InterGuard Review 2024: Is It Legit and Secure Employee Monitoring Software?

If you‘ve been researching employee monitoring solutions like Teramind, ActivTrak or Hubstaff, you may be wondering: is InterGuard legit software that delivers on its promises? Or is InterGuard a scam with false claims about its capabilities?

As online privacy experts, we took an in-depth look at InterGuard‘s features, security, and value to help you decide if it‘s right for your business. In this InterGuard review, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about this employee monitoring system.

Our Verdict: InterGuard is legitimate employee monitoring software with powerful capabilities, but the complexity and high costs may not suit all small businesses compared to other solutions we‘ve tested.

How InterGuard Employee Monitoring Software Works

First, let‘s examine how InterGuard enables managers to track employees through endpoint monitoring agents.

InterGuard consists of a central web-based dashboard that administrators log into to access data and configure settings. Lightweight InterGuard agents get installed on each device an employee uses for work, such as their desktop PC, laptop, smartphone or tablet.

These agents run silently in the background, recording all activities on the device from web browsing to keyboard strokes. The agents continuously transmit logs of user activity back to InterGuard‘s servers.

The dashboard then processes and organizes the enormous volume of data into charts, graphs, and tables so managers can easily analyze employee behavior. For example, the User Productivity report shows each employee‘s daily activity summarized clearly:

• 8.5 hours: Active time
• 0.5 hours: Passive time
• 1 hour: Idle time

Want to know which employees spend the most time on Facebook every day? The dashboard can show that too. Alerts also trigger when risky actions occur like visiting gambling sites or emailing confidential documents externally.

So in a nutshell, InterGuard gives managers an eagle-eye view into how employees spend every minute on their work devices via sophisticated tracking technology and advanced analytics.

Key Features and Capabilities

InterGuard offers many compelling features that explain why over 5,000 organizations use it for employee monitoring. Let‘s explore some of its core capabilities:

Productivity Tracking

• Classifies all user activity as productive, neutral or unproductive
• Calculates time spent on tasks, meetings, documents
• Shows total daily hours worked plus breaks
• Integrates with Office 365 calendar for accurate time tracking

Web Monitoring

• Records all web browsing on any browser
• Blocks time-wasting or inappropriate sites
• FullAudit mode records page contents and searches

App Monitoring

• Monitors time in apps and processes on desktop and mobile
• Prevents blacklisted apps like games

Email Monitoring

• Tracks email metadata and scans content in real-time
• Alerts for policy violations, data theft, harassment

Social Media Monitoring

• Blocks non-work social media sites like Facebook by policy
• Prevents unauthorized usage during work hours

Keystroke Logging

• Records all keyboard input on desktop and mobile
• Detects unauthorized credential entry

Endpoint Lockdown

• Remotely freeze devices if lost or stolen
• Prevent data theft from missing devices

Automated Reporting

• Get reports on all monitoring data daily or weekly
• Customize reports with 70+ widgets

Alerting and Notifications

• Instant alerts for priority issues by email or SMS
• Configurable alert triggers personalized for your priorities

Remote Support Toolkit

• Monitor and control remote desktops
• Transfer files, run commands, reboot remotely

Let‘s explore some example features in more depth:

Productivity Tracking

InterGuard captures every app, website, file and device that employees interact with, then categorizes that activity as productive, neutral, or distracting.

The system assigns productivity scores based on actual usage, not just theoretical assumptions. If the accounting team uses Twitter mainly for customer service, InterGuard will learn that‘s productive for them but not for other teams.

This allows managers to accurately identify employees who aren‘t pulling their weight based on actual work habits. No more guessing if Bob really worked 8 hours today or just pretended to look busy!

Email Monitoring

InterGuard captures all metadata about sent and received emails including recipients, attachments, timestamps and subject lines. But it goes further by scanning the content of all emails in real-time.

If employees send confidential documents or emails with profanity, discrimination, or other policy violations, you can configure alerts to receive instant notification. This allows you to proactively mitigate issues before they become PR disasters or data breaches.

Social Media Blocking

Let‘s face it, employees can waste hours scrolling Instagram or chatting on Discord. With InterGuard, you can easily block access to non-work related sites across the network.

But intelligent policy settings also allow exceptions; for example, your social media marketing team needs access to build your brand on Twitter and Facebook. InterGuard gives you granular control based on user, group or department.

