Idle Time Detection & Time Tracking

Ango Hub keeps track of the time annotators and reviewers spend on their tasks.

In this page, we explain in detail how time tracking works in Ango Hub, and how you can set up Idle Time Detection in your projects.

Terminology

Tabs and Windows

Time Categories

There are three types of time in Ango Hub: active, blur, and idle.

Type	Description
Active	The tab is active, and the user is moving the mouse cursor over the tab area (viewport.) The window can be active or inactive.
Blur	The tab is inactive.
Idle	The window is active, the tab is active, the user is not using either the mouse or the keyboard. OR The window is inactive, the tab is active, the user is using the mouse but the cursor never hovers over the tab. OR The tab is inactive.

Currently, in exports and performance reports, only one type of time is counted, and it is the active time. This will change in the near future.

The time categories are not mutually exclusive — in fact, all blur time also counts as idle time.

How Time is Tracked

In Ango Hub, time starts being tracked when a user opens a task, and ends when they click on Save or Submit.

This means that if you open a task, then quit it without saving or submitting, this time will not be counted as you were simply 'viewing' the task.

When a user first opens an asset, the active timer starts, indicated by the green dot in the top right of the screen:

If, however, the user is idle for a period of time set by the project manager (by default 300 seconds), the active timer stops and the idle timer starts, and the dot turns gray:

When the dot is gray, the active timer stops and the idle timer starts. As project manager, you can choose when to show the idleness notice, and thus, when to start considering your users as idle.

Changing the Idle Time Threshold

To change the duration after which you consider your project members as being idle, navigate to Settings -> General, then change the number, in seconds, under the Idle Timeout heading:

Lastly, click on Save to save your settings.

Idle Detection Examples

Assuming a 5-second idle detection threshold.

Scenario	Durations
Open task Annotate for 15 seconds Save and quit.	Duration: 15s Blur duration: 0s Idle duration: 0s
Open task Annotate for 15 seconds Save and quit. Open the task and don’t perform any annotation Quit without saving Enter the task again and perform annotations for 10 seconds Save and quit	Duration: 25s Blur duration: 0s Idle duration: 0s
Open task Annotate for 10 seconds Change tab for 30 seconds (keeping the browser window active) Go back to the annotation and annotate for 10 more seconds Save and quit	Duration: 20s Blur duration: 30s Idle duration: 30s
Open task Annotate for 10 seconds Do nothing for 30 seconds with the tab and window active Move the mouse and annotate for 10 more seconds Save and quit	Duration: 25s (20 seconds of actual annotation + 5 seconds idle detection threshold) Blur duration: 0s Idle duration: 25s (30 seconds of actual idleness minus 5 seconds idle detection threshold)
Open task Annotate for 10 seconds Save and quit Open task again Be active, but don’t perform any annotation for 10 seconds Submit	totalDuration (in export): 20 seconds This occurs because, as mentioned above, time starts when the user opens the task and ends when they click on Submit. Even though in the second session no annotations were created, the timer was not stopped at the end of the first session, as the user had not clicked on Submit. It was instead stopped in the second session.
Open task Annotate for 10 seconds Change the foreground application for 30 seconds (keeping the tab open in the window, but with the window in the background) and never hover over the window. Go back to annotation and annotate for 10 more seconds Save and quit	Duration: 25s (20 seconds of actual annotation + 5 seconds idle detection threshold) Blur duration: 0s Idle duration: 25s (30 seconds of actual idleness minus 5 seconds idle detection threshold)
Open task Annotate for 10 seconds Change the foreground application for 30 seconds (keeping the tab open in the window, but with the window in the background) and never hover over the window. Go back to annotation and annotate for 10 more seconds Submit Review the asset for 5 seconds Submit	In the export: totalDuration: 25s + 5s = 30s (review) stageDuration: 5s

Inspecting time spent on tasks

Other than the columns present in the Performance, Assets, and Tasks tabs, you may also inspect a single task's blur, idle, and active times, both for the stage it is currently in and as a total.

To do so, open the task you wish to inspect, and open the Task Info panel on the right side:

In the highlighted box, you will be able to inspect active, blur, and idle times, both for the current stage and for the totality of the task's stage history.