How does automatic clock-in work?

With automatic clock-in on, the desktop app starts recording as soon as it opens. Nobody presses the start button and nobody loses the first half hour of the morning to forgetting it.

The part people miss

The setting starts tracking when the app opens. It does not open the app. If Worktivity is not in the computer's startup apps, nothing happens until somebody launches it by hand, which is the problem the setting was meant to solve.

Add Worktivity to startup on each computer before you rely on this. It is the single step that decides whether the feature works.

Which apps act on it

The Microsoft Store app on Windows and the app from the Mac App Store. Both start the shift once the app has opened and the person is signed in, whatever the time. The installer downloaded from our site for Windows and for macOS 12 and 13, and the Linux app, do not act on the setting, so people using them start their shift themselves.

The automatic start goes through the same checks as the button. If the person has not yet accepted what your organization collects, the app shows that first and starts nothing until they accept. If they clock out during the day, the app does not start the shift again while it stays open.

Turning it on

Open Workspace settings, go to the Tracking tab and find Automatic clock-in. The switch is available on some plans only; where it is not included the row shows a plan badge.

It applies to the whole organization by default, and it can be turned on or off for one person from that employee's tracking settings.

What it changes for the person

The shift starts on its own, but everything else stays in their hands. Breaks are still started and ended manually, and clocking out at the end of the day is still a decision.

That last point matters: automatic clock-in with no clock-out at night produces a shift that runs until the computer sleeps. The minutes after the person stopped working are recorded as idle rather than as work, so the totals stay honest, but the shift itself looks long.

Before you turn it on

Recording that begins without an explicit action from the employee is treated differently in different jurisdictions. Worktivity shows a warning next to the switch for that reason. Whether you may use it where your team works is a question worth answering before you switch it on.