Remote Lockdown

The moment you realize a company laptop is lost or stolen, you can use InterGuard‘s dashboard to remotely freeze it instantly. This prevents anyone from accessing sensitive data on lost or compromised devices.

InterGuard also faciliates remote device management with a toolkit to transfer files, run command prompts, distribute software, control processes, and reboot remote computers.

User Experience and Ease of Use

With powerful functionality comes complexity. InterGuard gives managers unparalleled oversight of employee activities but the data can be overwhelming for novice users to interpret.

Expect to invest several weeks setting up InterGuard and learning how to customize widgets, alerts, policies and reports. Training employees and troubleshooting issues also adds to the workload.

InterGuard offers onboarding resources like setup guides, webinars, and unlimited live chat support to ease deployment. However, the software is better suited for large enterprises with dedicated IT staff to manage it.

The dashboard is dense with dozens of data visualizations and advanced options. Simpler software like Hubstaff and ActivTrak provide more user-friendly interfaces for quickly checking employee activity.

But InterGuard makes the investment worthwhile for tech-savvy businesses by delivering unrivaled monitoring power that cuts hours from manually tracking employees.

What Does InterGuard Actually Monitor?

By now it should be clear that InterGuard captures a vast amount of data about employee activity through its endpoint monitoring agents. But what specifically can InterGuard record?

Here are the major categories of user data InterGuard can track:

• App and Process Usage: Title, timestamp, duration
• Web Browsing History: Sites, searches, clicks, dwell time
• Web Page Contents: HTML, text, images
• Files: Name, content, attachments
• Keystrokes: All input on desktop and mobile
• Locations: IP addresses, geofencing
• Screens: Thumbnails and video
• Network Traffic: Apps, sites, recipients
• Calendar/Email Metadata: Contacts, timestamps, subjects
• Camera/Microphone: Photos, audio, video

And much more. InterGuard‘s agents combine keylogging, screen recording, network traffic analysis and other data collection methods to paint a complete picture.

The level of tracking falls into a gray legal area in some regions, so consult an attorney before recording audio, video or personal data. Employee notice and consent is vital.

Can Employees Detect InterGuard?

A key concern when monitoring staff is whether they can uncover and tamper with the software. InterGuard takes measures to stay invisible.

The monitoring agents are designed to avoid detection by blending into normal system processes. InterGuard does not show up in app lists, process managers, or file directories. It lacks any user interface on endpoints.

However, skilled technicians can still find evidence by digging into network traffic, registry keys, services, CPU usage and other forensic clues. Disabling InterGuard requires admin rights.

To lower chances of detection, InterGuard can be set to disable itself when certain apps open that could scan processes. But vigilant employees may still notice background activity indicating monitoring.

InterGuard Plans and Pricing

InterGuard offers several pricing tiers to accommodate businesses of varying sizes and needs:

Starter: $99 per month for up to 10 users

Professional: $249 per month for up to 50 users

Enterprise: Custom pricing for over 50 users

The cost is based on a per-user model, where each monitored device requires a licensed user. Enterprise pricing is customized based on your deployment size and any special requirements.

All plans provide full access to InterGuard‘s complete suite of monitoring capabilities. Certain add-ons incur extra fees, such as:

• 24/7 Live Phone Support: $500 per year
• Custom Alerting Rules: $300 per year
• API Integration Support: $400 per year
• Remote Installation Setup: $400 per 10 users

Considering the depth of data InterGuard provides, their pricing is fair and competitive. Small businesses under 10 employees can benefit from the low Starter cost. Volume discounts are available for multi-year contracts.

Competitor products like ActivTrak, Hubstaff and Teramind have similar per-user pricing starting around $7 per month. But they may lack some of InterGuard‘s more advanced options.

Is InterGuard Easy to Set Up?

InterGuard provides guided setup but still involves extensive configuration. Deploying it properly requires the following steps:

1. Purchase InterGuard plan and create admin accounts
2. Install agents on company desktops and mobiles
3. Configure monitoring policies and permissions
4. Customize dashboard with widgets and charts
5. Set productivity classifications for apps/sites
6. Establish rules and thresholds for alerts
7. Test monitoring accuracy and quality
8. Train staff on using dashboard reports

Expect at least 2-4 weeks to fully implement monitoring and work out issues. The bulk of time gets spent tailoring the dashboard, alerts, reporting and classifications for your business.

