Introduction
Teramind's Schedule rules help you detect discrepancies in employee schedules or workflows, such as excessive idle time, being late to work, or logging in at odd hours.
Rule Walkthrough
The example below shows you how to create a Schedule rule to warn users when they exceed their allowed idle time limit.
Setting Up the Rule
General Settings
1. Assign a Rule Name. For example, “Warn employees for excessive idle time”.
2. Select a Parent Policy. For example, “Admin Policy”.
3. Select “Schedule” for Rule Type.
Helpful Resources:
Employees
5. Turn on the Inherit targets from Parent Policy option to use the policy’s default targets.
6. Alternatively, turn it off and manually select the employees, departments and/or computers for the rules target from the Assign to field.
7. Optionally, you can exclude targets in the Exclude from rule field.
Helpful Resources:
Schedule
8. Add a definition (condition block) by clicking the New Condition button. Then, configure it as follows:
Definition 1
9. Select "Idle" from Select type of schedule violation.
10. Enter an idle time value in the Define the time range field*. For example, "15".
11. Optionally, you can set off-hours or breaks under Set up off-hours.
Note:
An idle time is measured independently of the Idle time threshold option found in Applications monitoring settings.
Helpful Resources:
Actions
12. Select the Warn action.
13. Optionally, add a message. For example, “Your inactive time exceeded 15 minutes!”.
14. Optionally, turn on the Use HTML Template option to show the message in a visually appealing template.
Help Reference:
Rationale for the Rule
This rule serves to proactively manage workforce productivity and ensure accurate time tracking by targeting idle time, which directly impacts project timelines and operational efficiency.
The rule functions by combining input monitoring (which tracks periods of no mouse or keyboard input) with the Rules Engine and trigger only when two defined conditions are met: the input activity is "Idle" (the trigger) AND that the event falls within the constraints of a predefined schedule, "Set up off-hours" (the context).
By using a real-time Warn action, the rule encourages employee self-correction, fostering accountability while simultaneously generating objective, contextualized data for analyzing and improving work patterns.