Actionstep's Trace is an AI-driven time-capture module designed to help your firm capture more billable activity with less effort. It uses passive activity capture and artificial intelligence to track time spent across applications— like Outlook, Word, and PDFs—automatically generating bill-ready time entries with AI-drafted narratives. (Tracking work you perform on websites will be in a future release.)

Time trackers available natively in Actionstep only capture activity done within Actionstep. Trace, however, captures activity performed outside of Actionstep—including work in Outlook, Word, PDFs, and other applications where fee earners spend most of their time. Trace also adds AI-powered matter mapping, billing code assignment, and narrative generation.

Note: An admin user must enable Trace for your system by going to Admin > General settings and toggling the following feature flags to on:
• Trace
• Trace Timesheet
• Trace Suggestion

How Trace Works

Trace is a program that runs in the background of your system and tracks what you’re working on outside of Actionstep. It monitors the active non-Actionstep window on your screen and records activity when you switch between applications, like starting and stopping a timer automatically. It then adds these activities to your Timesheet in Actionstep where you can convert them into time entries and potentially billable events. 

Trace captures and narrates activity you perform in the following applications:

• Desktop Microsoft Office apps (Word, Outlook, Calendar, PowerPoint, Excel) (Web-based Microsoft apps will be supported in later versions.)
• PDF readers such as Adobe
• Support for additional tools (including websites) is planned for future releases

More specifically, when you work in an email or document, Trace captures details such as the app name, file name, subject line, and relevant content. It uses this information to identify the type of work you’re doing and automatically create a time entry. A small icon in your system tray shows whether Trace is tracking (green) or paused (red).

Trace captures time down to the second—upon adding to your Actionstep timesheet, the system will apply the configured rate settings (e.g., 1-minute, 6-minute, or 10-minute units). 

Maintaining the Correct Time

Trace is designed to err on the side of capturing more time rather than less. It's granular, meaning if you open any email in Outlook, it captures that activity. This approach ensures fee earners have more billable time to review and clean up, rather than missing time.

Trace tracks activity until you change windows. If you leave a Word document open for an extended period, that time will appear on your Timesheet. You can then edit the time entry and delete it or adjust it.

The timer used by Trace runs locally in your browser. If you close the browser and reopen it, the timer resets automatically. This helps avoid long or inaccurate time entries if a timer is left running by mistake. Passive capture continues in the background.

Trace tracks whatever window is currently active on your screen and each activity is captured sequentially based on which window has focus. For example, when you switch from Word to Outlook, Trace automatically stops the timer for your work in Word and starts timing your work in Outlook. If you're working on a court document, then take a phone call, then send an email, each Microsoft-based activity gets its own separate time entry.

Finally, Trace applies a 15-second time threshold for both emails and documents to filter out accidental clicks.

Additional Things to Note About Trace

• Currently, Trace is only supported for use on Windows systems.
• Currently, Trace captures activity from desktop MS Office applications only—not Office 365 web apps or mobile devices. Web-based app support will be coming in later releases.
• Your Actionstep system does not need to be open for Trace to track your time outside of Actionstep. As long as the Trace Desktop app is actively running (when viewing it in the system tray, it shows the green status icon), Trace will monitor your activity.
• If you experience issues using the Trace desktop app, you can access the app in your System Tray, right-click on the icon, choose Quit, and then relaunch and restart the app. (See Launching, Starting, and Stopping the Trace Desktop Application for full instructions.)
• Trace does not integrate with iManage or NetDocuments. However, if you open documents from iManage or NetDocs in desktop Word or Adobe, Trace will capture that activity regardless of where the file originated.
• Currently, Trace does not track phone, Teams, or Zoom calls.
• Currently, Trace does not fully capture browser-based legal research (on sites like Westlaw or LexisNexis).

Updated July 10, 2026 14:44