Dedicated setup guides and webinars walk you through key configurations. But the process still demands hands-on testing and adjustments. Without proper implementation, the sheer amount of data InterGuard captures risks becoming useless noise.

If lacking the expertise in-house, you can pay extra for InterGuard‘s professional setup assistance. But even with help, be prepared to actively manage the system long-term to optimize value.

What Customers Are Saying About InterGuard

InterGuard reviews average around 3.5 out of 5 stars on sites like Capterra, SoftwareAdvice and G2. Here‘s a sample of customer feedback:

"Does what it claims but expect to invest time learning all the features. Alerts help keep remote staff honest when working from home."

"Switched after frustrations with Teramind. InterGuard offers more control and customization options for serious monitoring."

"Takes a LOT of manual configuration but worth it ultimately. Their support reps guided us through the setup process nicely."

"Too expensive for what they deliver. Dashboard is confusing with zero training. Mobile app lacks features."

"Don‘t expect any hand holding during setup – you need technical experts to implement and interpret data."

The most common complaints relate to InterGuard‘s complexity and steep learning curve. But many reviewers agree the advanced employee insights justify the effort needed to master it.

InterGuard Alternatives for Businesses

InterGuard delivers advanced monitoring capabilities, but other solutions like ActivTrak, Teramind and Hubstaff provide more user-friendly options.

Here‘s how the top InterGuard alternatives compare:

Software	Starting Price	Ease of Use	Features
InterGuard	$99/month	Complex	Advanced tracking and analytics
ActivTrak	$7/month	User-friendly	Website monitoring, basic analytics
Teramind	$16/month	Moderate	Powerful capabilities for large companies
Hubstaff	$7/month	Simple	Time tracking, screenshots, basic reporting

ActivTrak offers straightforward employee monitoring focused mainly on productivity metrics and website blocking. It‘s easy for novices to get started quickly thanks to the intuitive dashboards. But advanced tracking capabilities are limited.

Teramind competes directly with InterGuard on features, offering extensive monitoring and analytics for large corporations. Unlike InterGuard, it records screens and provides optical character recognition (OCR) to scan screen text. However, Teramind carries enterprise-level pricing to match its capabilities.

Hubstaff takes a simpler approach centered around time tracking, screenshots and basic activity summaries. Managers get a straightforward view of productivity without complex data mining. However, Hubstaff lacks InterGuard‘s more sophisticated tracking around social media usage, keystrokes, email contents and application behavior analytics.

Ultimately the best fit depends on your budget, team size, and monitoring needs. InterGuard excels at providing IT managers and analysts with in-depth insights from employee behavior data. But if you just want straightforward visibility into employee productivity for a small team, ActivTrak and Hubstaff offer lighter-weight options.

Is Employee Monitoring Software Ethical?

While InterGuard delivers robust technical capabilities, managers must carefully consider the ethics of monitoring staff. Tracking employees without consent raises some core concerns:

• Privacy: Monitoring inherently violates personal privacy. Sensitive data like emails deserve protection.
• Trust: Extensive tracking shows a lack of trust in employees and can damage morale.
• Consent: Informed and explicit consent is crucial before enabling surveillance.
• Legality: Local laws may restrict what data can be collected without notice.
• Data Security: Capturing sensitive user information creates new cybersecurity risks if compromised.
• Proportionality: Monitoring should align rationally with defined business needs.

Moderation is key – only collect data strictly needed to protect company assets and ensure productivity. Be fully transparent regarding what policies exist and how data gets used.

Create culture built on trust with employees and only leverage monitoring to improve work efficacies, not punish people. With a clear rationale and consent, surveillance can exist alongside strong employee relations and engagement.

Our Final Verdict on InterGuard

InterGuard delivers unprecedented visibility into employee activities through sophisticated tracking agents, advanced analytics and intelligent alerting tools.

However, smaller businesses may struggle to justify the costs and complexity compared to lighter-weight software like ActivTrak or Sneek. But for large regulated enterprises who need maximum oversight, InterGuard is a top choice.

If you have the budget and technical expertise to implement InterGuard properly, the sheer depth of insights it delivers on employee behavior makes it a powerful asset for boosting productivity and security.

Just be sure to inform employees and follow local laws. Used responsibly, InterGuard takes workplace transparency to the next level.