Hubstaff Product and Company Updates

Over the past few years, our team at Hubstaff has been hard at work, bringing you the best time tracking, productivity, and project management software. Along the way, we’ve documented our growth, sparked team chemistry on remote retreats, and listened to your ideas.

If you haven’t been following our journey, we’ve got a lot to show you. Let’s get you up to speed with some of our latest updates.

New features

The way work gets done is constantly changing, so shouldn’t our product?

That’s why Hubstaff is committed to continuous improvement. Our customers need it. Whether it’s basic UI or UX changes or a complete overhaul of our notifications system, we strive to bring our users the best products possible. Let’s take a look at what’s changed in recent years:

Newest updates

If you haven’t checked in on us in a while, we’ve made a lot of changes over the past year. This month, we’re announcing updates and improvements that Hubstaff users have been asking for.

You heard that right. Whether it’s adding photos to jobs or overhauling our notification system, our product roadmap is designed with real customer feedback in mind.

Let’s take a look.

Hubstaff

• Adding photos to jobs
• A simpler way to lock and unlock time
• See the current location of your team

Hubstaff Tasks

• Add attachments in comments
• Stay organized with work orders
• Linking Hubstaff and Hubstaff Tasks
• Explore live and past views of the map
• Interface and design refreshes
• Try the integrated web timer
• Start your day with the home page
• Get it all done with To-dos
• Stay on top of your stuff with My Stuff
• A new notification center

HUBSTAFF UPDATES

Adding photos to jobs

In creating our work orders feature, we added some functionality to take it even further: The ability to attach a photo to a time entry.

This is useful for a few different reasons:

• To share a progress update with the client or the rest of the team
• To have before and after photos
• To show proof of work for client billing
• For diagnostic purposes on a service call
• To help resolve complaints that may come up later

You can always add notes when you’re tracking time to provide clarity on what you’ve been working on.

A simpler way to lock and unlock time

There are a few good reasons why you can’t edit time after it’s tracked:

• The timesheet was already paid
• The time was used in a client invoice
• The data has been sent to an integration (i.e. Quickbooks)

Locking time like this makes it easy to keep data consistent and accurate across your apps, but it also makes it more difficult to modify time if you need to.

With this update, you can:

• Easily see which time is locked
• See the reason why it’s locked
• Choose to unlock time and modify it

Time editing permissions for your organization still need to be set on a per-user basis.

See the current location of your team

Now you can see an accurate, up-to-date location for each team member from both the web and mobile map.

With this update, it’s easy to see exactly where someone is and know with confidence that the job will start on time.

If you have fleet tracking enabled, this location will alway be accurate. If you’re using GPS location only during set hours, you’ll see the last place a team member was while on the clock.

HUBSTAFF TASKS UPDATES

Add attachments in comments

First it was emojis. Now, you can add attachments to your Tasks comments.

Because so much key conversation happens here, we just keep building on the comments section.

When you’re responding on a task, you can now attach a file for greater clarity. You can still attach files to the task itself, but now you’ll have a better way to see conversations and their corresponding attachments.

Updates | January 2021

Stay organized with work orders

Built for field and mobile teams, our work orders and Jobs features aim to group client information in one convenient place.

Work orders contain everything your team needs to know about a client, including the address, upcoming jobs, who’s assigned to the project, and a history of actions on that order.

You can also schedule jobs for your crew so they know exactly where to be and when. When they arrive on-site, they can start tracking time to the right job.

Take your Jobs a step further with geofenced time tracking. All you have to do is create a radius for your Job site. Whenever your crew enters or leaves, our GPS technology will clock them in or out automatically.

Linking Hubstaff and Hubstaff Tasks

If you’re not already using Hubstaff and Hubstaff Tasks together, here’s another reason to try them.

We’re continuing to add new features to our Agile project management tool, Hubstaff Tasks. By connecting Hubstaff and Hubstaff Tasks, you can increase your team’s productivity. Here are some examples:

• When you sign up, Hubstaff will sync existing projects and tasks with Hubstaff Tasks so you don’t have to carry anything over manually
• We’ll invite your team automatically
• When you duplicate a project in Hubstaff, the same will happen in Hubstaff Tasks
• It’s easier to sign up for either tool from the other app thanks to reminders and a detailed page that summarizes the perks

Explore live and past views of the map

The map view is a field team favorite, and it’s easy to see why.

It’s a clear way to see where everyone is during the workday without having to send out a text or give them a call.

It’s a helpful feature for customer-facing businesses like cleaning or logistics companies who need to provide ETAs. It’s also useful for managers who want to know who is nearby and can help out in a pinch.

You now have two viewing options:

• Live view: See where your people are right now.
  • Updated every 30 seconds
  • Ideal for checking to see that the right people are at a Job site
• Past view: See the last three Job sites visited when you click on a team member. You can also see the last three members who were at a specific Job site.
  • This feature can help with route planning, as you’re able to look back at historical data and identify faster paths in the future.

Interface and design refreshes

If you’ve logged into Hubstaff Tasks recently, you’ve likely seen a refreshing visual update.

