Update to Leave Request Functionality

On a previous post, we had talked about the Leave Request functionality, where field employees can apply for Sick and Vacation Leaves so that an Administrator can Approve or Reject this request.

We have added new functionality to this same module that will assist Managers adding vacation and sick time for employees that don't have the device in hand or don't have any device at all but are in the system and need to request for a leave.

To add a Leave Request from the Web Portal, go to the Administration tab and select "Manage Leave Applications":

Then, click on the "Add New" button:

Enter the appropriate User name, Leave Type, Start and End times and a Comment. Once you are happy with the entry, click on "Save":

This will add the Leave Request in the system and it will be shown on a number of reports, such as the "Sage Timberline Import Report". Note that you will be able to filter the dates even in advance, if the request was done for a future date:

In addition to that, but the Timesheet Signoff screen will also provide the details to the employee of the approved requests and the dates they correspond to.

We hope you like this feature, leave us a comment or question in case you would like to contact us.

--Econz Team

Advanced understanding of the Clock In/Out Exception Report Features

On this post we are going to cover the topic of Clock In/Out Exception Rules. These are rules that can be setup to keep track of employees that haven't clocked in or out within a specific time frame. 

Whenever an employee triggers one of these rules depending on the conditions that you have setup, an entry will be created on the "Clock In/Out Exception Report".

To set this up, you need to go to the Administration tab and select "Rules, Action and Fences":

Next, select the option called "Customer Service":

Once inside, click on "Add New Customer Service":

You will notice that this is very similar to creating a Smart Fence, so go ahead and enter a meaningful name for the rule, we recommend to use the same name on the subsequent steps as to make it easier to manage. Choose which users the rule will be applied to and then click on "Create New":

On the next step you will be able to select the rule, be it "Clocked IN or OUT Outside Allocated Time Window". You will also be asked to set a time frame, make sure to select the appropriate week days and times:

Notice the option called "Trigger Immediately". If this option is disabled, the Clock In/Out Exception Report will not show the missed event until 48 hours have passed (just in case the event is queued on the phone - this is to prevent false positive detections). So, if the employee doesn't do anything within this time frame, an entry will be created according to the rules.

As an example, if an employee forgot to clock in on December 1st, then, if the employee hasn't clocked in by December 3rd an entry will be shown of this punch having been missed on the 1st. But, if the employee missed the punch on the 1st but clocked in until the 2nd, then an entry will be shown, specifying that the employee missed the punch on December 1st.

On the other hand, by turning on the "triggered immediately" tick box option, an entry will be shown once the server has detected that the user hasn't clocked in or out at the specified time when the time frame begins.

Here is a sample of what the report would look like on different scenarios, the entries that have "Delayed Check" are created with "Triggered Immediately" disabled, and the the ones with "Immediate Check", have it enabled:

Let us know if you have any questions or contact our Support Team who will be more than glad to assist you with anything you need.

--Econz Team

New Report: Timesheet Event Report

We have created a new Report with all the companies that use the Timesheet Signoff functionality in mind. It's called "Timesheet Event Report".

Whatever event related to timesheets being approved, rejected, edited or updated will be shown in this report, along with the date, time and person that caused the event.

Here is a sample of the data that this report would generate:

The Timesheet ID on the left corresponds to the same Timesheet ID that a Payroll Administrator, Operations Manager or an Office Administrator would see on their Timesheet Approval screens.

To learn more about Timesheet Signoff you can visit the following links:

• Timesheet Signoff
• Learning about User Types
• Setting up Office Administrators
• Approve Unsubmitted Timesheets

Until next time!

--Econz Team

New Feature: GPS App Locked

Hello everyone, today we have a brand new feature that we have added to our system with companies that rely on GPS in mind. Timecard GPS will now give you the ability to disable the mobile application whenever the GPS settings have been turned off.

It's pretty easy to setup, just go to the Administration tab and select Preferences. Once inside this section, scroll to the bottom and you will find the option called "Disable GPS Unit on Phone":

Then, if the employees have the GPS disabled...

