New Lunch Delayed Report

Hello everyone!

We have something special for the last post of the year: the new Lunch Delayed Report.

The idea behind this report is to provide the amount of time that has passed between the moment the users have clocked in and the moment they take their first Meal Period:

(Click on image to enlarge)

This will be one of the many aids we provide to Managers to keep track of Meal & Rest Enforcement rules, as they will be able to easily tell if employees went over the specified amount of time they were supposed to take their lunches.

We hope you like this new report and wish you all a Happy New Year!

--Econz Team

Timecard Checker: New PIN Functionality

In this blog post, we are going to cover a new feature that we have implemented to provide an alternative solution to the way Timecard Checker can be used: clocking in with PIN numbers.

This functionality will enable users to just go the the app, type their PIN number and be automatically logged in to their profiles. To set this up, you need to enable this setting within the Preferences screen in the Administration tab:

Then, the rest is done within the app itself!

When the application is setup and all the profiles are being loaded, first you need to create a PIN number for the "owner" user (the one that enables the checker features and is the one used when setting up the app initially). In this example, it's "OfficeTablet":

You can proceed setting up the users as normal:

After the users are setup, since the PIN number has been created, tap on the owner user again and verify that PIN to enter the profile. Next, open the menu with the gear icon and select "Settings":

Open the menu again and select "Checker config". Once inside that screen, you can enable the first settings according to your company setup (for more information about them, you can click here), but the one option that we need to enable to complete the proper setup is the last button "Hide user list":

When the user list is hidden, the app will now show a dial button which employees can now select to enter their PIN numbers:

After this, they can proceed as normal and clock themselves in! Notice how by using the PIN number functionality, they no longer need to search for their names from the list of users.

Leave us any question or comment below!


--Econz Team

Send Email and SMS Alerts to Kiosk Employees

We are very proud to announce that we have developed a new feature where employees will be able to get Meal and Rest alerts as emails and text messages!

This is particularly useful for employees that use the Timecard Checker functionality, as they are not exactly interacting with the application all day long or are running it on their own devices.

The idea is that whatever alert was setup during the Manage Actions process when creating a Meal Period or Rest Break notification, the employee will get either an email alert or a text message, or even both if that's what you need!

Normally, when setting up those rules, employees would get the notification through the application, but since Checker users share a device, then we decided to give you more flexibility with how you can communicate with your staff and make them aware that they are eligible for a break or meal, or that they may have incurred in a violation due to missing it.

To set this up, you will need to go to the Field Workers tab and click on the employee's ID on the left:

Then, once inside the profile you will notice the following new fields:

• Email: this section is to enter the employee's email address.
• Notify Via Email: tick this to enable the email alerts.
• Mobile Number: this section is to enter the employee's phone number. Make sure to start with a plus sign and enter the full number including the country code.
• Notify Via SMS: tick this option to enable text message alerts.

In this example, the employee had both Email and SMS alerts setup, so once an alert is triggered, both notifications will be sent:

Let us know if you have any questions or comments below!

--Econz Team

Worker Monitoring Rules, Part 2: No Break Taken For

Continuing on a previous post about Meal Enforcement Rules, we are going to cover today how to add Meal and Break reminders.

These rules can be used to notify employees that they are eligible to take a break or a lunch and also keep track if they have gone over a specified amount of time in which they were meant to take a Meal Period, so that the application can keep track of each time employees incur a meal period violation.

To set these up, go to the Administration tab and select "Rules, Action and Fences", then clock on "Worker Monitoring":

Once inside that section, click the "Add New Worker Monitor" button:

Adding these rules has three steps: policies, rules and actions.

Please refer to Part 1 of this series to go over how to create both the policy (naming the rule and assigning employees) and the action (email and notification alerts), since those steps will always be the same regardless of the rule you are creating, the only difference is what you are putting in the notifications, which of course depends on the context of that same rule.

For the rule we are covering on this post, you need to have created your own break types in the "Manage Break Types" section found in the Administration tab. On this example, we are using the most commonly used "Meal Period" and "Rest Break". This is very important since rules can be setup in a sequence within their own break types so the system can determine the correct notification to send to the employee depending on the sequence specified for the breaks.

