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Time and Attendance User Manual
By SmartLinx Solutions, LLC.
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Index
I. Introduction
1. What is Time and Attendance?
2. What is included in the Time and Attendance package?
3. How is Time and Attendance used?
II. Timeclocks
1. What are Timeclocks?
2. How do I use the Timeclock to Punch In or Punch Out?
3. What if I make a mistake?
4. What type of information is tracked by the Timeclocks?
5. Privacy issues concerning the Timeclocks
6. Additional Features of the Timeclock
III. Punches
1. What is a Punch?
2. How can I create a Punch?
3. How can I manually override an existing Punch?
4. What is an Invalid Punch?
5. What if I punch out instead of in?
6. What is an Exception?
7. Is Overtime an Exception?
IV. Time and Attendance
1. How do I use Time and Attendance?
2. What is the Console Screen?
3. How do I add a new employee to Time and Attendance?
4. How can I see all punches for the day?
5. How can I override an Invalid punch?
6. How can I create a Manual Punch?
7. What kind of information can I get from Time and Attendance?
8. How can I view employee information in Time and Attendance?
9. Can I set up an Operating Budget in Time and Attendance?
10. How can I compare an Employee’s Schedule to their Actual Attendance Record?
11. What are System Messages?
12. What is a Timecard?
13. How do I add users to Time and Attendance?
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14. How do I assign access rights to users?
15. How do I set up Exception Rules and Formulas in Time and Attendance?
16. What is the Administration Module?
17. How can I configure Time and Attendance to my organizations needs?
18. How do I add new Departments to Time and Attendance?
19. What is the Audit Screen?
20. What is the Timeclock Statistics Screen?
21. What is the Exception Distribution Screen?
22. What kinds of Reports are available in Time and Attendance?
23. What are Alerts and Messages?
V. Technical Information
1. Supported Operating systems
2. Supported Databases
3. Database Connectivity
VI. Interfaces
1. Interfaces with third party vendors
2. Types of Interfaces
3. Additional Data Interfaces
VII. Summary
1. Maximizing the Time and Attendance Functionality
2. Links from various screens
3. Context Menu functionality
4. What if I need additional help?
VIII. About
Contact Information for Time and Attendance Support
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I. Introduction
SmartLinx Solutions offers the most effective solutions for the collection of your workforce’s time,
attendance, and other labor-transactions. Our strategic workforce management applications have
a flexible architecture, which accommodates a wide variety of data collection solutions for any
industry. From basic “Card Swipe” devices to sophisticated “Touch-Screen Timeclocks” to
“Magnetic Proximity” and “Fingerprint Scanning” devices, SmartLinx Solutions will seamlessly
and cost-effectively integrate the latest technologies to meet your company’s most demanding
operational requirements.
Your employees are your company’s greatest resource. Capturing and processing labor-
transaction data is one of your greatest challenges. To effectively manage today’s diverse and
often dispersed workforce, SmartLinx Solutions enables you to collect accurate and up-to-the
minute labor information using the technology that best suites your operational needs.
Our goal is to develop industry-specific systems to automate your critical management processes.
The integrated systems enable you to capture, track, analyze and process your company’s Time
and Attendance needs. You have the information you need to run your operations more efficiently
and ultimately improve your bottom line.
We offer a wide range of fully configurable solutions, and scalable modular devices to enable you
to capture and process labor data in any workforce environment. SmartLinx Solutions provides
the right solution for any employee profile including professionals, salaried, hourly, or contract.
Selecting the best hardware and software is just the beginning. SmartLinx Solutions also provides
comprehensive support to maximize the return on your investment. Our mission is to be the
leading provider of solutions, which enables organizations to achieve optimal utilization of their
workforce and provide first class service in our efforts to create "clients for life."
1. What is Time and Attendance?
Time and Attendance is a complete hardware and software-based solution, which allows you to
effectively capture, track, analyze and process your employees time and attendance transactions.
2. What is included in the Time and Attendance package?
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A complete Time and Attendance package may include a wide variety of Timeclock devices, the
integrated Time and Attendance Application, an optional Card Printer/Encoder, and a stack of
blank badges. Each configuration varies upon the needs of your organization. From the type of
Timeclock device to the customized configuration of the Time and Attendance Application, we
offer a comprehensive solution for all your organizations Time and Attendance needs.
