In searching for the ideal time-tracking software, you must not only look into what it is and how much it can offer but also the aspects that make it stand out from the rest. All time trackers may not be 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. The final decision you make will affect your personal feelings and impact the productivity of your team.
Time Doctor is one of the most popular apps in today’s productivity market. It has both teams and single users in a stupor for its task- and time-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 Monday Open Source Alternative
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. The tool’s range of features and tools is designed to assist teammates and individuals in improving their productivity by 22% on average.
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. The client portal feature has made it a favorite among freelancers, who frequently work for multiple clients.
Time Doctor has amassed a user base of over 250,000 businesses throughout its 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 alone may be enough for the platform to position itself way ahead of 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. Continue reading to learn more about the unique platform’s other features and how they work! Monday Open Source Alternative
> > 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.
- Its accessible and comprehensive client portal makes freelancer-client interactions a convenient experience.
- It allows for a large and seamless integration with third-party platforms.
The Cons
- The platform’s confusing user interface makes navigation difficult for many users, particularly first-timers. Monday Open Source Alternative
- 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.
- You can only access the time tracking feature if you download and install the desktop app or web extension.
Pricing and plans
Let’s first discuss the plans and their cost. 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 per year or $7/user per month
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
Standard plans allow you to access advanced features such as tracking your team’s apps and URLs, the payroll tool, reporting and 60 additional integrations with third-party applications. 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 Monday Open Source Alternative
The premium tier offers the most comprehensive of all 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. 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
Time Doctor is a robust tool for managing time and activities. However, it’s well-known for its awkward and poorly designed user interface. 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.
Many users of Time Doctor, for instance, have had difficulty accessing the various functions. Many users have complained about the inability to centralize their data within the app, which would have saved them a lot of time. 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.
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. 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. Monday Open Source Alternative
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
Now, let’s dive deeper into some of the features and tools you may want to explore if you log in to the Time Doctor platform.
Project and Data Management
With Time Doctor’s project management capabilities, individuals or administrators within a team can create tasks and group them into groups with just a few clicks. Administrators can also use this feature to assign tasks to their employees to reduce workload and increase 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 knows that a clear workboard is a great way to 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. The dashboard allows you to track their progress and see how long they have been working.
Time Doctor is unlike other time management tools. Users can create permanent trackable tasks that they can easily edit, delete, or modify without the need to add one each 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! Monday Open Source Alternative
> > Click Here to Try Time Doctor Now < <
Time Tracking and Alerts
Time Doctor’s time-tracking software can only be accessed via its Chrome web extension or desktop application. Despite not being available in the web dashboard, its capabilities are surprisingly well-versed enough to make it stand 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 simple as that!
As the timer plays out throughout your task, all your actions and activity will be recorded in the background. 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. If you’re working solo, you may go through it in the same manner.
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. The software also has a reminders function that reminds you when it is time to start and stop work. 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.
If no sign of user activity is detected after a few moments, the timer will automatically bring it to a stop. If you ever spot something like this and you’ve gone to attend to other things beforehand, you may manually click the play button to resume tracking. Similarly, you may also pause it if you want to time out from work. Time Doctor allows you to create time intervals between daily tasks if you feel you need some space.
While Time Doctor can track your progress and work hours online, did you know it could also do this offline? 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. Monday Open Source Alternative
Monitoring Website and App Usage
It’s not just the amount of hours that Time Doctor is keen on monitoring, as it also applies to the other desktop apps you’ve visited, the websites you’ve explored, and even the keystrokes and mouse movements you’ve made as you work. If the platform sees that the mouse cursor or keyboard hasn’t moved for longer, it will pause instantly and stay that way until you do something with it.
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. It’s not the same story if they have been procrastinating and going to other platforms to distract from what they should be doing. No matter if you’re strict or relaxed with it, Time Doctor allows users to check which kinds of websites or applications their fellow teammates have used during work hours and how long they’ve glued their eyes to them.
Time Doctor has a number of monitoring features that allow admins to easily see if employees are wasting their time or attending to a task. This feature can be used to identify if the URL or application name, and the status it is in, are some of the many. Admins or managers, specifically, may take this chance to set the productivity rating of each platform to any 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. The ability to track website activity and customize productivity statuses per user makes it highly convenient for teams who work in jobs requiring a strong focus on specific tasks, like content writing, for instance. For what it’s worth, Time Doctor may be lucky this time to have this crucial function included, unlike other time-tracking software. Monday Open Source Alternative
Activity Screenshots and Screen Recording
We told you earlier about Time Doctor’s ability to track your activity and time in the background, while posting it to the web dashboard for administrators to view. 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.
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. If this happens, they may be allowed to delete screenshots or screen recordings within the Time Doctor platform for their safety. 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. 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. On the other hand, the Poor Time Use report plots out how long you’ve sat around on sites that have been flagged as inappropriate for work. Multi-screen work setups can lead to problems, such as the possibility of one person being able to jam out to their favorite music on one screen, while working on their task on the other. 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. Monday Open Source Alternative
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.
White-labeling and Client Access
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. Turn on payroll deep in the settings of the web dashboard, and your team’s timeline will automatically be 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. Time Doctor has over 60 integrations to make it simple for you and your team to manage their work together 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. The time-tracking software offers unlimited access to its users through their smartphones. Time Doctor currently offers two mobile apps versions. You can download them both on the Apple App Store or 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. 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.
> > Click Here to Try Time Doctor Now < <
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. 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…
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.
As Time Doctor promises that all your activity and likeness will not be force-shared in vain, the same sentiment can be applied to the payment information typed into the platform by you or your teammates, which will then be automatically deleted after a short while for the sake of privacy.
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. In the case of a power or internet outage, you may have them recovered shortly, so your progress won’t be lost.
The bottom line: Do 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.
While its line-up of dynamic features has admittedly left us in awe, the experience would have been significantly better if it weren’t for the disorienting UI and UX, lack of functionality and cohesiveness in the mobile apps, and, to an extent, undersupply of report graphics options. 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.
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 Monday Open Source Alternative
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. There is currently no phone support option provided. 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.
Where else can I look for tutorials and tips on how to use Time Doctor?
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 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.