Whenever they attempt to clock in, change a task, start or end a break, the application will notify them that the GPS services have been turned off:

Once the GPS is enabled, the application will continue with the expected functionality.

We hope you can utilize this functionality to enforce correct GPS usage on your staff and help you get the best possible GPS tracking.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments.

--Econz Team

GPS Auto Change Tasks

Hello everyone!

On this post we have a really useful feature for those companies that want to make use of the application's GPS capabilities to make life easier for their employees. We will show you how to set up tasks so they can be changed automatically using the employees' location.

The first step is to make sure that you have tasks with addresses. If the project doesn't have a specific address, make sure that you use the coordinates instead:

Also, notice with the SmartFence section is set to Default, this is very important since we will setup the Default SmartFence to trigger the automatic changing of tasks. This is done as follows:

In the Administration tab, select "Rules, Action and Fences" and select the "Manage SmartFences"option. For this, you will only work with the Default rule. We are going to create two rules and apply both to the Default one.

The first rule is going to be used to start each task when an employee is entering an area. On the first screen, set the radius to your desired size and click on the "Create New" button, then you are taken to the Rules section. Here, select "Entering Area" and name the rule using the terminology that suits your company the best:

Then, click on "Create New Action". This next step is where you will set the Automatic Field Device Event, so select "Change Task". In this case, since we want to be able to change to any task using the location, make sure to leave "Set Task Info" unchecked.

Then you can save it and go back to the previous screen, where you can click again on "Save" to go where you entered the radius.

Next, click on "Create New", we are going to add the rule to switch to Travel when the employees leave the area. You will notice that the process is almost the same. Create a "Leaving Area" rule and name it Travel or whatever works for you:

Then, click on "Create New Action", this time we will use the same Change Task event but we will check "Set Task Info". This will enable us to select the specific Task that will be selected when the employee leaves the area:

You will get a drop down menu with all the tasks for all the teams, so make sure you select the appropriate one. Save it and go back until you are at the first screen (where you set the radius) and click on "Save". With this, the rules are ready to be used.

At the beginning of the day, employees will need co clock in to activate the GPS tracking. Here is an example of what it looks like on their History:

And this is how the tasks are shown in the Timecard Task Detail Report:

We hope you can make the best out of this feature, let us know if you have any questions or comments.

--Econz Team

Approve Unsubmitted Timesheets

Our Timesheet Signoff feature has been updated with new functionality that will allow you to approve timesheets even if the employee hasn't signed them.

This feature will only be available for Payroll Admins, and it's recommended to be used on cases where the employee is out on vacation and can't sign his/her timesheets or that the phone has been lost or damaged.

In order to do this, make sure you are logged into the web portal as a Payroll Administrator and go to the Approve Timesheet section on the Administrator tab. You will be able to easily find any Unsubmitted timesheets since they are colored in blue. Of course, you can always use the Status filter to focus only on them:

Find the timesheet you are looking for and click on "Not Available" on the ID column. You should see the following screen:

Notice how the Approve radial buttons are disabled, but you can see the total times for the hours the employees have clocked. Click on the "Submit for Employee" button to proceed.

Once you do that, then you will see the familiar Timesheet Approval view, where you can approve and edit timesheets as you would normally do:

Once you are ready, approve the timesheets by clicking on the "Save" button. After this, the timesheet will have been properly approved:

Finally, something very important to mention is that the Timesheet Event Report will generate an entry indicating that the timesheet was approved without the user's input, in order for Management to keep that as a backup and for future reference:

We are always trying to make your life easier and we can do this with your valuable feedback, so make sure to leave us any questions in the comments section.

--Econz Team

Enhancements to Edit User Events Screen

We have added a simple but very useful enhancement to the Edit User Events section, as always trying to make your life easier.

You may recall that on this specific section you used to be able to edit one day at a time, but now you can use the date filters to edit a whole period, if you need to.