To understand the previous point better, let's have an example. Let's say we have our first break set at 2 hours and our second one at 6 hours. The middle point between the two breaks is at 4 hours. If an employee doesn't take the break at 2 hours, he/she will get a reminder. If that person takes the break anytime between those 2 and 4 hours, it will be counted as the first break, so another alert can be expected at the sixth hour in case that new break is not taken, either. On the other hand, if the employee takes the break between the fourth and sixth hour, then the system will recognize that the first break was missed and it will be counted as the second break, so once the sixth hour is reached, no alert will be shown since that break has already been taken.

The point where we are at right now is once we click on the "Create New" button to add our new rule:

We will be taken to the "rules" section. Make sure to name the rule appropriately and select the trigger "No Break Taken For". This will add the following fields for you to fill out:

• Minutes: the amount of worked minutes the app will wait until the notification is sent. If for example, the meal period is set to be deducted, then that time will not be counted.
• Trigger Premium Pay: this is used when you are adding a rule for a meal, if the employee doesn't take a meal after the specified time and you enable this, it will trigger a Premium Pay flag so you can check in case there has been a meal period violation. This will also appear on any of the Premium Pay related reports.
• Applicable Break Type: in our example is the Rest Break, but it could also be the Meal Period or whatever you add in the Manage Break Type section.
• Break Sequence Id: this is where you set the sequence that was explained above, in our case Rest Breaks and Meal Periods will have their own sequence, the first break expected at 2 hours would be "SEQ1", the second one at 6 hours is "SEQ2" and so on (at least one rule per break or meal). Same thing for the Meal Periods, the first meal at the fifth hour is "SEQ1" and the second meal at the tenth hour would be "SEQ2".

The fields below correspond to the time range, setting it to "Always" means that the rules apply whenever the employees are clocked in (this is the recommended setting), but you can also set it to Business Hours or specify a time frame.

Once you complete adding the rule, you can click on "Create New Action" to proceed with adding the messages for the alerts and/or notifications.

(Click on image to enlarge)

That's it for this post! In Part 3 we will go over adding rules when a meal period or rest break has exceeded a certain amount of time, or if it was shorter than expected.

Until next time!

--Econz Team

Timecard Checker Enhancements available in iOS and Android

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to give you a quick update: we have just updated both iOS and Android versions of Timecard GPS and now both include the full Timecard Checker functionality including the latest enhancements we had added for Android a few weeks back.

To learn more about what Timecard Checker is, make sure to visit this link or contact us directly to learn more.

Until next time!

--Econz Team

Downloading Images from Scheduled HTML Reports

We have just implemented an enhancement to make managers' lives much easier when they need to keep track of photos and signatures from HTML scheduled reports.

They only need to be logged in to the web portal in their default browser. Once the scheduled reports arrive to their inbox, they can open the attachments, in this example we are opening the HTML version of the Custom Field Report:

Then, we scroll down to find the attachments we are looking for, notice how any images or signatures that were captured will have a hyperlink you can click on:

(Click on image to enlarge)

When you click on that link, you will be prompted to save the image in a location of your choosing (depending on your settings, it could also be downloaded to your default Download folder):

(Click on image to enlarge)

Note that this feature is designed to work with the HTML versions of the scheduled reports only, CSV and PDF versions do not support it. 

Let us know if you have any comments or questions!

--Econz Team

Timesheet Enhancements

Hello everyone!

In this blog post we are going to show you something completely new, an enhancement that was added to the timesheet signoff functionality where you can view Overtime, Double Time and even data related to miles and expenses, all right there in the timesheet approval screen!

To enable this, go to the Administration tab and select "Configure Timesheet Settings":

Then go to the "Timesheet Details Custom Fields" section and there you will find two new options: the first one to enable Miles and Expenses columns (which will be captured in custom fields or forms by the employee), and the second one to show the overtime and double time columns:

As always, the data is captured by the employee out in the field, in this example we can see how miles and expenses are captured using the "Total Miles Traveled" and "Total Expenses" fields inside the "End of Day Form":

At the end of the period (in this example is the end of the week), then the employee will approve the timesheet:

At this point, the Manager would come in and approve the hours and here is what the additional columns look like in our current example:

(Click on image to enlarge)

We hope you get the best out of this new features, leave us a question or comment down below!

