-built reports. Each report contains the data and insights that the software has collected during the user’s work hours. All of these reports are presented in decent visuals or summaries. Users can request reports to determine which time management and productivity practices are working well and which ones need to be improved.
Time Doctor’s report collection has so many options for you to explore. The Web and App Usage report lets you see how much time you have spent on websites and apps that are considered productive. The Poor Time Use report shows how long you have sat on sites that have been flagged inappropriate for work. However, issues have arisen, especially from multi-screen work set-ups where one could jam to their favorite playlist on one screen while they get to their task on another. Poor Time Use includes the ability to open pop-up windows to block certain websites. This means that if someone goes to YouTube, they will be immediately reminded if they wish to continue or return to their task.
Other types of reports include the Timeline report, which displays all your tracked hours in chronological order, primarily divided into the colors yellow for manual time recording and green for automatic; the Project and Tasks report, where hours spent on assigned tasks and/or projects are broken down in full detail; and the Activity Summary in which your total work hours and the full percentages derived from a combination of all other reports are laid out for you and your admin to see. How Does Time Actually Work
Time Doctor’s reporting tools are impressive, but some users don’t like the process of creating them. First, most reports are formatted in a clunky way, which can impact how they’re exported. Second, XSL and CSV are the only two options Time Doctor has made available and nothing else – some may be simply okay with that, but others won’t like this lack of export file diversity as much.
Client Access and White-labeling
Time Doctor is the one thing that solopreneurs and freelancers love the most. They can share their progress with clients even though they don’t have a Time Doctor account.
If your job is to take commissions from a wide variety of clientele, you may be glad to know that the platform’s remarkable Client Portal feature lets you do exactly that!
Simply send the link to the portal directly to your clients. Once they have access to it, they can see how long you’ve been working, how many tasks you completed, and even the archive of screenshots and reports. You have complete control over what your clients see through the Client Portal, which results in smooth, tasteful interactions.
Time Doctor’s white labeling feature allows you to integrate its tools with your branding if you are the owner or manager of a successful business.
Payroll
You want to pay your employees according to how much time they have dedicated to their tasks. You can do that within the Time Doctor platform through its built-in payroll feature. Turn on payroll deep in the settings of the web dashboard, and your team’s timeline will automatically be billed. Your teammates may be paid based on their hours worked or on a fixed rate.
Time Doctor’s payroll tool supports every form of currency in existence. You can ask employees to send their salaries through PayPal, Payoneer or TransferWise. For batch payments, you can export your payroll information to a CSV file if you work for a larger company. Multiple payments are sent at once.
Integration with Third-Party Services
Time Doctor offers a wide range of integrations to various third-party platforms. These integrations are primarily focused on work, business, and productivity. With an approximate estimate of over 60 integrations, Time Doctor makes it easy for you to manage your team’s combined work in one interconnected ecosystem.
Such includes connections with project management platforms like Asana and Trello, payment services like PayPal, work messaging apps like Slack, and CRM platforms like Salesforce. On top of all this, a public API tool is made available for integrations with other apps beyond the given list – you may utilize this if you or your teammate know a thing or two about coding.
The Time Doctor Mobile App
Time Doctor’s desktop software is available for download on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux OS computers. The latest web extension, however, is only available on Google Chrome. However, the time-tracking software also offers its users unlimited access through their smartphones: Time Doctor currently offers not one but two mobile app versions, both of which you can download on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
You may be able track your work hours and progress no matter where you are. On one side, the classic version of the app lets you overview the tasks within a project that need to be done, as well as track where your teammates are through GPS – both on top of the basic time-tracking tools and limited dashboard settings.
The latest version – Time Doctor 2 – has more or less the same functionalities as the previous iteration. The only differences that set the two apart are that 1) TD2 is only compatible with Android devices, and 2) you won’t get to explore other features aside from time tracking – a noteworthy downgrade from TD Classic.
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How Safe and Secure is Time Doctor?
At this point, you’re questioning whether or not Time Doctor is worth trusting as a time management service. It is possible that its surveillance tools may keep track of your activities, even if you temporarily pause your timer to take a break. Although the aspect of a 1984-esque work scenario may seem intimidating, we’re glad to tell you that your activities as the timer stops will not be tracked and saved to Time Doctor’s cloud-based database. It’s 100% not spyware material, so you’re in good hands.
We want to remind you that screenshots and recordings can be used to track your work activity. Project managers may also use the webcam shot feature to see their coworkers right in front of them.
Ok, that might be a concern for some admins, especially if they are concerned about their privacy. But don’t worry, admins can disable screengrabs and webcam shots depending on how they feel.
Time Doctor assures that your likeness and activity will not be forced-shared in vain. The same sentiment can also be applied to payment information entered into the platform by yourself or your colleagues. These will then be automatically deleted after a while for privacy reasons.
Time Doctor further takes up drastic security measures to ensure that every user’s account isn’t easily breached. This includes strong password policies and 2FA protection. All data stored within the platform is protected by strong SSL encryption with maximum security. Time Doctor is cloud-based so you can expect your data to be regularly backed up. You may be able to have your data restored quickly in the event of an internet or power outage. This will ensure that you don’t lose any progress.
The Bottom Line: Should You Use Time Doctor?
Time Doctor provides a steady user base of professional teams and freelancers with the benefits of a simple, straightforward task management space and the charms of an advanced-level time tracker, creating a harmonious balance between the two.
Although the range of dynamic features in this app has left us speechless, we still found the experience to be awe-inspiring. However, it would have been much better if the UI and UX were more clear, less cohesive and lacking in functionality in mobile apps. There was also a lack of report graphics options and, to a certain extent, a disorienting UI. These problems may have hindered other users as well as us from enjoying the experience to its fullest. Still, others don’t mind anyway because it works exceptionally in what it was originally designed to do – track time.
We believe Time Doctor is able to hold its own, even though it doesn’t offer the same ease of use as other apps. Besides, every time management platform shines uniquely, right?
FAQ How Does Time Actually Work
How do I contact Time Doctor’s customer support team?
You can contact Time Doctor’s customer support hotline via e-mail, or live chat. At this time, there is no telephone support. However, if you have an important matter and the best and only thing you think to solve this is through talking over the phone, you may leave behind your contact details and preferred call time through any of the available outlets. A member of the hotline will notify this and reach you any day.
You won’t find any tutorials or tips for Time Doctor anywhere else.
YouTube videos and how to articles by independent creators can be found. However, Time Doctor offers its users an alternative via its dedicated help center. Here, most of the information is provided by the team behind Time Doctor.
Do I need to add credit card details to apply for a free trial to any of Time Doctor’s paid plans?
No, you won’t need to use your credit card to sign up for a limited 14-day trial. You can only bring it up once you finish the period and wish to commit to purchasing a Time Doctor subscription if you like.
Is Time Doctor HIPAA-compliant?
Yes. Time Doctor follows the rules and standards of the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Even though it can technically be used for a vast range of niches, industries, and professions, the platform can be a solid addition to healthcare teams.