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. It’s crucial to compare and decide which of the competitors is worth a shot.
We must not forget to consider our personal feelings. What you ultimately choose may either increase your team’s productivity or not – either way, it will change you whether you like it or not.
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 The Big Time Rush
Time Doctor is a time-tracking and project-monitoring platform best suited for large or small businesses, teams who work remotely, and freelance professionals. Its lineup of tools and features aims to help teammates and individuals improve their productivity by an average of 22%.
Launched in 2012, around a decade earlier already, Time Doctor has slowly gained a large following, becoming a popular time management tool among companies everywhere, whether they’re established or just starting in the industry. It has also become a hit among freelancers who often work for multiple clients thanks to its convenient client portal feature.
Time Doctor has accumulated a user base that exceeds 250,000 over its 20-year history. Apple, Ericsson and the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Verizon and Boost Media are just a few of the many companies that have used Time Doctor for employee and time management issues.
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. Still, the lack of cohesiveness in its general user usability stops it from doing so.
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! The Big Time Rush
> > Click Here to Try Time Doctor Now < <
The pros
- Time Doctor is best recognized for its excellent, easy-to-use time and activity management tools and functions.
- It includes outstanding features like pinpoint-accurate reports, idle alerts and automatic reminders.
- The user-friendly and extensive client portal makes it easy for freelancers to interact with clients.
- It allows for a large and seamless integration with third-party platforms.
The Cons
- Its messy user interface makes navigating through the platform quite different for most users, especially first-timers. The Big Time Rush
- Despite its potential, its mobile apps don’t provide the same flexibility as the desktop and web versions.
- 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.
- Only the web extension or desktop app can access the time tracking function.
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 check out the following three available plans in the Time Doctor platform.
- Basic – $70/user annually or $7/user monthly
Time Doctor’s Basic tier includes access to the platform’s core features, such as time and activity tracking, task and project management, and unlimited screenshots. However, you can only use them if you download the desktop application or web extension. You can only store one month of data.
- 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. It also sees upgraded time limitations to its customer support hotline – from three days to 24 hours.
- Premium – $200/user annually or $20/user monthly The Big Time Rush
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.
Paying annually will get a complimentary charge for the first 2 months. Unfortunately, Time Doctor does not offer a free plan; however, each of the three plans has a limited 14-day free trial for those who want to test the waters and see if it’s the perfect tool.
> > Click Here to Try Time Doctor Now < <
The User Interface
Despite being filled to the brim with robust time and activity management tools, Time Doctor may be highly notorious for its clunky and poorly-designed take on the user interface and experience. In most cases, going through the platform can be such a hassle – it’s even much harder if you explore its dashboard and features for the first time.
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. Users can access the time tracking feature via the web extension or desktop app. Project management, reporting, and other admin features are exclusive to the website version. This is why switching between the portals is easier – it’s not possible to do this with other time management platforms.
Another obstacle Time Doctor users need help with is the general look and design. Save for the desktop app, and the website-based dashboard sure does lack a few key intuitive features which would have made for a more convenient user experience. The diversity of data graphs needed for reporting is also a must. Sure, the bar graphs are awesome, but what about the circles graphs? You might also like pie graphs. Line graphs, perhaps?
It’s already clear that Time Doctor’s user interface and design don’t shine as brightly as its features – we’ll review that very shortly! Despite their lackluster appeal, they are not strong enough for the platform to track work activity. Some users aren’t bothered by the UI problems, while others adjust to it quickly. The Big Time Rush
There’s still a glimmer of hope that the UI and UX issues in Time Doctor could be resolved and improved in the future. For now, however, new users will need to learn the platform’s 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. You can create tasks as standalone tasks. However, you can group them together if necessary into larger projects. This is a great option for large companies whose stability depends on many departments below them.
Time Doctor understands that a clean workboard can easily get things done. Administrators can limit access to certain tasks and projects by limiting their visibility to a particular employee or group of employees in the organization. You may want to see who is working on the task or project right now. The dashboard allows you to track their progress and see how long they have been working.
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. People who are used to repetitive tasks no longer have to deal with this problem every day. All they have to do is make them permanent! The Big Time Rush
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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 quite straightforward – just add in the task you’re assigned to work on and click the timer’s 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. They will then be logged and saved to the web dashboard, where admins may use this to check on their employees’ progress on the go. You may do it the same way if you are working alone.
One unique trait of Time Doctor’s time-tracking tool that we can’t help but appreciate is allowing users to customize their set-up according to their liking until they’re content enough to work well. This includes the reminders feature, where the software automatically reminds you when to start or stop your work hours. Another is the “idle time” function, in which users can convert the duration in which they haven’t been working and reassign it to work hours.
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. Similarly, you may also pause it if you want to time out 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.
Time Doctor may be able to track your work hours and progress online, but did you know that it could do the same offline, too? Like some time monitoring apps such as Hubstaff, which have this function, Time Doctor can record your activity and the hours you spend on your task even without the presence of an internet connection. The Big Time Rush
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.
It’s often difficult to determine if someone is productive until you know what they have been doing. If they’ve been focusing on their tasks, that’s a sigh of relief. 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.
