Engagement KPI

Engagement answers a focused question: of all the time tracked, how much was spent inside work tools? "Work tools" means your primary and secondary tools combined — the applications and sites your team is supposed to use to get their job done.

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What it measures

The portion of tracked time spent in primary and secondary tools (together called "work tools") out of the total tracked time.

How it's calculated

Engagement = Time in primary and secondary tools ÷ Total tracked time × 100

Engagement is purely time-based — it looks only at where time was spent, not how actively. (That activity dimension is what Productivity adds.) The denominator is the total time tracked, so time spent in distracting or uncategorized tools counts against Engagement.

Tools are sorted into categories — Primary, Secondary, Distracting, and Neutral — and you can extend the default categorization by adding and classifying your own tools. Only Primary and Secondary time counts toward Engagement.

Example

A person tracks 8 hours. About 6 of those hours were spent in their IDE, email, and Slack (all primary or secondary), and the rest in miscellaneous browsing and uncategorized apps. Engagement = 6 ÷ 8 = 75%.

What influences it

• Tool categorization — this is the biggest factor. Tools that have not been categorized sit in Neutral and do not count toward Engagement, so low Engagement is very often a categorization gap rather than a real problem.
• Distracting-tool time — time in social media, entertainment, and other distracting tools lowers Engagement.
• Custom tools — adding and correctly classifying the tools your team actually uses keeps Engagement accurate.

How to read it

• Above 70% is excellent.
• Below 60% may indicate genuine distraction, but more commonly means many tools are still sitting in Neutral. If Engagement looks low, check whether tools need categorizing before assuming a behavior problem.

Related

The Tools guide (categorization), Productivity (engagement plus activity), and the Understanding Performance guide.