🆕 Understanding Employee Utilization Rate, Single Sign-On (SSO), and More! (v11.0.0)

CurrentWare version 11.0.0 is here! CurrentWare 11.0.0 introduces powerful new enhancements designed to provide more insights into employee work trends, improve security, user management, and system performance. In this update, we’re rolling out Single Sign-On (SSO) integration, reporting trend improvements, a secondary client database, new application productivity grading, and much more.

As a CurrentWare customer, these quarterly product updates are included at no additional cost as a part of your subscription.

Need help upgrading? Our team is here to assist you every step of the way. We offer comprehensive documentation, training resources, and personalized support to ensure a smooth transition.

Should you have any questions or need further assistance, please reach out to our support team.

FUTURE FEATURE PREVIEW
A New Way to Track Employee Working Locations

Note: This feature is not part of the v11.0.0 release. It is in active development for inclusion in a future release. Sign up for our mailing list or contact your CurrentWare account manager to be one of the first to be notified when it’s available.

This in-development addition to BrowseReporter’s Locations Dashboard will go beyond tracking time spent working in-office vs remotely with insights into the region, city, and country your employees work from.

Why track employee working locations?

• Productivity and Efficiency
  By knowing where employees work, managers can optimize task assignments and resource allocation, ensuring that the right people are in the right places at the right times
  
• Compliance and Security
  Some industries have strict compliance regulations that require accurate records of where employees are working, especially when handling sensitive data. Tracking working locations ensures adherence to these standards and helps detect unauthorized access attempts from unapproved locations.
  
• Working Location Management
  In hybrid work environments, tracking helps employers verify that employees work from approved locations, ensuring compliance with tax regulations, flexible work agreements, and return-to-office mandates.
  
• Payroll and Taxes
  For organizations with employees across different regions or countries, tracking locations can help ensure compliance with local tax laws, wage regulations, and remote work policies.
  
• Cost Optimization
  Understanding where employees work can help optimize costs, such as office space or local business expenses, by tailoring resources to where they are most needed.

What’s New in CurrentWare Version 11.0.0?

 AccessPatrol Updates

• ⌨ Increase the Request Access feature duration to a maximum of 60 hours
  Users and admins can have greater flexibility in adhering to company access policies, and improving the administrative workload for allowing devices temporarily.

BrowseReporter Updates

• Track your end users Utilization Rate to help spot trends and maximize productivity
  Easily track the time spent on all work tasks based on the total expected working hours to have a better understand of under or over working employees.
  
• Auto categorize commonly used applications within the productivity grading
  Out of the box, CurrentWare will now automatically grade more commonly used apps as productive, neutral or unproductive based on their popularity and functions.

General Product Updates

• Single Sign-On (SSO)
  Prevent non-admin operators from viewing or editing other operators’ policies or settings, such as email report schedules
  
• Import and Sync Operator Groups
  Import and sync AD security groups to easily manage users and policies based on your existing AD infrastructure
  
• Improvements to Terminal Server Stability and Tracking
  Save time manually organizing your users; import a preformatted text file to set up your policy groups in just a few clicks
  
• Quality-of-Life Updates, Performance Improvements & Bug Fixes
  Each release includes optimizations and bug fixes; keep your deployment updated for the best performance

Learn more about updates to CurrentWare in our release notes.

 AccessPatrol Data Loss Prevention Updates

Access Request Max Duration Changes

Previously with v10.0.2 or older the maximum time duration you could allow with the Access Code Generator was 16 hours. This change will allow greater flexibility by allowing the duration to be a minimum of 5 minutes all the way up to 60 hours.

Learn More: Temporarily Allow Devices

  BrowseReporter Updates

The v11.0.0 release introduces several enhancements to CurrentWare’s reporting features! These additions make it easier to view employee utilization data, and more robust out of the box configuration for commonly used application productivity scores.

Employee Utilization Rate

The Utilization Rate is a key performance metric that helps organizations measure how effectively their employees are spending their time on productive work activities. By comparing the time spent on productive tasks to the total expected work hours, businesses can gain valuable insights into workforce efficiency and identify areas for improvement.

This data-driven approach ensures that teams are operating at their full potential while highlighting opportunities to better allocate resources and improve operational performance.

Tracking utilization rates not only provides a clearer picture of employee productivity but also empowers managers to make informed decisions about workload distribution and resource planning.