- If it serves no purpose and is therefore inefficient, it will be a time-waster
- If it is neither productive nor unproductive, it will be considered neutral.
These three productivity statuses are assigned to any website or app and can be adjusted to be limited to one 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. Time Doctor, unlike other time tracking software, may have been fortunate to include this important function. The Big Time Rush
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.
Administrators can specify a time period for screen capture across their project/team. It could be set to 10 minutes, 30 or even 30 minutes. 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.
Rarely, a team member or project manager may be exposed to privacy breaches due to serious circumstances. To protect their safety, they might be permitted to delete screen recordings or screenshots within the Time Doctor platform. This will likely lead to the deducting of the work hours on the recording date.
> > Click Here to Try Time Doctor Now < <
Productivity Reporting & Analysis
Time Doctor allows users to view, edit, save, share, or print from its selection of 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. Reports can be provided as a means to help users determine which of the implemented time management and productivity habits have been working and which need improvement.
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 also includes being able to set pop-up windows on off-limits websites, so whenever someone decides to go to YouTube, for example, they’ll be instantly met with a reminder if they want to continue or go back to focus on their assigned task.
The Timeline report displays all of your hours tracked in chronological order. It is divided into two colors: yellow for manual time recording and blue for automatic. The Project and Tasks report shows hours spent on tasks and/or projects. Finally, the Activity Summary allows you and your admin to view your total work hours and all percentages from all reports. The Big Time Rush
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
If there’s one thing about Time Doctor that dedicated freelancers or solopreneurs can’t get enough of, it’s the ability to share the progress of their tasks with their clients, even if they are not exactly their teammates or don’t share a Time Doctor account.
You may find it helpful to know that the Client Portal feature of the platform allows you to accept commissions from many clients.
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.
If you own and manage a well-established business – and have enough money to pull it off – you may also take advantage of Time Doctor’s white-labeling feature by integrating its tools with your own branding.
Payroll
Planning to pay your employees based on how much they’ve dedicated their time to their respective tasks? You can do that within the Time Doctor platform through its built-in payroll feature. You can turn on payroll deep within the settings of your web dashboard and your team will be automatically billed. You may pay your teammates based on tracked hours or on a fixed-rate basis.
Time Doctor’s payroll tool supports every form of currency in existence. As for payment methods, you may ask your employees to have their salary sent 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.
These include connections to project management platforms such as Trello and Asana, payment services such PayPal, work messaging apps such Slack and CRM platforms like Salesforce. A public API tool is also available to integrate with other apps. This can be used if you know something about coding or you and your teammate are good at it.
The Time Doctor Mobile App
Time Doctor’s desktop program is available to download and install on Windows PCs, Mac OS devices, 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.
No matter how you look, you may be able to track your work hours and progress even if you’re out of the office. The classic version of the app allows you to view all tasks in a project and track your team’s location through GPS. This is on top of the basic tools for time tracking and the limited dashboard settings.
Time Doctor 2 is the latest version. It has almost the exact same functionality as the older version. Only two differences distinguish the two versions: 1) TD2 can only be used on Android devices and 2) you won’t have access to other features other than time tracking – a notable downgrade from TD Classic.
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Time Doctor: How safe and secure is it?
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. We are happy to inform you that the 1984-style work scenario is not something we find frightening. Your activities will not be saved to Time Doctor’s cloud database. It’s 100% not spyware material, so you’re in good hands.
We’d like to reiterate that your work activity may be tracked through screenshots and recordings, and we’d also like to add that there is a webcam shot feature that project managers may use to see their teammates right in front of their eyes…
Okay, maybe the thought of that may be quite concerning, especially for some who are protective of their privacy, but don’t worry – not all admins want to use this, so there’s a good reason why the webcam shots and screengrabs are optional and can be enabled or disabled depending on how the admin user feels.
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 also takes extreme security measures to make sure that no account is easily hacked. This includes strong password policies and 2FA protection. All data stored within the platform is protected by strong SSL encryption with maximum security. Plus, since Time Doctor is cloud-based, expect all your stored data to be backed up regularly. 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 is a time management tool that can be used by freelancers and professional teams. It offers both the simplicity of a task management system and the sophistication of an advanced time tracker. This creates a harmonious balance between them.
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 issues alone may have prevented other users and us from fully enjoying it. Others don’t mind, though, because it does exactly what it was designed to do: track time.
Overall, we ultimately believe that Time Doctor has what it takes to stand on its feet, despite not offering the same easy accessibility as other apps do. Besides, every time management platform shines uniquely, right?
FAQ The Big Time Rush
How can I approach Time Doctor’s customer service 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.
Though there are YouTube videos and how-to articles from independent creators that have already discussed it in full detail, Time Doctor does offer its users an alternative through its dedicated help center, where most of the information included comes from the team behind the platform themselves.
To apply for a Time Doctor paid plan, do I need credit card information?
You don’t have to sign up with your credit card for the limited 14-day trial. If you are done with the trial period, you can bring it up again to purchase a Time Doctor subscription.
Does Time Doctor comply with HIPAA?
Yes. Time Doctor adheres to the standards and rules of the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). 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.