Do you manage outsource workers? Free time tracking/screenshot software

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insomnia

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Hi guys,

We've just launched our free beta phase for HiveDesk. Its software similar to oDesk team where workers can automatically track time, screenshots get uploaded every 10 mins, and mouse/keyboard activity levels tracked.

You can save your money by migrating your workers from outsourcing portals that charge up to 10% in fees just to stick with them.

You can sign up free at HiveDesk.com - Tools for managing remote workers

We'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions. Thanks guys!
 


phrench said:
What's your monetizing model resp. when are you going to charge for that?
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On the signup page, there's talk of future premium packages - which will probably allow you to have more employees/packages than if you don't pay. That's my guess.

Plus just having this information/being able to communicate with people doing outsourcing is almost certainly hugely profitable. Toss 'em emails about B2B services, etc.

IANT[OP], just a guess.
 
Hi fellers, we are going to monetize by offering paid premium accounts (more loggable hours, more employees, etc.).

Refrozen mentioned something about emailing, we haven't considered it but it is a potential source of income. Right now we're just focused on making the software good, and making something people want. Thanks guys!
 
Nice username ;)

I wouldn't mind having a chat with you sometime about what you have to offer. I'm a little concerned by your product as it stands for the following reasons:

1) The domain has whois privacy and is not linked to a company name.
2) There is no NDA signed.
3) It doesn't offer self hosting which means people other than myself can look at the screenshots - yes that is a huge concern.
4) Your privacy policy is about as air tight as my cars exhaust.

It would also be nice to have support for mac/linux as a couple of my coders aren't windows fans.
 
Insomniac said:
Nice username ;)

I wouldn't mind having a chat with you sometime about what you have to offer. I'm a little concerned by your product as it stands for the following reasons:

1) The domain has whois privacy and is not linked to a company name.
2) There is no NDA signed.
3) It doesn't offer self hosting which means people other than myself can look at the screenshots - yes that is a huge concern.
4) Your privacy policy is about as air tight as my cars exhaust.

It would also be nice to have support for mac/linux as a couple of my coders aren't windows fans.
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Hey insomniac, nice username to you too :D.

I'll do my best to address your concerns:
1) I get a free WHOIS guard with my domain registration on Namecheap. I apply them to all my domains. I could turn it off, its no big deal to me.

2) We could add that in the terms of service. Thanks for the suggestion.

3) Self hosting might be a hassle in its own. We'd probably spend a lot of time trying to help people get it up on their own servers. It would also be a lot harder to have an affordable business model, as the one time fee would be high.

4) Privacy policy is in the works :D

We actually just published the delete project function, so you can completely erase all data (including screenshots) uploaded to a project. We're working on adding a feature that lets the screenshot owner delete their own images as well. But before that, we're coding in Java AS WE SPEAK so we can be Mac/Linux friendly.

We're an early stage startup, so we expect to have a few imperfections. But we're working hard to make a product that people want. Lend us your support and validation by signing up for our service, and it'll help fuel our progress. Thanks a ton. Let me know if you need anything via PM, or through our contact form.
 
The thing about outsourcing is that, as long as there is more than one employee, it tends to be done by companies. The advantage there is companies tend to pirate much less than individuals. For that reason you could very easily still charge by the hour/month/employee/client for a self hosted business model. To me I view the client as the money maker, which can remain closed source very easily.

Anyway, just to help out, here are the things I'd change about the software used by my current group:

1) It doesn't have a feature for offline monitoring. Given my employees are in the Philippines, a lot of them get a lot of lag on their net connection depending on what they are doing. In particular my Flash guy regularly turns off the client because it slows him down that much. It would be nice if the system would continue taking screenshots, and then bulk upload them when the connection is re-established.

2) The system has a note tracker, it auto nags the employee every half hour for them to say what they are up to. It also measure the amount of time it takes for the employee to respond. This timing makes it pretty easy to spot a lazy employee.

