Understand and configure idle time detection for accurate data.
Idle time settings are one of the most important configurations for ensuring your workforce data is accurate. If idle time is not configured properly, your team's total work hours, Availability, and Productivity metrics can be significantly over- or under-reported. This guide explains what idle time is, where to adjust its settings for each agent type, and how to choose the right configuration for your organization.
Idle time is an extended period of zero activity on a user's computer. Zero activity means there is no interaction through keyboard usage, mouse clicks, or mouse movement — the user is completely inactive.
Common causes of idle time include:
Idle time is not the same as low activity. If a user occasionally moves their mouse or types a few characters, that counts as activity — even minimal interaction prevents idle time from being triggered.
Without proper idle time configuration, your data can become unreliable in two ways:
The goal is to find a balance where genuinely unproductive idle time is excluded while legitimate work-related inactivity is preserved.
Idle time detection is based on a threshold — the number of minutes of continuous zero activity before the period is flagged as idle. Here is how it works:
Example: If the idle time threshold is set to 20 minutes and a user is away from their computer for 25 minutes, all 25 minutes are flagged as idle time. But if the same user was away for only 15 minutes, those 15 minutes would count as normal work time because the threshold was not reached.
Idle time settings are configured separately for desktop agents and background agents, and the location differs for each.
Note: Only Owners and Admins can access and modify idle time settings for both agent types.
The first setting controls how long a period of zero activity must last before it is flagged as idle time. There are two separate thresholds — one for non-communication tools and one for communication tools.
Communication tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and email clients often involve legitimate periods of inactivity. For example, when a user is sitting in a Zoom meeting and simply listening or watching a presentation, they may not interact with their computer at all. In this case, the time is genuinely work-related even though there is zero keyboard and mouse activity.
By setting a longer threshold for communication tools, you can prevent meeting time from being incorrectly flagged as idle while still catching genuine inactivity in other applications.
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| 10 minutes | Aggressive — flags idle time quickly. Best for roles with constant computer interaction. |
| 20 minutes (default) | Balanced — the default for both communication and non-communication tools. Works well for most teams. |
| 30 minutes | Lenient — allows for longer periods of reading, thinking, or short breaks without triggering idle. |
| 60 minutes | Very lenient — only extended absences are flagged. Useful for communication tools if your team has long meetings. |
| Disable | No idle detection — all time counts as work time regardless of activity. Use with caution. |
| Tool Type | Recommended Threshold | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Non-communication tools | 10–20 minutes | Users working in editors, browsers, and spreadsheets are typically active. Short inactivity often means they stepped away. |
| Communication tools | 20–30 minutes | Allows for typical meeting durations where users listen without interacting with the computer. |
Tip: If your team regularly has meetings longer than 30 minutes, consider setting the communication tools threshold to 60 minutes to avoid flagging meeting time as idle.
If you disable the idle time threshold for a tool category, no period of inactivity in that category will ever be flagged as idle. All time will count as normal work time regardless of how long the user is inactive. This effectively means that if someone opens a communication tool and walks away for hours, all of that time counts as work.
Once a period is flagged as idle, the next setting determines what happens to it. The available options differ between desktop agents and background agents.
| Option | What Happens | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Always save | Idle time counts toward total work hours for the day. It is highlighted as idle in reports and availability views so you can still identify it. | Teams where idle periods often represent legitimate work (e.g., reading, thinking, offline tasks). |
| Always discard | Idle time is removed from time reports entirely. It does not count toward total work hours. | Strict time tracking environments where only active computer use should count. |
| Let user decide (recommended) | When the user returns to their computer after an idle period, a pop-up appears asking whether to save or discard the time. Users can also add a note explaining what they were doing (e.g., "In a meeting" or "On a phone call"). | Most teams — balances accuracy with employee autonomy and trust. |
| Option | What Happens |
|---|---|
| Always save | Idle time counts toward total work hours and is highlighted as idle in reports. |
| Always discard | Idle time is removed from time reports entirely. |
Note: The "Let user decide" option is only available for desktop agents because background agents have no visible user interface. Since users do not interact with background agents, there is no way to show them a pop-up when they return to their computer.
To illustrate how this setting affects reported data:
The third setting acts as a safety net. It automatically discards idle time that exceeds a specified duration, even when idle time is otherwise set to "Always save" or "Let user decide."
This setting is designed to handle edge cases like:
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| Never | No automatic discard — all idle time is handled by the save/discard setting above. |
| 2 hours | The most aggressive. Good if you know that any absence longer than 2 hours is almost certainly not work. |
| 3 hours | Catches most non-work idle periods while allowing for extended meetings. |
| 4 hours (recommended starting point) | A safe default that removes overnight/forgotten-timer scenarios while preserving most legitimate idle periods. |
| 5–12 hours | Progressively more lenient. Higher values only catch the most extreme cases (e.g., computer left on all night). |
When the auto-discard threshold is reached, the idle time is treated as if "Always discard" was selected — the time is removed from reports entirely, regardless of the save/discard setting above.
Example: Idle time is set to "Always save" with an auto-discard threshold of 4 hours. A user forgets to stop their timer and leaves for the evening. After 4 hours of continuous idle time, that entire idle period is automatically discarded. But a 2-hour idle period earlier in the day (from a long meeting) would still be saved as configured.
Note: For background agents, the auto-discard setting is only visible when "Always save" is selected as the idle time handling method. If "Always discard" is selected, all idle time is already being discarded, so the auto-discard threshold is unnecessary.
| Setting | Desktop Agents | Background Agents |
|---|---|---|
| Non-communication threshold | 20 minutes | 20 minutes |
| Communication threshold | 30 minutes | 30 minutes |
| Save or discard | Let user decide | Always save |
| Auto-discard long idle | 4 hours | 4 hours |
| Setting | Desktop Agents | Background Agents |
|---|---|---|
| Non-communication threshold | 10 minutes | 10 minutes |
| Communication threshold | 20 minutes | 20 minutes |
| Save or discard | Always discard | Always discard |
| Auto-discard long idle | N/A (already discarding) | N/A (already discarding) |
| Setting | Desktop Agents | Background Agents |
|---|---|---|
| Non-communication threshold | 20 minutes | 20 minutes |
| Communication threshold | 60 minutes | 60 minutes |
| Save or discard | Let user decide | Always save |
| Auto-discard long idle | 4 hours | 4 hours |
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