Introduction to Productivity Profiles

The Productivity Profiles screen is where you create and manage classification profiles for applications and websites. First, you define productivity Categories (such as “Productive”, “Unproductive”, or custom ones). Then, you use these categories to build the actual classification Profiles.

The screen is organized into three tabs: Profiles, Categories, and Unclassified apps/domains.

Profiles

The Profiles screen is where you create classification rules for applications and websites, labeling them as “Productive”, “Unproductive”, or a custom category. You can then assign these profiles to individual employees, groups, or entire departments. These assignments are critical, as the profiles directly determine how productivity metrics (like Productive Time and Unproductive Time) are measured and displayed on dashboards and reports.

Parent vs Child Profiles and Inherited vs Owned Rules

In the Profiles screen, you'll see a tree view displaying all parent and child profiles. A child profile inherits all classification rules from its parent profile but can also ‘own’ its unique rules. This hierarchy and the ability to inherit and own rules saves you time by preventing the need to duplicate or manually re-enter rules for multiple profiles.

1. Tabs: Click the Profiles tab to switch to the Profiles screen.

2. Name: Use this search field to filter the profiles list matching your keywords.

3. Update Past Classifications: Allows you to update classifications past activities. If applicable, a message above the grid will show when the classification was last synced. You have already clicked the button, it will disappear and a “Reclassification of past activity is running” message will be shown above the grid. Once the process is completed, the button will reappear. See the Updating Past Classifications (Retroactive Classification) section below for more information.

4. New Profile: Click this button to create a new productivity profile.

5. Grid Menu: Click the Grid icon to choose which columns the profiles table displays.

6. Expand/Collapse Parent Profiles: Click the Right/Down Arrow icons in front of a parent profile to expand it and view its child profiles.

7. Profile Context Menu: Click the Three Dots ⋮ in front of a profile to access its context menu. From the context menu, you can:

Edit Profile – to edit a profile’s name, assignments, and rule objects. You can also edit a profile by clicking its name. See the Editing a Productivity Profile section for details.

The system includes a Default profile. This is the main parent profile, and all other profiles are a part of it. You cannot edit this profile. But you can edit all other profiles under it. (Rename, Change Parent Profile and Delete are disabled for the Default profile.)

Create Child Profile – to create a new profile nested under the selected parent profile. Creating a child profile is similar to creating a new profile.
Rename – to give the profile a new name.
Change Parent Profile – to change the profile's hierarchy by moving it under a different parent profile.

The Change Parent Profile option only moves the profile under a different parent; its own rule objects and assignments stay unchanged. If an app or domain has no rule in this profile, Teramind looks it up in the parent profile instead (and keeps looking up the chain, all the way to the Default profile). So changing the parent can change how some apps and domains are rated for the assigned employees - even though none of the profile's own rules changed. A rule in the child profile always overrides the parent's rule for the same app or domain. Use the Update Past Classifications button to apply the new inheritance to historical data.

Import CSV – to bulk-add rule objects (applications/domains) to the profile from a CSV file. See the Importing Rule Objects to a Profile section for details.

Delete – to permanently remove the profile.

Creating a New Productivity Profile

Click the New Profile button near the top-right corner of the Productivity > Profiles screen. A panel will open:

1. Enter a name for the profile in the Profile Name field.

2. Pick a Parent Profile.

3. Click the Create button to create the profile. After creating the profile, you can assign employees and departments to it, add rule objects, etc. See the Editing a Productivity Profile section below to learn more.

Editing a Productivity Profile

Click a profile’s name from the Productivity Profiles > Profiles tab to edit it:

1. Productivity Profile Name: Edit the profile's name (required). The Parent Profile field below it shows where the profile sits in the hierarchy; it cannot be changed on this screen - use the Change Parent Profile option from the profile's context menu on the Profiles screen.

