Idle, pause, and offline — three different tray states

The Windows tray has three honest states that people mix up. Idle is no keyboard or mouse for the org idle-minutes setting on Settings · Idle, while the tray is still tracking. Pause is one click on the Windows tray — the person chose an intentional stop. Offline is a stale last-seen on Team (the agent is not heartbeating), not Pause and not a hidden watcher. The icon stays visible in all three. If the icon is gone, VisibleHours is not recording.

Public install steps live on /download. After sign-in, Ask “idle minutes” or “idle pause” opens Settings · Idle. Ask “reconnect agent”, “agent offline”, or “who is paused” opens Team. Ask “idle vs pause”, “idle pause tutorial”, or “how to set idle minutes” opens the Windows agent tutorial. Ask “please install the agent on every PC for me” is refused. Public Search stays on /download or this guide.

Set idle, leave pause on the tray

1. Sign in. Open Settings → Idle after (minutes). Default is a few minutes without keyboard or mouse. That field does not pause anyone.
2. When idle hits, the tray closes an Idle block and goes back to tracking on its own. You do not click Resume for idle.
3. Pause is a tray menu click. Resume while still idle stays idle — the threshold is still the truth.
4. A network blip keeps activity queued. The tray shows an honest error and retries. Last-seen on Team is Offline until a heartbeat lands. Online means a heartbeat in the last eight minutes — not a live map.

Rules do not reclassify idle as unproductive. Scores leave idle out of the percentage. The URL rules guide and scores workup stay on those pages.

What this is not

• Not a hidden tray. Pause and quit stay one click.
• Not a live location. Offline is last-seen, not GPS.
• Not a remote wake-up. Settings cannot push a reconnect.
• Not a Mac agent. Company Windows PCs only.