--Econz Team

New Mapping Features

Hello everyone!

We are very excited to announce a set of new features we have just implemented for our mapping functionality. Our GPS breadcrumbs now have a new face:

(Click on image to enlarge)

The first thing that pops up is that we have some circular icons with numbers in them, this is what we call "clusters". The numbers represent how many breadcrumbs can be found underneath them.

When you zoom in, you will start seeing more breadcrumbs and clusters with smaller numbers:

Until you completely zoom in and get to see only breadcrumbs:

Something else that's new is that now you can add colors and images to the stick figures. The default color is black as shown here:

We can go to Manage Users and click on the employee's ID or alternatively, click on this new icon found in the map:

This will bring the user's profile, where you can add a profile picture by clicking on the "Choose File" button and selecting the desired picture. Make sure that you are using a square image (resolution 500px x 500px, for example), since using a vertical or horizontal image will not be displayed correctly:

To change the color of the stick figure, you need to click on the blank field next to the "Map Icon Colour" section:

Doing that will open the color picker, so select the desired color and click on OK:

The color will be updated in the previous screen. When you are happy with the changes, click on the "Update" button:

Now, when you look at the user in the map, you will see the stick figure with the selected color as well as the employee's picture between the "Center on map" button and the User Name, as well as when clicking on the stick figure, which will also show additional options to view logs, tasks and the breadcrumb trail:

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Leave us any question or comment in the section below!

--Econz Team

New Options for Overtime Rules

Hello everyone!

In this blog post we want to talk about the new options we just added to overtime rules.

This will be useful in case you need to include weekends in your overtime calculations, so now you can set any hours on Saturday and Sunday to be either overtime or double time as desired.

To do this, go to the "Manage Overtime Rules" screen within the "Integration" section in the Administration tab:

Then, select the user type you want to apply the rule for, in this case, we want to do it for the "Field Technicians":

Next, click on the "Add New" button to create the new rule:

The following is an example of how the overtime and double time rules can be setup:

(Click on the image to enlarge)

In this case, we have applied our rules like this:

Overtime

• Any time the user has more than 8 hours per day
• Any time the user has more than 40 hours per week
• Any time the user works on a Saturday

Double time (Extratime)

• Any time the employee has more than 12 hours on a day
• If the user worked on a Sunday

Also note right on the top that we applied the rule to start from January 1st, 2019. This is very important since anything prior to the day you select here will not enforce this overtime rules.

We hope you can use these new options to your advantage, let us know if you have any questions or comments.

--Econz Team

My Details Page for Web Users

In this post we will cover a pretty nice new feature we have implemented for any type of user that can access the web portal, the "My Details" page!

When you log into the web portal, you will notice a stick figure icon on the top right, next to the "Help" and "Logout" icons:

When you click on it, you will be taken to a new screen where you can fill out your personal details, add a Security Question which will be useful when contacting in case you forgot your password, and also changing your own password, which we always recommend doing:

For security reasons make sure to use a strong password which can be accomplished by using a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters as well as numbers and special characters.

We hope you like this feature, let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below.

--Econz Team

User Specific Daily Rounding Rules

Not too long ago we covered the topic of adding user specific rounding rules, which would be applied to define an employee's schedule and have the system automatically round clocked in hours around it.

We have added the capability to be even more detailed about it by enabling a daily schedule.

If you have some staff members that have different schedules around the week as opposed to a fixed schedule, then the steps are almost the same as described before.

You would  go to the Field Workers tab and click on the employee's ID, then look for the option called "Payable Start" and "Payable End". If the user has a fixed scheduled for the entire week, then you can put your start and end times, but now you will also find a button with a circular arrow:

When you click on it, the entire week will be opened:

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here you can set a schedule for each day of the week that needs a rounding rule. If you don't need a rule for some days, they can be left blank and no rounding rules will be applied.

Just as before, these times will be applied to the timesheet signoff functionality and the rounded hours will be reflected on the following reports, as well as the User Rounding Report that gives you the original and the rounded times for comparison:

• Timecard Task Event and Location Report
• Custom Report
• NAR TimeCard Task Focused Custom Report
• Timecard Detail Report

That's it for this post! If you  have any comments or questions, don't hesitate to let us know down below.

--Econz Team