Nowadays there are tons of employee monitoring tools out there, and each one of them tends to have a different set of features. That can make it difficult to figure out which tool would be best for you.

If you’re considering using Controlio, this comprehensive review is a good place to start. It will give you a glimpse into what Controlio’s features are, what it can do, as well as both its advantages and disadvantages. 

“What is Controlio?”

Controlio is primarily an employee monitoring tool – meaning it is designed to keep tabs on what employees are up to while at their workstations. However its features extend beyond that – allowing you to use it for attendance, timesheet management, productivity analysis, basic project management, security, and more.

It is mainly cloud-based (though on-premises or private cloud plans are available) making it well-suited to monitor remote workers and allow managers to access monitoring data remotely too.

Pricing

The pricing for Controlio’s cloud-based offering designed for small and medium businesses is $7.99 per month or $79.90 per year for each user that you wish to monitor – up to a total of 10,000. If you want you can try out this plan for free for 14 days.

The pricing for Controlio’s private cloud or on-premises plans may vary, and are available only upon request.

Main Features

As you may have surmised, the features in Controlio are truly diverse. Some of the main features that stand out include:

• Apps that employees are using and the duration they use it for
• Browsing history of all the websites visited
• Time spent idle and not performing any activity
• Keystroke capture that records all keystrokes by employees
• Email monitoring to track incoming and outgoing emails
• File tracking that keeps a log of files that are created, deleted, renamed, or transferred
• Search history of any online searches carried out by employees
• Productivity score that is calculated for each employee based on their activity
• Detailed reports available in the dashboard that can also be scheduled to be emailed to you at fixed intervals
• Behavior rules and alerts that can be set up for individuals or groups of employees to block or flag certain actions
• Screenshots and screen recording that will let you see exactly what employees are doing
• Monitoring profiles that can be created for groups of employees, teams, or departments to differentiate them
• Options for cloud-based, private cloud, or on-premises solutions

Based on these features it should be easy to see how versatile Controlio’s capabilities truly are. That is why it can be used for far more than just monitoring employees – and benefit you in many other ways.

Pros & Cons

Want to know exactly what the advantages and disadvantages of choosing Controlio will be? Here’s what we found after trying it out:

Pros:

• User-friendly interface that is clean, easy to navigate, setup, and find what you need.
• Convenient reports and analytics that display data in an accessible manner.
• Strong customization options that let you setup monitoring profiles and customize rules and alerts for them.
• Synchronization of activity logs including app usage, keystrokes, screenshots and recordings.
• Easy compliance with data protection regulations by disabling prohibited monitoring data or using the GDPR compliance mode.
• Can be used to monitor remote workers as long as the client is installed on their devices.

Cons:

• No free plan available although there is a 14-day free trial that you can use.
• No universal search features, though search is available within reports and logs.

Long story short, while Controlio does have some drawbacks they are relatively minor compared to what it brings to the table.

Conclusion

Overall Controlio offers an simple yet effective way to monitor employees, gauge productivity, and will provide you with solid and actionable data that you can use to manage your employees more effectively. It is best for small or medium-sized businesses that need to monitor employees continuously, or manage a remote workforce while keeping an eye on productivity or potential threats.

The pricing is competitive but the lack of a free plan may be prohibitive for small startups that are on a tight budget. However the value it provides is definitely worthwhile if your budget can stretch that far.