Make sure to use either the Team or User filters when you use this functionality, you will get a message reminding you about this in case you don't:

So, once you have your teams or users selected, along with the time frame you would like to see, click on the Filter button and now you can get to work!

We hope you like this improvement, make sure to leave us any thoughts in the comments section below!

--Econz Team

Resetting the Unique Identifier

Hi everyone,

The following feature needs a disclaimer before we start explaining it. We are about to cover how to reset the Unique Identifier for a specific user, but please note that this should only be enabled if you are experiencing issues with employees using the same DeviceID on multiple devices at the same time (this in general is not a good idea if you want to record sensible time punches for your employees!)

Enabling this feature will force only one profile to be active at any time.  If other devices are subsequently setup with the same profile (DeviceID), the server will prevent those specific devices from connecting, i.e. they will not be able to send any punches to the system and will receive a message notifying the user of this fact.

To set this up, go to the Administration tab and select Preferences. Once in there, enable the following option ("Enable Message Unique Field Identifier"):

By doing that, you will enable a message identification using a Unique Field Identifier on each message. The device that is currently synchronized with its own identifier will be the one considered as "Active" and any other messages received from the same device ID but with a different identifier (as would happen when setting up the app on other devices) will be discarded.

There will come the time when you need to setup the app on a new device (e.g. if the old phone is damaged and the user needs to upgrade to a new phone), so here is where resetting the unique identifier comes into play. By doing this, you will leave the identifier open so that the next device that you setup can get its own ID and start sending and receiving data to the server.

This is done on each individual's profile, so go to the Field Workers tab and find the user you need to reset the ID for:

Click on the ID and you will enter the employee's profile, next, click on the "Advanced" button:

On the next screen you will see the Unique Field Identifier that is currently assigned and if available, the last date when a duplicate device was detected. Click on the "Reset" button and that should open up the profile for a new device to be setup.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments!

--Econz Team

Enhancements done to Reports (08/24/2018 Update)

As everyone knows, Reports are among the most important tools when it comes to doing Payroll and monitoring your employees. We are constantly improving these tools so they are more effective for your organization.

Here we have an update that was done to the Timecard Task Focused Detail Report. This report now has the ability to do a search for tasks and subtasks. In the past, only tasks were available with a dropdown menu, but now you will be able to do a deeper and more accurate inquiry by using the search field:

If you search for a task, all the possible results will be shown, so you only need to select the one that applies:

If you search for a subtask, you will be shown all the instances of the subtask, preceded by the task they belong to:

Once you find the task you are looking for, clock on "Generate Report" and you will be able to focus only on that project or task:

We hope you can make the best use out of this enhancement, let us know if you have any questions in the comments.

--Econz Team

Feature Enhancement: Clock-in Lock Within Time Frame

Hello everyone!

Here we have an interesting tip in case you need to make sure that your employees clock in inside an area only within a specific time frame.

The main requirement for this is to have loaded your tasks with an address, so that when you go to the "Maintain Task/Customer List" section, you can also see the coordinates:

You can either click on the "Create Custom SmartFence" to create a rule just for that task, or use the "SmartFence" dropdown menu and select "Default". This will allow you to enter a rule that will apply to all tasks that have been set with the default smart fence, so you don't need to create one rule for each task, unless you specifically need to.

Either way you choose, the process of creating this rule is the same, and we'll describe it next:

1a. If you selected "Default", then go to the "Rules, Action and Fences" section in the Administration tab and click on "Manage SmartFences". The Default rule will be the first one. Click the "Edit" button.

1b. If you selected "Create Custom SmartFence", you will be taken to the next screen automatically without the need to follow the path on step 1a.

2. After following the previous steps, you will be at this screen:

Here is where you need to setup the radius and assign teams or users if needed. If the rule applies to everyone, just leave "All Users" selected. Then, click on "Create New".