Here are a few areas that changed:

• New sidebar makes it easier to jump to Projects, Sprints, Epics, Stand-ups, and Roadmaps
• A cleaner top bar that features notifications and other new features
• Design updates that make the whole experience better (drop shadows, fonts and spacing, for example)

Try the integrated web timer

One of the great things about using Hubstaff and Hubstaff Tasks together is having a direct connection between tracking time and managing projects. That’s why we created the integrated web timer.

Before this update, you would use Hubstaff apps to track time and Hubstaff Tasks for tracking projects and tasks.

Now, you can track time directly from Hubstaff Tasks — right from the task you’re currently working on. Just start and stop your timer as you move from task to task in the Sprint or project view.

Start by choosing between the desktop, web, mobile app, or Google Chrome extension. Or, use them all. You can switch seamlessly between different time tracking methods without losing a second of tracked time.

Start your day with the home page

A cup of coffee, noise-canceling headphones, and the Hubstaff Tasks home page. That’s everything you need to kick off your most productive days.

This new home page features helpful, customizable widgets that sum up your workday. You can see:

• A snapshot of your inbox
• Your To-do list
• Your most viewed projects
• Tasks recently assigned to you

We know that getting things done starts with planning out your day. The home page is an exciting new feature that we hope gives you a clear overview of what’s on your plate and where to start.

What else can we include on your home page? Let us know in the comments.

Get it all done with To-dos

Ta-da! It’s To-dos.

Think of this as your personal to-do list within Hubstaff Tasks.

Can’t log off before you review the latest email design? Put it on your To-do list. Need to grab oat milk later? Put it on your To-do list.

Your list can be as personal as you want it to be — especially since you’re the only one who can see it. (Really!)

Stay on top of your stuff with My Stuff

After you peruse your home page, hop over to My Stuff to see what’s on your list for the day.

My Stuff is a new planning view within Hubstaff Tasks that allows you to organize your day in the way that makes the most sense for you.

This view includes a To-do list tab where you can see or hide completed tasks. You can also see tasks assigned to you and follow any that you want to keep tabs on.

Coming soon: You can even autofill your daily Stand-up to save time based on what’s in My Stuff. It’ll keep a record and make suggestions for what to include in your recaps.

A new notification center

If you’re not an email person, our notifications overhaul will help you get more out of in-app notifications.

You can now modify notification settings to help de-clutter your inbox. Choose from a pre-set list of notifications or customize them to your liking. Your options are:

• Everything
• Only the essentials
• None
• Custom

The new notification center aims to be your home for updates. Scroll back to find the update you’re looking for or check them off as you go.

Built-in tasks feature | April 2018

Why do we need tasks?

Adding a simple task may not seem all that impressive. But to businesses who want more accurate time tracking, the tasks feature is a big deal.

This feature allows you to get a clear picture of what everyone is working on. You can also see how many steps it’ll take to accomplish a project.

For example, maybe you have a client rebrand project. From start to finish, that project may require brainstorming, research, moodboards, logo development, mandatory team happy hours, and a launch video.

These steps can all be added as tasks that you can track time to.

Well, maybe not mandatory happy hours. Maybe you wouldn’t want to track time to those, but, you definitely could. I’m not saying it’s mandatory, but it’s on the table. Think about it.

The reviews are in

Early on, we asked customers for feedback on the new tasks feature. Here are the first few reviews we received:

“Awesome this is what I was waiting for”

“Great! Nice feature”

“PERFECT!”

“😍”

Can an endorsement get any better than the :heart_eyes: emojis? Add your first task to a project in Hubstaff and let us know. Maybe you’re more of a :slightly_smiling_face: person.

Add your first task

To add a task, simply go to the tasks page, which you’ll see on the left sidebar in the Hubstaff web app. You’ll see the “Add a task” button in the top right.

Or, add a task directly from the desktop timer. Tasks sync immediately, so you can start tracking time as soon as they’re added. If you have more questions, you can also check out the entire step-by-step process.

And (maybe our favorite part) this new feature is 100% included with Hubstaff. If you’re already using Hubstaff, you don’t need to pay more to add tasks to your projects.

In short, here’s why tasks are great

• More accurate time tracking
• Better view into how your team works on projects
• Better estimating and timeline planning for the future by seeing which tasks require the most time and attention
• Included with Hubstaff — no added fees, no integrations, and no extra steps are needed to start using it

What the future holds

We’ve had a lot to be proud of over the last few years. Despite a global pandemic, Google algorithm changes, and a slew of other obstacles, we’re still learning and growing as a company.

In 2021 alone, Hubstaff grew from 74 to 95 members. We also improved our benefits program and have continued our commitment to diversity, remote work, and growth. Here are a few achievements we are particularly proud of:

• Our MRR grew 31% over this year (current MRR: Monthly recurring revenue: $ 1,207,929).
• The number of active subscriptions moved from 13,256 to more than 15,130 (which means a growth of 14%).
•  And our product is better than ever (check out Jared’s message).

We’re not sure what the future holds, but we look forward to helping remote teams work better moving forward. If you’d like to follow us on our journey, subscribe to our newsletter:

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