Automatic attendance from PC activity: how it works

The problem with registers and punch cards

Paper registers, biometric machines and “WhatsApp good morning” messages all record the same thing: that someone arrived. None of them show when real work started, how long breaks were, or when someone quietly stopped working at 5pm but stayed until 7pm. They also don’t work for staff working from home, and paper registers invite buddy marking, where one person signs for another.

An online attendance system for office staff fixes this by taking attendance from the work itself: the computer.

How PC-based attendance works

A small monitoring agent on each work PC notices when the keyboard and mouse are in use. From that, the software builds each person’s day:

• First activity: when the PC first became active, which is the start time.
• Last activity: when work stopped, which is the end time.
• Breaks: gaps when the PC was idle.
• Late and absent: compared against the working hours you set, for example 10am to 7pm.
• Overtime: work after the end of the shift.

Nobody has to remember to punch in or out. The attendance fills itself in as people work, for office PCs and home PCs alike.

What you can do with it

• Payroll: export a monthly timesheet to CSV and open it in Excel or your payroll software.
• Late-coming: see who is regularly late, with dates, instead of relying on memory.
• Work from home: take attendance for remote staff exactly like office staff.
• Overtime claims: check overtime against actual PC activity.
• Shift planning: see when your team is really most active.

Things to watch out for

• Not all work happens at a PC. Meetings, site visits and phone calls away from the desk show up as idle. Use attendance data as a guide, and let people explain gaps.
• Shared PCs. If two people use one PC in different shifts, give each their own Windows login, or the data will mix.
• Set the right working hours. “Late” and “overtime” are only as accurate as the hours you set. Set them per team if shifts differ.
• Tell your team. Explain in writing that attendance is taken from work PC activity. See is employee monitoring legal in India?

PC attendance vs biometric machines

• Biometric: proves who walked in, but not whether they worked, and doesn’t work for remote staff.
• PC activity: shows actual working time, breaks and overtime, and works anywhere with internet, but only covers PC-based work.

Many offices use both: biometric for the door, and PC activity for the working day.

Attendance in TraqDesk: an attendance system for office PCs

TraqDesk builds attendance from each PC’s first and last activity, marks present, late and absent against your working hours, records breaks and overtime, and gives you a monthly timesheet with CSV export for payroll. It comes with live screens, idle time tracking, website and app tracking and pen-drive alerts, all for ₹500 per PC per month with hosting, setup and support included. See pricing, or read how to monitor work-from-home employees.