3) There have been many times when I've wanted to see a bigger screenshot, or find out what is being typed. In these cases it would be good to browse with thumbnails, and then have fullscreen shots. It would also be nice to capture keystrokes when the client is active.

4) The timesheets are a bit of a mess, it would be nice to adjust the timezone they are run on so certain employees don't run into two days for the same work day.

5) I get emailed daily with a list of my employees and what they were doing that day, it's pretty convenient.

6) This is a bit far stretched, but it would be great to be able to designate 'work folders' on a clients machine and then have the ability to remotely wipe them. This would of course be somewhat stealth, but the last time I fired someone I really hated to have to remote into the machine and watch them delete my files that way. It would be much better if I could click to delete and not have to worry about them walking off with my code after I give them the boot.

7) Full control over screenshot interval would be great. Also some employee time management alerts would be good. If someone doesn't log into work on-time, I want to know about it.
 
Insomniac said:
The thing about outsourcing is that, as long as there is more than one employee, it tends to be done by companies. The advantage there is companies tend to pirate much less than individuals. For that reason you could very easily still charge by the hour/month/employee/client for a self hosted business model. To me I view the client as the money maker, which can remain closed source very easily.

Anyway, just to help out, here are the things I'd change about the software used by my current group:

1) It doesn't have a feature for offline monitoring. Given my employees are in the Philippines, a lot of them get a lot of lag on their net connection depending on what they are doing. In particular my Flash guy regularly turns off the client because it slows him down that much. It would be nice if the system would continue taking screenshots, and then bulk upload them when the connection is re-established.

2) The system has a note tracker, it auto nags the employee every half hour for them to say what they are up to. It also measure the amount of time it takes for the employee to respond. This timing makes it pretty easy to spot a lazy employee.

3) There have been many times when I've wanted to see a bigger screenshot, or find out what is being typed. In these cases it would be good to browse with thumbnails, and then have fullscreen shots. It would also be nice to capture keystrokes when the client is active.

4) The timesheets are a bit of a mess, it would be nice to adjust the timezone they are run on so certain employees don't run into two days for the same work day.

5) I get emailed daily with a list of my employees and what they were doing that day, it's pretty convenient.

6) This is a bit far stretched, but it would be great to be able to designate 'work folders' on a clients machine and then have the ability to remotely wipe them. This would of course be somewhat stealth, but the last time I fired someone I really hated to have to remote into the machine and watch them delete my files that way. It would be much better if I could click to delete and not have to worry about them walking off with my code after I give them the boot.

7) Full control over screenshot interval would be great. Also some employee time management alerts would be good. If someone doesn't log into work on-time, I want to know about it.
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Thanks for the suggestions, they are gold! Allow me to reply to each one.

1) Offline tracking is a good idea, we'll consider that for our next version.

2) We were considering this feature as well, calling it a "status update" where the user gets pinged every X mins.

3) If you've seen our interface, you'll see we offer thumbnails along with full size images. We even capture dual/multi-screen monitors at 100% width.

4) We'll be adding timezones so that the worker can set their own timezone, shouldn't be too hard.

5) Daily updates can be auto emailed, good idea as well.

6) This one is a bit more difficult. If they can access your code once, they can access it forever anyway, by simply copying pasting to a separate file. Not sure any solution could ever prevent that.

7) We already offer control over screenshot intervals. You can choose between 10/15/30/45/60 minute intervals whenever you create a project :).

Thanks a ton mate. Let me know if you need anything.
 
insomnia said:
Thanks a ton mate. Let me know if you need anything.
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I'm definitely interested, just chuck me a PM if you guys decide to switch over to some form of hosted model where I can trust that no one else is able to see any private information like passwords.

Also, just a note for you. A lot of the outsourcing companies out there use custom software. In fact I've never found any viable solution for this problem. If your product is good enough I don't see why you couldn't license it out to larger companies that have 1,000+ employees working full time.
 
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