Tracking & policies

Tracking modes explained

Manual timer, Automatic and Hybrid; the Visible and Silent variants and Silent’s gates; and the capture window as a fence, never attendance.

ForOwnerAdmin

Every person in a TimeLogger workspace is tracked in one of three modes: a Manual timer they start and stop, Automatic capture with no clicks, or Hybrid, which combines the two. The mode is a setting on a tracking policy, so different teams in the same workspace can use different modes and every report still works the same way.

On top of the mode, a policy chooses the agent variant (Visible or Silent) and a capture window that fences when the agent may capture at all.

Who can do this:OwnerAdminOwners and admins choose modes by editing policies. Only the owner can turn on the Silent variant. Everyone else can see the mode that applies to them on MeMy data & privacy.

The three modes#

Mode	What it means
Manual timer	People start and stop their own timer. Nothing is captured while it’s stopped. Best for freelancers, contractors and anyone who bills by the task.
Automatic	The agent records inside the capture window with no clicks. People attribute time to projects afterwards, or it goes to their default project. Best for company-owned devices and teams that want zero-effort time capture.
Hybrid	Automatic capture plus an optional timer for attribution: while someone runs a timer, captured time goes to that project. This is the recommended default.

Sample dataHow the Acme Studio demo workspace mixes modes

Policy	Mode	Applies to
Acme default — Hybrid	Hybrid	Whole workspace
Engineering — working-hours fence	Automatic	Engineering department
Contractor — manual timer	Manual timer	Kabir Singh
Platform — score-only	Hybrid, no screenshots	Platform team

Narrower assignments win: Kabir works under the manual-timer policy even though the rest of the workspace is Hybrid. See Tracking policies for how policies combine.

Choose a mode for a policy#

Open the policy
Go to WorkspacePolicies and open the policy you want to change, or choose New policy to start from a template.
Pick the mode
In the Mode & variant section, choose Manual timer, Automatic or Hybrid under Tracking mode.
Review and save
Choose Review & save. If the change means more is collected from anyone, it is scheduled for a later date and the people affected are told first.

The Mode & variant section of the policy editor with Manual timer, Automatic and Hybrid options — Mode & variant in the policy editor.

Visible and Silent#

The Visible variant shows a tray icon, a status window and notifications, so people always see that tracking is on. It’s the default and the right choice almost everywhere.

The Silent variant runs without a tray icon or window. It exists for company-owned machines such as shared workstations, and it is heavily gated. A policy resolves to Silent only when all of these are true:

The mode is Automatic.
The device is company-owned. On a personal (BYOD) device, Silent always resolves to Visible.
The workspace uses the Standard compliance profile. GDPR-safe, HIPAA-safe and GLBA-safe never allow it.
The workspace is on the Business plan or above. The free trial counts as Business.
The owner has signed the Silent mode acknowledgement in WorkspaceSettings.
The person doesn’t work in the EU/EEA, New South Wales or the ACT, where regional rules block Silent.

What the member sees

Silent never hides the agent from the operating system: the process is always listed in Task Manager and nothing tries to avoid security software. People under a Silent policy still see everything recorded about them on the web, and they saw the disclosure notice before anything was captured.

The capture window#

In Automatic and Hybrid mode the capture window decides when the agent may capture. It is a fence around capture — never an attendance expectation. TimeLogger never marks anyone present, late or absent.

Window	What it means
Working-hours fence	Capture only inside weekly hours you define, following the member’s, device’s or workspace’s time zone, with optional grace minutes either side. The recommended default.
Always (company devices)	Capture whenever the device is in use, at any hour. Only for company-owned devices with an announced policy.
While the member is signed in to the device	Capture during the person’s session on the device, such as a shared or kiosk machine.

Breaks and private time#

Scheduled breaks can suppress capture (a lunch break, for example); break time is reported separately. Private time lets people pause all capture for personal time, up to a daily allowance. Managers see only the total, never what happened.

Outside the window#

Outside the window the agent stays running but records nothing about apps, sites, input or the screen. It keeps one “outside working hours” marker for the gap, so a hole in the day is explained rather than mysterious. That marker never counts as tracked time.

Zero-click start#

Turn on Start automatically in the Auto-start section so Automatic capture begins inside the window without anyone pressing Start. The agent starts itself when the person signs in to Windows.

Questions#

Can one person use a timer while the rest of their team is automatic?

Yes. Assign a Manual timer policy to that person — the narrowest assignment wins. In Hybrid mode everyone can also run an optional timer to attribute time.

What happens to a running automatic entry if I switch a policy to Manual?

The agent closes the automatic entry when it picks up the new policy (within about a minute). From then on nothing is captured until the person starts a timer.

Why does a device show Visible even though the policy says Silent?

One of the Silent gates isn’t met — most often the device is personally owned, the plan is below Business, or the owner hasn’t signed the acknowledgement. The policy’s compliance check lists the rule that applied.

Does the working-hours fence tell managers who was late?

No. It only limits when capture may happen. TimeLogger has no attendance, punctuality or absence reports, by design.

Something unclear or out of date? Tell your workspace admin, or write to the TimeLogger team from Settings — we update these guides with every release.