Desktop App & Tracking
How does DoTally decide when I'm away?
What counts as away, the threshold your Administrator sets, meetings and video without typing, and how break reasons affect scores.
DoTally counts you as away when there’s been no keyboard or mouse activity for your workspace’s threshold or longer, which is 10 minutes by default. Shorter pauses, like reading or thinking, still count as active time.
How it works
The desktop app checks for activity, not content. Every second, it asks your computer how long it’s been since the keyboard or mouse was last used. Moving the mouse, clicking, scrolling or pressing a key resets that count. DoTally doesn’t listen to your keyboard, so it never knows which key you pressed.
After about a minute with no activity, the app starts an idle stretch. If your computer’s display goes to sleep, the idle stretch starts straight away.
The moment you touch the keyboard or mouse, the stretch ends.
Once you log the day, DoTally sorts each idle stretch:
Shorter than the threshold: it counts as active time. It belongs to whatever you were doing before it.
As long as the threshold or longer: it counts as away time.
Your logged time is your active time plus your away time.
The threshold
Your Administrator sets the threshold for the workspace in Settings → Workday Settings → Inactive Time Questions. The options are 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 minutes, and the default is 10. It’s the same for everyone in the workspace: there’s no personal threshold.
The same threshold decides which breaks DoTally asks you about after you log.
Meetings, calls and videos
DoTally can only see keyboard and mouse activity. If you sit through a call, a video or a presentation without touching either for the threshold or longer, that time shows as away.
That’s what break reasons are for. Add a reason like “Client call” and the time is treated as explained.
Leaving your computer on overnight
If you forget to stop recording, very long away stretches aren’t counted. That covers four hours or more, and long stretches at the very start or end of the day. They appear on your day as Overnight away (not counted) and don’t affect your totals or scores.
Explaining a break
After you log a day, DoTally lists every away stretch at or over the threshold. You can explain each one:
in the Your day has been logged successfully window, straight after logging,
in the Away Time section of that day in My Work, or
from the notification bell: select Provide Reasons.
Type anything that describes the break, such as “Lunch”, “Team standup” or “Doctor’s appointment”. Reasons are optional.
Does away time affect my scores?
Explained breaks don’t lower your scores. They still show as away time, but your Focus score ignores them.
Unexplained breaks lower your Focus score, and through it your Overall score. Unexplained away time is one of the four things Focus looks at.
A reason doesn’t turn away time into active time. A meeting you explain stays away time in your totals. It just stops counting against your Focus.
On Team Professional, your scores update as soon as you save a reason.
What your team sees
Your away time shows on the Timeboard, next to the break allowance in your workday schedule. When your Administrator and Managers open your day, they see each break and the reason you gave, whether App Sharing is on or off.
Available on: every plan. Scores need Team Professional.
Related
Still stuck? Email awesome@dotally.app.