3. How is Time and Attendance used?
SmartLinx Solutions offers a complete Time and Attendance solution. In conjunction with our
Timeclocks, our Time and Attendance software is the most versatile and configurable time-
tracking software available. After analyzing the data, users can generate a wide variety of reports;
these include Daily Transaction Reports, Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly Analysis reports. Users
can easily compare between employees scheduled hours to their actual hours to their Budgeted
hours, and easily spot which units or shifts need to be reassessed for efficiency and productivity.
Time and Attendance users can easily generate additional Badges for any new employee using
functionality built into the application. Users are able to take a picture of the employee with the
built-in image capturing functionality and Print the Badge including the Organization Logo,
Employee Name, Picture, Badge ID as well as an optional Bar Code. All the functionality of
capturing an employees’ picture and encoding their Badge is seamlessly integrated into the Time
and Attendance software.
II. Timeclocks
SmartLinx Solutions offers a wide variety of Timeclock devices. Whether they are the basic “Card
Swipe” variety to the more sophisticated “Magnetic Proximity” or “Fingerprint Scanning” devices,
we offer the best cost saving solution for your organizations needs.
1. What are Timeclocks?
Timeclocks are used to track your employees’ attendance as well as display messages to your
employees as they come in to work. Depending on the model, employees can either swipe their
Badge through the “Card Swipe”, manually key in their Badge ID, wave their Badge by the
“Magnetic Proximity” sensor or place their index finger on the “fingerprint scanner” on the
timeclock.
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Figure 2 – The Timeclock Screen
2. How do I use the Timeclock to Punch In or Punch Out?
Using our basic “Card Swipe” Timeclock model as an example, when an employee enters the
workplace, they
• press the “Punch In” button on the Timeclock face,
• swipe their badge through the “Card Swipe” slot (see figure 2 above),
• will be greeted by a welcome message confirming their Punch.
Using our previous example, when an employee leaves the workplace, they
• press the “Punch Out” button on the Timeclock screen
• swipe their badge through the “Card Swipe” slot (see figure 2 above),
• see a message confirming their Punch displayed on the Timeclock screen.
If an employee does not press the “Punch In” or “Punch Out” button and only swipe their badge,
this will be considered an invalid Punch, which will also be stored by the Time and Attendance
software and can be manually updated to either an “In” punch or an “Out” punch.
3. What if I make a mistake?
If an employee swipes their Badge in the wrong way or forgets to press either the Punch in or
Punch out buttons on the Timeclock, they can go ahead and press the “Punch in” or “Punch out”
buttons on the Timeclock and swipe their Badge again. An employee will know that they have
successfully punched “in” or “out” because a confirmation message will be displayed on the
timeclock screen.
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4. What type of information is tracked by the Timeclocks?
The Timeclock devices can keep a variety of information including all punches, employee weekly
schedules, system messages, employee alerts and messages, as well as the ability to direct
employees to specific units or locations throughout your organization (see figure 3 below).
Employees may also send any of the predefined messages stored in the timeclocks either to their
managers or to other Time and Attendance application users.
Figure 3 – The Info Screen on the Timeclock
5. Privacy issues concerning the Timeclocks.
The Timeclocks store punch data, scheduling information, as well as system messages and alerts.
This information is only accessible upon employee verification. This is to ensure that only
authorized personnel have access to an employee’s personal information. Even users of the Time
and Attendance software need special Access Rights to view an employee’s personal information.
Every effort has been taken to ensure that an employee’s personal information remains private.
6. Additional features of the Timeclock.
An employee may check their weekly schedule right at the Timeclock. All they have to do is press
the Schedule button on the timeclock screen and then swipe their Badge through the card swipe
slot. The employee’s weekly schedule will be displayed on the screen (please see figure 4 below).
You can access the schedule screen either directly from the main timeclock screen (see figure 2
above), or from the Info Screen by pressing the Check Your Schedule button (see figure 3 above).
