Employee Monitoring Software + Website Blocking

Forgot to mention it also needs to be a cloud version as their no server on-site for me to install the database on for the monitoring itself.

Oops! I don't believe it has to run in a "server". You don't have to integrate it with AD. It does, however, use SQL so it would have to be ran on a fairly decent machine. You might want to look at the Barracuda Web Filters.

To pin it down a little farther.... do they want it to be centrally monitored, configured and reported? A lot of these packages are stand alone i.e. you have to configure and monitor each one desperately. That would be very difficult to maintain.

I just want to monitor desktop activity and block site. nothing more then that as that what the client requested.

The console should be centralized. If he has PC1,PC2,PC3. I want to be able to see all 3 on one console whether he in the office or at home somewhere. Workexaminer would work but looking at the requirements seems to indicate a need for a server when looking at the diagram they showed on the specs pages for the std and prof.

I checked out a few products myself but trying to see what people recommend as so far, they are extremely expensive or the claims are not justified after testing them.

I looked at sentrypc (seems like what I need but reviews are bad), rawstream (doesn't work after using it on a client), websense (only web blocking, not desktop monitoring), smoothwall (require hardware additional), webtitan (works but can be bypass for blocking sites),

From the Work Examiner Web Page: WE Server – installed on any computer or server that will receive the data

You don't need a server. It also has a 30-day trial. Might be worth looking in to farther.

you do need a server or a dedicated workstation for the server component as the client requires you to point it to work examiner server address.

I'm not trying to answer the actual question here but rather I want to remind you that first of all you should make sure your client is legally covered to spy on his employees. Most countries only allow spying on employees up to a certain extent, and normally the employees first have to sign at least a disclaimer that lists everything the employer is spying on so they know what is getting recorded and what isn't. At least a local attorney should be consulted first here.

He understands this. In the end, I am just doing the research and seeing if their something I can find that is something he wants.

As I stated, I think you are after two separate items here.

1. You want something to monitor everything a user does on the computer

There are several products for this. I have not used any for legal reasons so don't have a lot of input.

2. You want something that will lock down internet access

Several good products have been mentioned. If you want the least cost you could look at the router and firewall to lock things down.  You could place a separate computer to be used as a proxy that everyone needs to go through to access the internet.

It sounds like you want reporting capability from both items.  This is dependent on what you end up using.

reporting not really a big thing i need.

the owner justs wants to be able to watch video of his employees desktop from a certain time period (like a security tape on a DVR) and limit sites to ones on a list he has yet to give me.

I know their are software out there that does both but can't find any that works well enough that i can recommend at the moment.

You are at the price point things with centralize management and reporting probably wont be cost effective. I did email Work Examiner and they replied that you do not need a "server" in the true sense of the work. You can use a PC. Most of these things we are talking about are geared for more users which helps disperse the cost.

I can't install the server component onto a local workstation in the office. Their office just have 4 computers including the owner. I am not turning the owner PC into a server for the monitoring.

OK. I just want to make sure you have the details. It runs in the background. He won't even know it is there. It will not slow him down. If you don't want to make one of the computers the console you are going to limit your choices even further.

He was looking for suggestions. He got suggestions. Several from several people.  Everyone responded to every question he posed. He is objecting because he didn't get enough responses? He didn't specify the number of responses he wanted.

I only received one suggestion about workexaminer which required a server as a middle man. I was looking for other suggestions but all the other responses are about the morals and legal reasons.

From pony10us: "There are several products/methods to block/restrict internet access.  Barracuda, as mentioned by LockDown32, is a good product.  There is also Sophos, NetNanny, Websense and the list goes on.  "

Barracuda required you to use their FW and only does half what I requested.

And I wanted your experts opinions of products you actually used rather just a random list of software I can get myself from googling such as workexaminer which would have worked if it didn't required a middle man server since you did use it and suggested it.

You see to have 2 different things you want to do:

1) Block access to hosts on the Internet.  You have received various options.  I use Squid along with SquidGuard and DansGuardian.  This setup allow both static blocking based on IP address, static blocking based on host name, and dynamic blocking based on content.  This is a centralized solution that runs under Linux,  There are other options that have also been suggested that allow the same options.  It boils down to centralized options that allow for centralized reporting and local installation that typically do local reporting.  I am sure there are some options that install locally and allow for centralized reporting, but centralized anything implies a server of some type.


2) Record uses activity on their local workstations.  This needs to be defined a little more.  Do you mean Internet activity or all activity.  That is, if they use MS word to create a document and save locally, you want to record that?

You have mentioned DVR and playback, do you literally mean you want a video camera over the shoulder of the employee recording what they do?  Or do you mean you would like to "record" the user screen on from their computer, like recording a WebEx session, and saving that?  That would require a centralized server, or a lot of local disk space.

List of 7 best free employee monitoring software for Windows.

The list contains a variety of employee tracking software, such as: cloud based, password protected, processes monitoring, screenshot based, report based, etc. Some of these software are also cross-platform software.

http://listoffreeware.com/list-of-best-free-employee-monitoring-software/

"There are several products/methods to block/restrict internet access.  Barracuda, as mentioned by LockDown32, is a good product.  There is also Sophos, NetNanny, Websense and the list goes on.  "

The only one of these that I have not had experience with is NetNanny.  All of them work well.  Websense is/was a very good product that did not require additional hardware. It did require a lot of hands on to maintain properly though.

Sophos and Barracuda, at least in my environment, required an appliance. They perform updates automatically from their respective companies. Sophos is what we are currently using and the only good reason I can give for that is they offered a good price to get their entire suite of products which includes some things that Barracuda didn't offer. Those things are not related to anything that you are asking about.

Still didn't get the answer I was hoping. Looked on my own for a product that would work in the end.