3. On the next screen, you will select the dates and times the rule will be applied to. Make sure to select the "Within Timeframe" option, where you can specify the dates and times for the rule. Make sure to click on "Lock Phone" on the top right to prevent employees from selecting the task.

Once you do this, click on Save and the rule is ready to be used. You can also add any notifications (text message, sound, email) like you would do on a regular smart fence, but that step is optional.

One important thing to keep in mind is that the app will allow employees to select that task only during the time frame you selected, so when employees attempt to select that task outside of the time, they will get the following message:

If they are within the time frame but outside of the area, the app will notify them of this fact. Finally, if they are within the time frame and inside the correct area, the task selection will be successful.

Let us know your questions and thoughts in the comments section, we hope you can use this exciting feature to your advantage!

--Econz Team

Timecard GPS: California Meal and Rest Report

Hi everyone,

We are very excited to announce our new California Meal and Rest Report!

This one goes together with the Premium Pay functionality that we have covered before, but there are a couple wonderful new things we have added to this specific report.

The first one is the ability to view all of the employee's answers at clock out in the same place, along with their signatures and the times they took any break or lunch:

 

This is very helpful to compare their answers and match them with their actual punches, and have backup for future reference.

The second new feature is a very exciting one: export this report as a PDF!

You will notice the button on the right, make sure to select the desired team, user and date filters and click on the "Generate PDF Report" button:

This will prompt you to save a PDF file in your computer including all of the desired results. The PDF is formatted in a way that each page contains the data generated by a user on a specific day and the picture of the signature for easy viewing:

We have more interesting features related to Premium Pay coming up on the next blog, so stay tuned!

--Econz Team

Feature Enhancement: Seeing Forms when Changing Tasks

On a previous post, we had covered the topic of Forms, how to create and maintain them, and also how to use them in the mobile application.

A new enhancement has been put in place, where not only you can control if the Form pops up the moment you clock in, clock out, or make it accessible anytime during the day, but you can also set it to pop up every time you change the task.

To enable this, make sure to move the "Change Task" option to the right on the Triggers filter, when you are inside the main screen on the form that you are editing.

Click the "Save" button at the bottom of the screen and you should be set!

We are always thinking of ways to improve your experience, so please don't hesitate to leave us a comment if you have any suggestions.

--Econz Team

Timecard GPS New Feature: Enhanced Forms View

We have implemented a new feature that will enable you to enhance the way you currently view Forms and Custom Fields.

At the moment, the default option is the Classic view, which is good if you prefer a more compact screen, here is what it looks like:

To change this, tap on the Gear icon, and select Settings, once in the screen with four yellow icons, tap on the Menu again and select "Extras".

You will see the following screen:

Notice the "Enhanced Forms View", make sure to set it to "ON" and tap "SAVE" at the bottom.

Next time you want to access your Custom Fields or Forms, they will look like this:

They will have an attractive layout that will also give you a hint as to what type of data it can capture.

We hope you like this new feature, designed to give you more control of what the application can look like, let us know if you have any questions or comments!

--Econz Team

Individual or Team Business Hours

We have implemented an enhancement to our Business Hours rules that will enable you to assign unique rules to specific employees or teams. They way it used to be was to assign Business Hours to the whole company, but now you can easily do it for individuals.

Start by going to the Administration tab and selecting "Manage Business Hours":

Then, on the next screen, you will find all the rules that you have created, if you wish to apply a rule for the whole company, you can always use the "Default" option. To create a new individual rule, click on the "Add" button:

On the next screen you will be able to select the Business Hours, make sure to give this rule a name in the "Description" field. Leave blank any of the time fields that don't apply. By clicking on the blank section on the "Select User(s)" and "Select Team(s)" fields, you will enable a dropdown menu where you can select the users and teams that apply to this rule.

When you are done, click on Save.

The next time you come to the Manage Business Hours section, you will find your newly created rule listed with the existing ones:

Let us know if you have any questions or comments!

--Econz Team