How to choose employee monitoring software: 10 questions to ask before you buy

Purpose first, then the tool

The most common buying mistake is comparing feature lists without answering why the company needs monitoring at all. The purpose determines which data you need and which would be an unnecessary risk — including a legal one, because the Polish Labour Code permits monitoring only when it is necessary for a defined purpose (more in the article Employee monitoring under GDPR and the Polish Labour Code).

Three types of tools that are easy to confuse

Tools with very different purposes are sold under the “employee monitoring” label:

• Time tracking apps. Employees start a timer themselves and assign time to a project. Good for billing clients, but they depend on team discipline and do not show the status of computers.
• Activity monitoring software. Runs automatically in the background and collects activity information: sessions, active and idle time, applications used. It answers organizational questions without reaching into the content of work.
• Extensive surveillance and data loss prevention (DLP) systems. Often include screenshots, recordings and content analysis. They make sense in narrow, justified security cases, but in an ordinary company they easily go beyond what is necessary.

ActiSignal belongs to the second group: it shows active time, applications, website domains and the status of company Windows computers — without screenshots, keylogging or viewing private content.

10 questions to ask the vendor

1. What data does the software collect — and what is it technically unable to collect? It is better when unwanted features do not exist at all than when you have to remember to turn them off.
2. Can the scope be limited? For example, to working hours, with website domain recording turned off, or with a different idle threshold for different teams.
3. How are active and idle time calculated? Ask about the idle threshold and how the software treats meetings or work away from the computer.
4. How does installation on many computers work? Can the Agent be deployed remotely with the tools the company already uses, such as Intune or GPO, and does the employee have to do anything?
5. What happens when a computer is out of the office or offline? The software should store data locally and send it once the connection is restored.
6. How do you know the software is running on every computer? A list of computers with Agent status and last connection time lets you spot gaps in the data before someone draws the wrong conclusions from it.
7. Who has access to the data? Roles should let you limit views — for example, IT sees computer status and management sees aggregated summaries.
8. How long is data kept, and who decides? The data retention period should be set by the company, in line with the purpose of monitoring.
9. What documents does the vendor provide to the legal team? Above all, a description of the data scope and a data processing agreement.
10. What does pricing look like, and can you test the software before buying? The pricing model should be predictable, and the trial long enough to see a full work cycle of the team.

Warning signs

A few features of an offer should prompt further questions — or a decision to drop that tool:

• Advertising a stealth mode. Monitoring in Poland must be open — a tool designed to run covertly encourages violations.
• Screenshots or recording turned on by default. A sign that the data scope was not designed with minimization in mind.
• A single “productivity score” per employee. Active time does not measure the quality of work, and a single number easily leads to unfair evaluations.
• No information on where data is stored and for how long.
• No way to test the software, or a trial that automatically turns into a paid subscription.

How to compare costs

Most computer monitoring software is billed per computer or per user per month. When comparing offers, check not only the rate but also:

• whether all the features you need are in the base plan or only in more expensive tiers,
• how much data history is available in a given plan,
• how much administrator time deploying and maintaining the Agents will take,
• whether support and updates are included in the price,
• how billing works when the number of computers changes.

How to run a test before you buy

A well-planned pilot tells you more than comparing vendor websites:

1. Choose one team — ideally one where some people work remotely.
2. Inform participants about the purpose of the test and the scope of data collected, even if the pilot is short.
3. Write down success criteria before you start, for example whether the dashboard shows when remote work begins, whether all laptops are sending data and whether managers find the summaries clear.
4. Run the test for at least 2–4 weeks to see a full work cycle rather than one unusual week.
5. Review the results with IT and the person responsible for data protection before deciding to buy.

You can try ActiSignal free for 30 days on up to 10 company computers, with full functionality and no credit card. The trial does not turn into a paid subscription automatically.

Summary: selection checklist

• The purpose of monitoring is written down, and the list of required data follows from it.
• The tool collects activity information, not the content of work.
• The data scope and data retention period can be adjusted to company policy.
• Installation on many computers can be done remotely, and employees do not have to do anything.
• The dashboard shows whether the software is running on every computer.
• Access to data can be limited by role.
• The legal team has received a description of the data scope and a draft data processing agreement.
• The software has been tested in a pilot with a real team.

If one of your goals is to reduce software spending, also read the article on how to run a software license audit based on data about actual application usage.