Internet Messengers monitoring
What it is:
IM stands for Instant Messenger. It is a type of software for exchanging instant messages. The most popular programs are ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, mIRC. This type of software is getting more and more popular because people can use it to communicate in real time as if by phone. According to specialists, e-mail will soon be replaced with IM systems.
What it is for:
It is no secret that chats take a lot of time. According to many researchers, IM is the main office time killer. Of course, it is a working tool for some employees. For example, most technical support issues are dealt with the help of ICQ and MSN in our company. That is why it is no good to completely block IM in the corporate firewall and it can irritate some key employees.
Monitoring ICQ in a random way or searching user chats for suspicious keywords seems more reasonable. IM logs can be used to prove employees' illegal actions (it is already used as evidence in court in the USA).
How it is implemented in StaffCop:
StaffCop can collect statistics about IM systems. The current version supports ICQ and MSN.
The collected statistics include overall time spent in the instant messenger, message type (system and direction), the number of sent messages and the full chat text.
The administrative module allows you to view the latest several dozens of sent and received messages in real time. To do it, open the agent and select the "Internet Messengers" tab. You will see the latest messages sorted chronologically. Press F5 to refresh the information on the screen. You can use the context menu to save a message to a file or copy it to the Windows clipboard.
Reports contain summary information about users the user chatted with and the number of sent and received messages. It is also possible to view the full chat text.
Supported IMs (since version 2.4.2):
- ICQ (including QIP, Miranda, ICQ Lite, Trillian and others shells)
- MSN Messenger
- Windows Messenger
- Live Messenger
- Yahoo Messenger
- AOL Instant Messenger
It should be notes that we are talking about not particular programs, but protocols. That is, ICQ means quite a wide range of programs (inclusing Miranda, QIP, Trillian and so on).
See also:
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