MONITORING SOFTWARE BLOG

With the rise of remote work and advanced computer technologies at our fingertips, there is much more that we’re capable of, especially when it comes to tracking the workplace. 

Employers track their employees to ensure they continue to provide quality work. But to what extent can these employers track? Can they monitor your emails?

If you’re wondering, as an employer, what you can monitor, you’re in the right place. If you’re an employee and you’ve stumbled on this blog, you, too, can learn what exactly your employer can track when at work. 

SoftActivity is glad to announce the release of new version 12.5 of SoftActivity Monitor, its leading user activity monitoring software that helps teams around the world to improve their employee productivity and protect against insider threats.

This update is recommended to all customers.

What’s new in version 12.5:

• [web console] added the following info into Attendance (also in PDF export and email reports) to help estimate employee productivity level:
  • daily idle time (when a user is logged-in but inactive);
  • idle percentage;
  • number of typed keystrokes;
  • and average hourly keystrokes rate.
• [web console] export of Attendance report: select a standard range of dates, such as last 7 days, etc. instead of just two dates.
• fix: [web console] export of Dashboard to PDF the same number of records as on screen. Previously was always 10.
• fix: [web console] export of Attendance to CSV had incorrect format of date and time for some records.
• fix: sometimes it failed to clean up old logs on the server.
• fix: remote Agent installation via PowerShell script failed.
• fix: updating Agents sometimes required Windows restart in the end.
• improved Powershell scripts to install & uninstall Agent remotely. See agent\install-agent-remotely.ps1 and agent\uninstall-agent-remotely.ps1
• dropped support of Windows Vista for security reasons. Minimum version supported now is Windows 7.
  * if support of Win Vista is needed, we advice to continue using version 12.4
• numerous other improvements and fixes in web console, desktop app and Agent.

SoftActivity announces the release of new version 12.2 of SoftActivity Monitor, its leading user monitoring solution helping thousands of organizations improve their employee productivity.

It’s designed to help during the times when many teams transition to remote work. SoftActivity Monitor can be used for monitoring work computers taken off-premise and connected via private network, office workstations in situations when employees connect from home via Remote Desktop or locally, and your Citrix or VMWare VDI infrastructure.

Admins can now receive daily, weekly or monthly reports on users productivity and attendance. View the reports on the go securely on your phone, without a need to sign-in to the application.

What’s new in version 12.2 release:

• improved image quality of screenshots and remote screen view.
• reduced CPU and RAM usage by Agent, even further reducing Agent footprint on a monitored PC. It now uses GPU for hardware-accelerated image processing.
• fixed: occasional crashes in Agent (samimpl.exe) on some computers.
• fixed: in some rare cases, download-cache folder was growing on the server and taking a lot of hard drive space.
• fixed: black box on the screen on a monitored computer around the mouse cursor, when users connect to their workstation remotely via RDP.
• minor: brought back an option to capture screenshots even when a user is idle, which allows recording screen history of idle computers.

Web console:

• get a daily and monthly email report of users activity. (Previously there was only a weekly report).
  SoftActivity advises customers to schedule reports by email for managers, as the reports are very useful, and can be viewed even on a smartphone without a need to log into the on-premise webapp. See instructions at the bottom.
• scheduled email reports now include Attendance report. See it in a separate PDF file attached.
• new reports in Dashboard export to PDF and by email:
  • Top apps for each user;
  • Top websites for each user;
  • Top users by alerts triggered, with a list of top alerts;
• minor: export to CSV limit increased to 100,000 lines up from 10,000.

SoftActivity is glad to announce new version 12.1 of SoftActivity Monitor, its leading employee monitoring solution that helps organizations improve staff performance and security.

Screenshots recorded by the software now take much less storage space on customer’s server. Admins can now adjust snapshot frequency depending on how much details their organization requires for record keeping.

Upgrade is recommended to all users.

What’s new in version 12.1

Desktop app:

• new: Change screenshots capture frequency in Agent Properties – Screen tab.
  • Admin can adjust how often screenshots are recorded.
  • Reduced storage space requirement on the server, compared to the previous versions.
  • Admin can increase frequency for some users if more detailed logs are required.

• new: shows estimated space required for screenshots, at the bottom of Screen tab.
• improved IntelliSnap smart mode of taking screenshots based on users actions.
• new: Copy and Paste buttons in Agent Properties on Privacy and Files tabs in the lists, for easier editing of long lists.
• new: added Japanese localization of the software thanks to our new partner in Japan, Technoblest https://www.softactivity.jp
• a lot of improvements and minor fixes.

Web console:

• new: added Keystrokes column to CSV export.
• multiple bug fixes and improvements.
• new: added Japanese localization (switch languages in bottom right corner)

Local area network monitoring software is becoming more and more popular nowadays as with the tendency of improving productivity, business owners and managers pay more attention to their employees’ working efficiency. Activity Monitor is the most powerful, yet handy in usage LAN activity monitoring software solution from SoftActivity for companies of all sizes. It allows you to control every computer in your LAN from a central location in a secret mode.Read More

SoftActivity is glad to announce the release of new version 11.8 of SoftActivity Monitor, its leading computer monitoring software. It’s used by companies to protect against insider threats and improve employees productivity. This new version makes it easier to manage large lists of monitored computers.

Improvements in version 11.8:

• new: multi-select in Agents list. Select multiple computers in the list and drag them to a group or dashboard, delete them, or right click and perform other actions: as assign to a group, send a message, shut down selected computers, etc. This could previously be done only with one Agent at a time.

• new: search in Agents list. Click Search or press Ctrl+F in Agents list.

• new: Agent update is now optional in some releases. For example, current version 11.8 of Monitor supports previous version 11.7 of Agents and does not require an update. (To force update of Agents manually, right click any Agent and click Update/Repair Agent, select Do this for all computers check box)
• fix: incorrect duration displayed in Top Programs and Top Websites in webapp if longer than 24 hours.
• other fixes and improvements
  

We have released new version 11.6 of SoftActivity Monitor, a leading user monitoring solution that helps to protect organizations from insider threats.

Product name has now been changed to SoftActivity Monitor from Activity Monitor, in order to be more recognizable and include our brand. It’s a maintenance release that includes a number of important optimizations and fixes. Upgrade is recommended to all users.

What’s new in version 11.6:

• performance improvements and optimizations in Agent
• view attachment names on Email tab in real time monitoring window in the console app;
• minor fixes

TS Monitor 5.6 update also released

We are also announcing the release of new version 5.6 of SoftActivity TS Monitor, our user monitoring solution for terminal servers. It’s a maintenance release with performance optimizations and fixes.