How to monitor computer .

How to monitor computer – is a very popular question among employers all over the world. There are many resources within each company that are monitored easily, but not when it comes to the computer monitoring as this resource (computer) is related to the most sensitive company’s resources – its employees and company’s (clients’) private information. Besides, computer monitoring is a complex task, as it includes monitoring computer as a unit, monitoring when it is used, by whom, how exactly, when computer is off and on, what software licenses are used (licenses audit) etc. And the list can be expanded even more. In this article we do not plan to discuss the easiest part of the computer monitoring task (like inventories monitoring) but we want to discus computer usage monitoring.

So, what are the possible ways to perform computer monitoring? How to monitor computer usage to get all necessary information and to get control over the company’s computers? Of course, one of the possible ways is to use video surveillance. And many employers do. This method provides very useful information, like, for example, when computers are used and by whom. Speaking of applications, web-sites and documents usage – this method can provide such information as well, but data analysis is a time consuming thing in then case of the video surveillance. Besides, when using video surveillance method, employers gather unnecessary information about the employees: what employees (and how) do at their desks, in the cubicles, rooms. This kind of the information can be considered as privacy infringing and it does not really help with computer usage or productivity monitoring.

The other method would be to use Windows or router logs. But these kind of logs provide limited information only and data analysis is not very easy either (not easy to read, not many kinds of reports available and there are really no methods to group the information). The most important information that is missing in these logs is web sites usage. It is possible to monitor the volume of the Internet traffic, but not possible to see what websites were used and by whom. And this is the most popular question among the employers: who is the most active social network user in my company? Also: who are the worst and the best performing employees in my company? And performance, of course, suffers if wasting too much time to some fun activities that are not related to work.

And finally, the most detailed and comprehensive results are provided when using a third-party computer monitoring software. This computer monitoring method shows exactly when computers are used, by whom, what activities are performed (applications, documents, web-sites usage) and also it offers the fastest and the most flexible data analysis. As third-party software is exactly intended for computer monitoring, this method provides the most detailed data about computer usage. Of course, it shows what web-sites are used by the employees, attendance and performance by the employees. The only thing to remember: be careful when choosing your computer monitoring software (this computer monitoring software is safe to use: WorkTime computer monitoring software). There is plenty of computer monitoring software on the market and variety of functions offered is very wide. So, it is a good idea to understand exactly what is the task to be solved. Very often computer monitoring goes much further than just performance monitoring. So, it is a good idea to choose the software that does not infringe on employees’ privacy. There is a big difference between performance monitoring and spying/babysitting/micromanagement. One more thing to remember when choosing your computer monitoring software: monitored results security. From the security perspective it is a good idea to choose computer monitoring software that keep data storage in your company (on your company’ servers). So, how to monitor computer usage with a third-party monitoring software: choose the best computer monitoring software on the market (now you have some good ideas on how to do it), install the software in your company and analyze automatically collected monitoring results. Here you can find more information on how to monitor computer using third party monitoring software: WorkTime .