With this information, businesses can uncover inefficiencies, address underutilization, and implement strategies to boost overall output. Leveraging utilization rate tracking is a vital step toward fostering a more efficient, balanced, and results-driven workforce.

Learn More: Utilization Rate

Auto Categorize Commonly Used Applications

Out of the box, you’ll get instant productivity grading for commonly used apps, making it easier to optimize workforce efficiency and fine-tune software usage policies. Say goodbye to manual app classification with over 700 commonly used apps added to the internal database!

Learn More: Productivity Grading

General Product Updates

Single Sign-On (SSO)

The new Single Sign-On (SSO) feature in CurrentWare simplifies both security and convenience by integrating with your organization’s identity provider (e.g., Microsoft Azure, Okta). With SSO, users can log into the web console using their existing credentials, eliminating the need for multiple passwords. This streamlined authentication process reduces password fatigue and simplifies access for authorized team members.

Beyond convenience, SSO provides a significant security advantage. By centralizing authentication through your identity provider, IT administrators can enforce stronger security policies such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), conditional access, and password rotation—all from a single location.

Additionally, SSO ensures that when a user leaves the company, their access can be revoked immediately by removing them from the appropriate security group. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access and enhances your organization’s overall security posture.

Simplify user management, improve access control, and safeguard sensitive data with SSO in CurrentWare!

Learn More: Operator Single Sign-On

About Single Sign-On (SSO)

Our SSO feature supports integration with a wide range of identity providers, enabling seamless and secure authentication for your team.

Note: This functionality is available with select CurrentWare plans and simplifies user management while enhancing security.
Want to unlock SSO for your organization? Contact our sales team or your customer experience manager today to learn more about this feature and how it can benefit your business!

Example Use Cases for Single Sign-On (SSO) in CurrentWare

1. Streamlined Access to the Web Console
   IT teams can simplify access to the CurrentWare web console by enabling Single Sign-On (SSO). Users log in with their existing credentials from identity providers like Microsoft Azure AD or Okta, eliminating the need for separate login details and reducing password fatigue.
   
2. Effortless Role and Permission Management
   By integrating SSO with Windows Security Groups, admins can easily manage roles and permissions in the CurrentWare console.
   
3. Improved Security and Compliance
   By centralizing authentication through SSO, businesses can enforce advanced security measures such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and conditional access policies across CurrentWare. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access to the console and ensures compliance with internal security policies and regulatory requirements.
   
4. Efficient Access for Large IT Teams
   In enterprise environments where multiple IT professionals manage the CurrentWare console, SSO ensures a secure and seamless login process. Teams no longer need to manually track individual credentials, reducing the risk of shared or weak passwords.
   
5. Reduced Administrative Overhead
   SSO integration reduces the time and effort required to manage user access to the CurrentWare console. IT admins can focus on monitoring and managing endpoint activity instead of handling login issues or resetting passwords.
   

Learn More: How to Assign Operator Permissions

Import operator accounts for SSO using AD Security Groups

With the previously mentioned SSO feature, there is an additional feature available to automatically import your CurrentWare operators within a specified Entra Active Directory Security Group.

Notes: 

• This is a one time import feature. To add more users you will need to periodically import new operators.
• This requires an Entra ID Active Directory to import.

Learn More:

• Import Active Directory Users Into the CurrentWare Console
• Integrating Active Directory Sync with CurrentWare

Quality-of-Life Updates, Performance Improvements & Bug Fixes

The CurrentWare team is committed to providing a high-quality and secure product. With each CurrentWare release, we include quality-of-life updates such as performance improvements, bug fixes, and minor features that make the CurrentWare Suite even easier to use. 

As always, we recommend keeping your CurrentWare deployment up-to-date to take advantage of the latest functionality, stability, and security developments. 

Conclusion

CurrentWare version 11.0.0 is available now. To get access to the latest features, you will need to update your CurrentWare deployment. If you’re new to CurrentWare, you can get started today with a free 14-day trial of the latest version.

Learn more about updates to CurrentWare in the release notes.

See More CurrentWare Product Updates:

• Improved Reporting, AD Security Groups, Category Descriptions, and More! (v10.0.2)
• UI/UX Updates, Performance Enhancements, QoL Improvements (v10)
• Live Screen Monitoring, Audit Logins, DLP Upgrades, and More! (v9.0.2)
• USB Access Codes, Security Enhancements, and More! (v9.0.1)
• Full Historical Release Notes