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Figure 4 – The Schedule screen on the Timeclock.
III. Punches
Punches are the basic unit of measurement for all timekeeping transactions used throughout the
Time and Attendance system. It is used throughout the Time and Attendance application, as well
as our Timeclock devices.
1. What is a Punch?
A single punch alone does not constitute an attendance record for an employee. The Time and
Attendance system needs at least one “In Punch” and one “Out Punch” to create an attendance
record for an employee for a particular day. You may have more than 2 punches for any given day
for a particular employee. For example, lets say a particular organization requires an employee to
punch in when they come in at 8:30 AM, punch out when they go out to lunch at 12:00PM, punch
back in when they return from lunch at 12:30 PM, and finally punch out at the end of the day at
5:30 PM. For this day, the employee will have 4 punches. This is perfectly valid and many
organizations utilize Time and Attendance in this way. The Time and Attendance software
calculates the hours worked by the employee as follows: from 8:30 – 12:00 is 3.5 hours and from
12:30 – 5:30 is 5 hours. For this day, the employee worked a total of 8.5 hours. Many
organizations do not require employees to punch in and out during their lunchtime. For these
organizations the Time and Attendance software allows you to customize the hours worked based
on your business rules. Including the ability to automatically factor in the lunchtime and deduct
this time from the daily hours worked for any employee.
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2. How can I create a punch?
An employee can easily create a punch by pressing the “Punch In” button on the Timeclock screen
and swipe their card through the “Card Swipe” slot (see figure 2 above). This process creates an
“In Punch” for the employee, for this date along with the time of the punch. A user can also create
punches using the Time and Attendance software, which will be described in greater detail later
on.
3. How can I manually override an existing punch?
If an employee makes a mistake in punching in the first time, they can punch in for a second time
right away and the second punch will be stored as the valid punch. To manually override an
existing punch, a user of the Time and Attendance application can perform this task, but only if
they have the proper access rights.
4. What is an invalid punch?
An Invalid Punch can be a result of an employee forgetting to press either the “Punch In” or
“Punch Out” buttons before swiping their badge through the “Card Swipe slot”. An authorized
user of the Time and Attendance application can update an invalid punch to become a valid punch.
An invalid punch will not be used in any calculations until it becomes a valid punch or is deleted
from the system.
5. What if I punch out instead of in?
If an employee punches out instead of punching in, the system will be able to automatically
generate an exception for the punch, which can be easily handled in the application. In many
cases an erroneous punch can be automatically handled by the system, but an invalid punch
cannot, since the system doesn’t know what type of punch to record in the system (in or out).
6. What is an Exception?
An exception is a rule that users of the Time and Attendance software can create to designate any
constraint that is deemed to be outside the regular weekly work hours. These can include any
overtime, any vacation time, a sick day, a personal day, a double shift, any comp time or a variety
of various business rules that are enforced in an organization. These rules are set up using the
Time and Attendance Software and can only be set up by an authorized Time and Attendance
users with the proper Access Rights.
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7. Is overtime an exception?
Depending on your organization and the business rules used by your organization, any overtime
can be set up to be an exception. Generally, overtime is calculated as any time above the standard
workweek hours. If your organization states that a standard work week is 40 hours, then any time
worked above 40 hours is considered overtime. The Time and Attendance software is flexible
enough to allow you to set up your own standard workweek as well as any overtime rules and
formulas.
IV. Time and Attendance
The Time and Attendance application is an extensive, flexible, reliable and accurate system, which
allows your organization to capture, track, analyze and process your employee’s time and
attendance transactions. The software seamlessly integrates with our Timeclocks, and Badge
Printers/Encoders to provide your organization a complete solution for your time tracking needs.
The Time and Attendance software provides your organization the ability to view your time
keeping data many different ways, as well as produce a variety of different statistics that you can
use to reduce your organization’s costs. By focusing on key areas such as comparison statistics in
the Attendance Vs. Scheduling Screen a manager can see how many hours their employees worked
in comparison to how many hours they were scheduled to work as well as identify which units or
shifts are driving up costs in unnecessary overtime or identify an employee who is consistently
late.