2. Assign To: Select the employees this profile applies to.

3. Departments: Select departments this profile applies to.

Employees can only have one Productivity Profile. If you assign employees to this profile, they will be unassigned from their current profile. If you remove them from this profile, they will be assigned to the Default profile. (On the Default profile itself, assignment is locked to Everyone.)

4. Search and Filter Rule Objects: Use the Search Rule field to find a rule object by keyword. Use the first dropdown (All types) to filter by rule type (Activity, RegEx, Category) and the second (Own and inherited) to show only the profile's Own rules or only rules Inherited from parent profiles.

5. Pagination: Shows which rule objects are currently displayed (for example, 1–50 of 58). Rule objects are shown 50 per page; use Previous and Next to move between pages.

6. New Rule Object: Click this button to add a rule object (an application or domain) to the profile. See the Adding/Editing Rule Objects section for details. Rule object changes are saved as soon as you confirm them - they do not wait for the Save Changes button.

7. Rule Object Context Menu: Click the Three Dots ⋮ in front of a rule object. For the profile's own rules, you can Edit the rule or Delete it (a confirmation is shown before deleting). See the Adding/Editing Rule Objects section for details on editing. For inherited rules, the menu instead lets you open the source profile the rule comes from.

8. Inherited and Overwritten Rules: Greyed-out rows are rule objects coming from the parent profile chain; the Inheritance column marks them as “Inherited”. When the profile has its own rule for the same app or domain, the inherited row is marked Overwritten and the profile's own rule wins (in the example above, ms-teams.exe is Productive in this profile, so the inherited rule is overwritten).

9. Save Changes / Cancel: Click Save Changes to apply your edits to the profile's name and assignments, or Cancel to discard them and return to the Profiles screen. (Rule object additions, edits and deletions from steps 6–7 take effect immediately and are not affected by this button.)

You can also apply the Productivity Profiles to classify apps and websites from several dashboards, like the Applications & Websites, Keystrokes, etc. Check out the Classifying Applications and Websites as Productive/Unproductive section to learn more.

Adding/Editing Rule Objects

To add a rule object, click the + New Rule Object button on the profile's Edit screen. To edit an existing one, click the Three Dots ⋮ in front of the rule object and select Edit. The New Rule Object (or Edit Rule Object) dialog opens:

1. Rule Object Type: Select how the rule matches activities:

Activity – matches one specific application or domain by name.
RegEx – matches multiple applications or domains with a single regular expression.
Category – matches every application or domain in one of Teramind's built-in web categories.

2. Rule Object Value: Specify what the rule will match against:

For Activity type the application/domain name. For example: facebook.com, ms-teams.exe.
For RegEx enter the regular expression. For example: facebook|twitter|instagram)\.com covers all three sites with one rule.
For Category, pick the category from the searchable dropdown. Categories range from broad groups to specific in-app actions. For example: select “News” to classify all news sites at once, or “LinkedIn: Jobs” to classify only job-search activity on LinkedIn.

The value is validated as you type: an invalid value - or a RegEx identical to an existing rule in this profile - shows an error and disables the Save button.

3. Classification: Select how matching activities are classified/rated: Productive, Unproductive, Neutral, or one of your custom categories (created on the Categories tab).

4. Click Save to apply, or Cancel to discard.

Notes About Rule Objects

A rule you add to a profile overrides the parent profile's rule for the same app or domain; the inherited row is then marked as “Overwritten” in the rule objects list.
Only the profile's own rules can be edited or deleted here. Inherited (greyed-out) rules must be changed on the profile they come from - use the context menu on an inherited row to open its source profile.
New and changed rules apply to newly recorded activity. To re-classify historical data, use the Update Past Classifications button on the Profiles screen.

Importing Rule Objects to a Profile

To bulk-add rule objects to a profile, click the Three Dots ⋮ in front of the profile on the Configurations > Productivity Profiles screen and select Import CSV. The Import CSV panel will open:

Prepare your CSV file first: one value per line, first column only, no header row - nothing else in the file is read.

