Responding to our request for products that, at minimum, monitor HTTP and e-mail, Trisys sent us its Insight system. Using a client/server approach -- unique among the products submitted for review -- Insight monitors PC productivity in applications and processes rather than in network activity.

Installed locally on a PC, Insight monitors any software with a user interface, keeps tabs on Web site hits by URL and lists them as processes for monitoring and tracking purposes. Once an initialization file is modified to collect all system processes, FTP and telnet use are also picked up. In addition, Insight tracks keyboard and mouse clicks applied to each process along with the time and bandwidth consumed. This information, however, comes at a price.

Insight's client processes installed on our test PCs from a server-side, shared directory in an unattended, silent mode. The setup program can also be executed from a login script. Insight runs as a process under Microsoft Windows 9x, Windows NT or Windows 2000 and consumes more than 600 KB of RAM. The ISGTCLNT.exe file uses two DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) to monitor and report PC productivity over TCP/IP to an Insight server, which is set up to collect and report on PCs running the client software. While we did not see any performance degradation while running Insight's supported browser (Iexplore.exe) and Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, keystrokes displayed to screen began to lag behind my fingers when word processing and database duties arose. Trisys recommends at least 64 MB of RAM for client PCs.

The Insight server installs to both Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000 with Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 4.0 or higher. Trisys recommends a 300-MHz Pentium II or faster PC with 64 MB of RAM and 70 MB of disk space. Disk space is devoured at a rate of 2 KB to 10 KB per client per day. SQL Server 7 is required but, without it, Insight installs the Microsoft Database Environment with an option to secure the SA (Security Association) account. Installation can also be directed to a remote SQL server.

Server-side reporting requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher. After logging in as an administrator from the Web browser, we could review summaries or detailed reports on processes and drill down to in-depth reports of user activity. By default, most processes are collected and reported for each PC. We adjusted the IsgtV2cli.ini file on client PCs to collect system processes as well. Reports can be customized to exclude certain processes, and others can be labeled as nonbusiness activities for heightened scrutiny.

Bandwidth use is reported by process and by user with summary totals. Processes listed as Web sites act as hot links for further review. Although Insight does not monitor e-mail messages, it will report e-mail usage as a process. Users can be configured into groups for reporting purposes, and data can be archived and unarchived from the Web browser.

Although Insight does not provide the full feature set found in the other products we tested (see "Content-Monitor Features"), it gathers basic information on PCs and aggregates it to an easy-to-use, Web-based management and reporting tool, shedding light on how computer and network resources are used -- or abused.

Vendor Information:

Insight (client/server setup includes Insight Server 1.02 and Insight Client 1.0.1.1; ASP edition also available), starts at $1,000 for 10 users (volume discounts available). Trisys, (973) 360-2300; fax (973) 360-2222. www.trisys.com