"Activity Level" explained

What is “Activity Level”?

“Activity Level” (which appears in the Activity Summary report and the Teams Dashboard) indicates a person’s level of keyboard & mouse activity relative to all other Time Doctor users.

Activity Level takes into account the websites & apps that a person uses so that their level of keyboard & mouse activity is only considered to be low or high if their activity is low or high relative to typical activity levels of activity among all Time Doctor users for those same websites & applications.

Why consider websites & applications?

It is hard to compare the keyboard and mouse activity levels of people who do different jobs - one person might spend most of their day on Zoom doing calls and barely use their keyboard and mouse, but that does not mean that the person was not actively working. Reporting keyboard and mouse activity relative to what is typical for the websites and apps the person uses throughout the day aims to address that.

Example:

A salesperson who spends most of their time doing calls on Zoom will naturally have lower keyboard and mouse activity than a support agent who spends most of their time doing live chat support.

It would be misleading to imply that the salesperson may be less productive by labeling them “Low activity” when they may have typical or even relatively high keyboard & mouse activity compared to others who use Zoom.  Likewise, it would be misleading to label the support agent as “high activity” if they’re much less active than others in the same role using similar tools.

“Activity Level” values

A user can have one of these values:

• Very High
• High
• Medium
• Low
• Very Low

How many people are in each level?

Across Time Doctor’s database, the proportions of people with each rating are approximate:

• Very High - 5%
• High - 5%
• Medium - 80%
• Low - 5%
• Very Low - 5%

Investigating Low Activity Levels

The side panel on the Activity Summary report allows deeper investigation of a person’s overall rating (“High”, “Low”, etc).  To access the side panel, click on any user’s “Activity Level” metric in the main table.

The side panel shows the rating for each website & app that the person used.

Those ratings contribute to the person’s overall rating in the main table.  Websites & apps where the person spent more time contribute more to their overall rating than those where they spent less time.

“Difference from Average Activity” column

“Difference from Average Activity” shows how the user’s level of activity differs from the average of all TD users for each website & application.  For example, if the average percentage of active seconds on Asana.com for all TD users is 40%, and the user in question was 60% active on Asana.com, then their “Difference from Average Activity” would show “+20” percentage points.

How activity levels relate to productivity

Activity levels can, but do not always, correlate with a person’s productivity.  It is important to realize that levels of keyboard and mouse activity are just one indicator of potential productivity and should be considered along with other data points provided by Time Doctor, and the quality and quantity of a person’s work output.

FAQ

What happens when there’s no reference value for a certain website or application?

Websites and applications with no reference values in the system are given a "Medium" activity score. Activity levels on these websites & apps do not affect the overall user’s activity level.

What about “Idle Minutes” and “Idle Seconds”?

Idle Minutes and Idle Seconds (also available in the Activity Summary report) are less meaningful indicators since they don’t take websites or applications into account.  They’re simply the total number or percentage of a person’s minutes or seconds at work that have no keyboard or mouse activity at all.

How frequently are reference activity levels updated?

Reference activity levels are adjusted every month with new applications and websites added, and all activity levels updated to incorporate the latest data.