What is ScreenJournal?

Updated on 6 July 2026

ScreenJournal is a next generation alternative to time tracking and employee monitoring. Instead of counting hours or storing screenshots, it reads the real work happening on screen, builds a detailed timeline of each workday, and discards the footage. Timelines accumulate into a chronicle: a searchable history of the work itself, where an employee can find how they solved a problem last quarter and a colleague can learn how another team gets things done, just by asking. From the same record ScreenJournal prepares accurate timesheets and weekly reports automatically, and drafts standup summaries on request. It is built privacy-first. Personal activity is skipped in real time, PII is removed during processing, and employees can redact anything before a manager sees it.

Most work visibility tools fall into three camps: screenshot trackers that store periodic captures, surveillance suites that record everything for investigation, and activity analytics that score how busy the apps looked. ScreenJournal is a fourth kind. It reads the work itself, stores no footage, and keeps a searchable derived history, so a manager gets answers about real output rather than an archive to interpret. The honest comparison is on ScreenJournal vs the alternatives.

How does ScreenJournal work?

ScreenJournal works in three steps. It records screen activity as short-lived video while work happens. A frontier AI model analyses that video to understand the work and measure real output. The video is then deleted immediately during processing. What remains is derived insight: the timeline of each day, the chronicle those timelines build, and answers to questions about both.

The design is called derive-and-discard. The screen is read only long enough to derive understanding, then the footage is discarded. What is kept is the understanding: which task was worked on, in which app, for how long, and what came of it. That derived record is what powers everything else on this page.

What does a ScreenJournal timeline show?

Every person's day appears as a scored, per-session timeline. Each entry shows the app it happened in, a plain-English summary of what was done, how long it took and a productivity score, and it expands for more context. It is the record everything else is generated from: timesheets, reports and the chronicle, with standups drafted on request.

Sessions are scored, and each entry expands to show the context behind its summary and score. The work timelines page covers the anatomy in full, including how personal activity is hidden automatically and how redaction works.

Proof: the Activity page's scored, per-session timeline. Screenshot alt text: "ScreenJournal Activity page showing a scored per-session timeline with app badges, durations and plain-English summaries."

What is the work chronicle?

The chronicle is every timeline, kept and made searchable. It turns the company's work into organisational memory: an employee can search their own past, a colleague can learn how another team does a piece of work, and a manager can trace how something was actually done, by asking in plain English.

Access is permission-scoped by role, questions go through the ScreenJournal chat or the MCP, and entries an employee has redacted are erased entirely, so they never appear in anyone's search. The raw footage is gone either way; what is searchable is the understanding, not screenshots. The chronicle keeps the most recent 12 months of derived work history. More on the work chronicle page.

Proof: the AI assistant answering from past activity, permission-scoped by role. Screenshot alt text: "ScreenJournal chat answering a question about past work from the chronicle."

What does ScreenJournal generate?

ScreenJournal generates timesheets and reports from the timeline, and drafts standup summaries on request. One click prepares the day's billable lines with confidence flags on anything worth a glance; reports include a weekly digest that opens with the biggest change of the week; standups are drafted on request by the AI assistant.

Timesheets are prepared with one click. Each billable line carries a badge showing its source and a confidence flag on anything worth a glance, a "to verify" count collects the lines to check, and moving a line teaches ScreenJournal a mapping rule it remembers next time. Finished timesheets are sent for approval, with per-client rates in agency mode. The AI timesheets page shows the full flow.

Proof: the Prepare timesheet action, per-line source badges, the "to verify" count and the "remember this" mapping rule. Screenshot alt text: "ScreenJournal timesheet with per-line source badges and a to-verify count."

Reports start from a template gallery, can be saved and rerun, and include a weekly digest that opens with the biggest change of the week and who needs a check-in. For anything a saved report does not cover, the AI assistant answers from the same derived record, in the product or through the ScreenJournal MCP. Standups come from the same assistant: ask in the dashboard or over the MCP and yesterday's update is drafted from the timeline, ready to glance over, tweak and post.

Proof: the report template gallery, saved reports and the rendered Weekly Digest view. Screenshot alt text: "ScreenJournal report template gallery and rendered Weekly Digest."

How does ScreenJournal protect employee privacy?

In three layers. Capture is scoped to work apps and work-related activity; personal activity is skipped in real time. PII is removed during processing, before anything is stored. And employees can redact anything on their timeline before a manager sees it.

The defaults lean the same way: nudges are off by default, scores are contestable with a Change my score request, and employees see the same activity view managers do. Redaction erases an entry entirely rather than hiding it, with two limits: policy captures (genuine policy violations such as a data-handling breach) stay visible to compliance, and roles a company flags as a data-leak risk cannot redact.

Proof: the Redact control, the auto-hidden "Personal" entry type, nudges off by default in Automations, the "Change my score" request and the locked "Policy capture" state. Screenshot alt text: "ScreenJournal member timeline showing a redact control and an auto-hidden Personal entry."

Who is ScreenJournal for?

Any industry where work happens on a computer. It suits managers of remote, hybrid, offshore and BPO teams who need accurate timesheets and operational truth without micromanaging, and it suits employees who want their real output recognised and their work history searchable.

In practice the highest-intent segments are BPOs and call centres (proof of work and billing accuracy without a screenshot archive), offshore teams (verified hours and real output across the time-zone gap), agencies (client-billable timesheets from real work), and engineering teams (progress tied to what actually shipped, including visibility into AI-assisted coding sessions). One honest note: if a client or regulator contractually requires stored screenshot evidence, a screenshot tracker meets that requirement in a way ScreenJournal deliberately does not. For every other kind of proof, an interpreted timeline is the stronger record.

Frequently asked questions

Does ScreenJournal store screenshots or video?

No. It takes no screenshots; the transient capture is video, and that video is deleted immediately during processing. PII is removed from what is kept, and employees can additionally redact parts of their timeline before a manager sees it.

Does ScreenJournal log keystrokes?

No. It reads work output, not keystrokes.

Is ScreenJournal a time tracker?

No, though it replaces one. Time trackers count hours and approximate effort from input activity. ScreenJournal reads what was produced inside the hours and prepares the timesheet from that record, so hours are accounted for without running a timer.

Can employees see what managers see?

Yes. Employees see the same activity view managers do, with additional control over their own data: personal entries are hidden automatically, anything can be redacted before a manager sees it, and any score can be contested.

Is ScreenJournal employee monitoring software?

No. It is built as a next generation alternative to it. Monitoring software stores screenshots or video for a manager to review; ScreenJournal reads the work, keeps the derived insight and deletes the raw screen data, so it does the jobs monitoring is bought for, proof of work and accurate hours, without the footage.