1. Select type: Choose how the imported values are added as rules:

Activity – each line becomes an Activity rule matching one specific application or domain. Example file:

facebook.com
twitter.com
ms-teams.exe

Regexp – each line becomes a RegEx rule. Example file:

(facebook|twitter|instagram)\.com
(chrome|firefox|msedge)\.exe
^webmail\..*

2. Select category: Choose the classification the imported rules receive: Productive, Unproductive, Unclassified, etc.

3. Wrap each value as a regular expression: Available only when the type is Regexp. Check this box when your file contains plain application or domain names - each line is automatically converted into a regular expression matching that value. Example file (with the box checked):

facebook.com
twitter.com
ms-teams.exe

These are imported as RegEx rules equivalent to .*facebook\.com.*, etc. Leave the box unchecked when your file already contains regular expressions (as in the Regexp example in Step 1 above) - checking it would escape the pattern's special characters and break it.

4. Select file: Click this button and choose your CSV file to start the import, or Cancel to discard. The imported values are added to the profile as rule objects and take effect immediately.

Imported rules apply to newly recorded activity. To re-classify historical data, use Update Past Classifications on the Profiles screen.

Updating Past Classifications (Retroactive Classification)

To update older classification records using your current profiles, click the Update Past Classifications button from the Configurations > Productivity Profiles screen.

The Update Past Classifications window will open:

1. Choose a time range from the Apply changes to past classifications? menu. You can select from: Last 1 month, Last 2 months or Last 3 months. On on-premises/private cloud deployments, an additional Apply to all time option is available.

2. Optionally, check the Set as default box to remember this range. It will be pre-selected the next time you open this window.

3. Click Update to start the update process.

Retrospectively updating past classifications may take some time because the system executes these updates on a schedule. While the system is updating the classifications, you will see a “Reclassification of past activity is running” message on the Productivity Profile screen and the Update Past Classifications button will become hidden. Once the process is completed, the button will reappear. The duration of the update process also depends on the number of entries involved and how far back you selected for the historical update.

Unclassified Apps/Domains

Use this screen to view and classify any applications or website domains that your employees have used but remain uncategorized. It's highly recommended to classify these activities because leaving too many unclassified entries will skew your team's productivity reports. Properly classifying this usage leads to more accurate reporting and better insights into team behavior.

The tab's badge shows how many unclassified apps/domains there are. The list shows each Activity and the total Time your employees spent on it.

1. Tabs: Click the Unclassified apps/domains tab to switch to the Unclassified apps/domains screen.

2. Last Classification Sync: A message above the grid shows when the classification database was last synced. See the Updating Past Classifications (Retroactive Classification) section for more information.

3. Select Activities: Click the Checkboxes in front of the desired rows to select them. Use the checkbox in the header to select all rows, or Clear all to deselect.

4. Classify: Click the Classify button. The Classify Activity panel will open:

5. Apps/domains: The activities you selected, shown as read-only labels with the total count below. To change the selection, close the panel and adjust the checkboxes.

6. Productivity Profile / Category: Choose the profile the activities will be classified in, and the classification they will receive (Productive, Unproductive, Neutral, or a custom category). Both fields are required. Classifying adds the activities as Activity rule objects in the selected profile. Click the Minus − button to remove a row (available when more than one row exists).

7. Add Productivity Profile: Click to add another Productivity Profile / Category row. This lets you classify the same activities into several profiles at once, with a different classification in each - for example, Productive in the Marketing profile but Unproductive in the Default profile.

8. Apply changes to past classifications? Choose whether the new rules also re-rate historical data: Do not apply, Last 1 month, Last 2 months or Last 3 months (on on-premise deployments, Apply to all time is also available). Past data updates may take some time to be applied because they are done in scheduled updates. See the Updating Past Classifications (Retroactive Classification) section for more information.

9. Click Classify to apply, or Cancel to discard. The button stays disabled until every row has a profile and a category selected. Classified activities disappear from the Unclassified apps/domains list.

Configurations > Productivity Profiles