Getting started with Device Usage policies

Device Usage policies control the collection of device usage information from your Windows, Mac and Chromebook devices. Device usage is based on the following activity:

  • Login and Unlock:
    • A user logged in to the device, either directly or remotely, by entering their username and password on the login screen
    • A user unlocked the device, either directly or remotely, by dismissing the Lock screen (if applicable) and entering their password on the login screen
  • Device Activity: usage of the device presented in days, hours, and minutes of activity.

    • A Windows or Mac device is deemed to be in use if it unlocked. Activity ceases when the screensaver shows, or the device is locked or shut down. A Chromebook device is deemed to be in use if the display is active (not dimmed). Activity ceases when the display is dimmed, or the device is sleeping, locked, or shut down.

Activate the Device Usage policy if you want to view a report of the devices that were in use during a given time period. For example, a school district may want to see how many of the Chromebooks issued to a particular school were used in the past six months. They can also compare device usage across multiple schools in their district.

You can activate Device Usage policies on devices running a supported version of the Windows, macOS, or Chrome OS operating system. To see device usage information in the console, each device's Absolute agent must be regularly connecting to the Absolute Monitoring Center.

The Device Usage Reporting (DUR) component of the Absolute agent is responsible for collecting user events on your devices.

When you activate a Device Usage policy, the DUR component A lightweight software component of the Absolute agent that detects the usage of a device by capturing Login and Unlock events performed on the device by a user. It also captures minutes of activity. The DUR component is deployed on a device only when the device is associated with a policy group in which the Device Usage policy is activated. is activated on each device after the next successful agent connection to the Absolute Monitoring Center. Going forward, the component logs a device usage event each time a user logs in to or unlocks the device. It also detects the number of minutes per hour the device is actively in use.

By default, device usage information is encrypted and uploaded to the database once a day (00:00) using a secure connection.

The DUR component also collects the following device information associated with each Login and Unlock event:

  • Event Type and Event Time
  • IP addresses
  • SSID and BSSID
  • Default Gateway
  • Domain
  • Active Directory organizational unit

NOTE  Some device information is not available for Chromebook devices.

By default, the Global Policy Group includes a preconfigured Device Usage policy, which is set to Inactive. Although you can activate the policy in the Global Policy Group, best practice is to create custom policy groups and activate each policy group's Device Usage policy, as required.

After you activate a Device Usage policy, the agent begins to collect device usage information from the devices associated with the applicable policy group. You can view the collected information by creating a Device Analytics report using the report type, Device Usage. You can also view detailed usage event information on a device's Usage Event Details page. To see device usage information at a glance, view the Device Usage widget on the Home dashboard.

IMPORTANT   Data is only available for device activity that occurred after the activation date of the Device Usage policy. Also, you need to wait at least a few days after activating the policy before you can see any device usage information in the Absolute console. Device usage data is retained in the system for one year.