I suggest or . I hope this helps.



Regards,
John Lagoudakis

you can use odesk software for time and screenshot tracking

I can't answer your question about real time tracking for whenever you want.

BUT Odesk does take frequent screenshots.

Either way, why would you feel the need to track your employees time whenever you want? Sounds a bit big brotherish to me. I understand needing productivity, but I'd be happy with a worker who met all their targets without having to know what they are doing at every second of the day.

Just my 2 cents.

Try rescuetime or tracklabor.com. It tracks every opened application and webpage and takes random screenshots. It also provides you with regular reports (daily, weekly, monthly) on your teams performance

Like others have said, Odesk provides screenshots. Elance also has that feature, called Elance Tracker. This is from their site:

There is an option to enable Work View™ in Tracker, which allows the freelancer to stream images and comments into the Work View™ section of the workroom. Screenshots are taken at random intervals throughout the hour to create a documented record of the work performed online. When Work View™ is enabled, payment for the freelancer's time is guaranteed by Elance.

Just like Rescuetime or TrackLabor, TimeDoctor is also a good alternative for this. It guarantees you stay focused by making sure you work on what you're committed to working on. So when you’re having more time browsing on Youtube, online newspapers, or other personal web browsing are detected, Time Doctor will give each user a nudge to see they are still working.

Hi,

I dealt with this problem and arrived at a different solution than most.

The problem with all this tracking, screenshots, logging and all of that is you have to spend time reviewing it all which well, takes time.

The whole point of hiring someone is to save time.

So what I did instead is when assiging tasks out, I know roughly how long they take to complete.

So if the task was spin an article to my specifications I know that it will take between 2.5-3 hours to do.

So I just assign them 8 hours worth of work per day and as long as what I have assigned gets completed I don't give a shit if they worked 9am-10am, went swimming for 2 hours, then did another few hours, went to the gym then did another couple of hours.

Just assign them a days worth of work and then all you have to do is review it on completion, let them manage their own time.

You'll soon know if someone is ******* about all day because they wont be getting throguh their assigned tasks.

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As a former freelancer, and a good one, I would never ever have worked for someone that wanted to look over my shoulder to that degree.

That's because the key part of the word freelancer is "free". Most quality professionals turn to freelancing so they have autonomy and control over what they do and how they do it.

I'd suggest to you if you want those high quality freelancers, you should be aware that the best ones won't want to work that way.

Instead, follow the advice given above on pairing the rate of pay with the amount of work done, so you're getting what you paid for delivered.

I agree with those who feel it's just easier to pay a fixed price for a specified number of tasks. As a contractor, I'd rather be paid a fixed price. I'm a copywriter, and copywriting is very difficult to quantify by the hour. When I give quotes to clients, I look at what they need, estimate how many hours it will take me to complete the job, multiply that by my hourly rate, then give them a nice flat fee. Sometimes it works out in their favor, sometimes in mine. Either way, I know what I'm getting paid, and they know what they're getting charged (if it takes me longer than expected, I eat the difference - I charge extra only if they ask for extra things that weren't included in the original proposal).

Elance and odesk have tracking software if you run the project through them.

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Hi. I'm Charlie with Hubstaff. You may want to try Hubstaff. It has time-tracking with screenshots, payments, and can be integrated with projects. It also has a time-tracking widget that is surprisingly lightweight and unobtrusive.

There are many ways to find and hire freelance contractors and outsourced team members, though if you want things to run like clockwork you are either going to want to hire through one of the leading outsourcing platforms like oDesk.com or invest in some type of employee time tracking and monitoring tool like livetecs.

IANAL, but you need to be careful how much control you impose on contractors, otherwise they or the government may claim they're employees and you'll be liable for benifits and employment taxes.

Jack

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You should take a look for sure at TimeCamp - an intuitive, well-packed time tracking software, which is cheaper than the other tools available on the market.

Hire someone you trust. If you feel they're not doing a good job, simply hire someone else. Like others have said, who cares if they're on youtube half of their day, as long as they do the job done for a good price. If you can find someone to do it better and cheaper, hire that one instead.

Time tracking can be useful, but really following their screen with screenshots or whatever goes way too far for me.

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