Desktop App & Tracking
What happens when I click Start My Day?
What starts recording, what stays on your computer, how away time and pauses work, and how the day ends.
When you click Start My Day, the DoTally desktop app starts recording which apps and windows you use and for how long. It keeps that record on your computer. Nothing reaches your dashboard, or anyone else, until you log your day.
What starts recording
The app and window in focus. DoTally notes each app you switch to and the title of its window, such as “Q3 budget.xlsx”, checking every couple of seconds.
Whether you’re at your computer. DoTally checks how long it’s been since you last used the keyboard or mouse, never what you type. That’s how it tells active time from away time.
On a Mac, a red dot appears on the DoTally icon in the menu bar, and the app shows REC. Open it any time to see your Total, Logged and Pending time for the day.
DoTally never takes screenshots, records your screen or reads keystrokes. See Does DoTally take screenshots or record keystrokes?
What it doesn’t do
It doesn’t send anything to DoTally. Your recording stays on your computer as pending time until you log it.
It doesn’t set your start time. Your dashboard’s start time is the first moment of active time you log, not the moment you clicked.
It doesn’t start by itself. Click Start My Day each day, and again if you quit and reopen the app. Time before you click isn’t recorded.
It doesn’t stop by itself. Recording carries on past the end of your workday and past midnight, until you pause it or log.
Stepping away
Away time. When you stop using the keyboard and mouse, or your computer goes to sleep, DoTally starts an idle stretch, which ends as soon as you return. Short pauses still count as active time. Stretches as long as your workspace’s threshold or longer (10 minutes by default) count as away. See How does DoTally decide when I’m away?
Overnight. If you leave it recording overnight, the long away stretch isn’t counted.
Explain your breaks. After you log, DoTally asks about each away stretch. Select Provide Reasons on the dashboard to explain them, for example a meeting or lunch. On Team Professional, breaks you don’t explain lower your Focus score, and with it your Overall score.
Pausing
Click Pause to stop recording for a while, for example during something personal. Nothing is captured while paused. Click again to carry on.
Ending your day
When you’re done, open the app and choose:
I’m done for Today, Log Everything to log the whole day, or
See Recorded Activities And Choose Manually, then pick what should count and select Log Selected.
Logging stops recording and sends the day to your dashboard. Anything you leave out stays on your computer, never sent, and is deleted after 90 days. Logged something by mistake? You can unlog it later.
On Team Professional, DoTally Sense then uses AI to classify the apps you logged and work out your scores. That takes a moment.
Working offline
Recording works without an internet connection. Logging needs one, so log once you’re back online.
Available on: every plan and role. The productive / neutral / unproductive breakdown needs Team Professional.
Related
Still stuck? Email awesome@dotally.app.