1. How do I use Time and Attendance?
Time and Attendance is a complete self-sufficient system, which provides your organization a
wealth of information about your employee’s time and attendance transactions. To use Time and
Attendance, the application must be installed on a user’s PC, and the Time and Attendance
Database must be set up on a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database server.
Once the applications have been installed and configured according to your organizations
specifications, a system administrator can begin to create the Badges for your employees. Utilizing
the Personnel screen, a user can enter all pertinent information about the employee including
Personal and Payroll information. As a last step, the user can take a picture of the employee, save
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the employee information and Print a Badge for the employee using the built-in picture capturing
functionality. This is all available on the Personnel screen, which we will discuss in greater detail
later on. Once the badge has been created the employee can go ahead and begin “Punching In”
and “Punching Out” using any of the available Timeclocks. Each punch will register in the Time
and Attendance system from this point going forward.
2. What is the Console Screen?
The Console Screen is the main screen used by administrators, managers and application users
alike to quickly ascertain,
• the status of the Timeclocks,
• which employees have already punched in,
• which employees have punched out,
• which employees still haven’t come in,
• and which employees have punched in but weren’t scheduled to come in.
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Figure 5 – The Console Screen from the Time and Attendance application.
This data is available in several different ways. By default the data is broken down by shifts, but
can also be displayed by an hourly breakdown by clicking the By Daytime View button on the
top left hand corner of the screen. This data is also available in graphical view by clicking the
Chart button. Users can also view any system or employee alerts or messages, which will be
displayed in the bottom right hand corner of the Console screen. The Console Screen also has a
Working Hours vs. Budget Floating window, which by default is rolled up to display only the
title bar (see figure 6 below). When expanded the floating window displays a comparison of the
Working Hours to the Budgeted number of hours (see figure 5 above), which are initially set up by
a system administrator using the Budget Screen, which will described in greater detail later on.
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Figure 6 - The Scheduled Employees Screen.
The left hand side of the Console screen displays all the employees who have arrived and departed.
To view a breakdown of the employees who are scheduled to come in at 3:00 PM, double click on
the Scheduled cell, which intersects with the 3:00 PM shift in the Arrivals grid. By doing so, the
Scheduled Employees screen is displayed showing all the employees, which are scheduled to come
in for the 3:00 PM shift. The screen displays employees in groups of four, along with additional
pertinent information such as the Employee Name, Position, Shift, Unit, and the Employee’s
Phone Number in case a manager needs to quickly get in touch with an absent employee. The
Scheduled Employees Screen provides several options for the user. Such as the ability to view the
employees’ attendance record by clicking the View Attendance Record link, the ability to dial
the employee’s phone number right from the application by clicking on the Employees’ phone
number, also users have the ability to generate a punch for a specific employee by clicking on the
IN? – OUT? link.
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Figure 7 – The List View of the Scheduled Employees screen.
The Scheduled Employees screen also can be displayed using the List View, by clicking the List
View button at the top of the screen. The List View lists all the employees in a grid. The List
View also provides the users with a few additional options, such as the ability to generate a
warning to the employee for excessive lateness or absences (please see figure 7 above).
Users have several options available to them by right clicking anywhere on the List View grid.
Users can Filter the list by Content, meaning that if they want to view only CNA’s in the list of
scheduled employees, then by right-clicking any CNA and selecting Filter By Content, the grid will
display only CNA’s who are scheduled to come in for this day for the 3:00PM shift. To display the
entire list again, a user can right click on the List View Grid and select the Remove all Filters
option.
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Figure 8 – The Advanced Filter Screen.
Another handy feature is the Advanced Filter option on the right-click menu. This feature
allows users to select several values by which to filter the list. For example, if a user wants to view
only RN’s and LPN’s in the List View grid, by right clicking the grid and selecting the Advanced
Filter option the Advanced Filter screen is displayed (please see figure 8 above). The Advanced
Filter screen displays all available values found in a column of the List View grid. By right clicking
the Position column of the grid, the advanced filter screen will display all available positions,
which are found in the grid. By right clicking on the Unit column the advanced filter screen will
display all available unit values, which are found in the grid.
Checking any of the available values displayed in the list above, and clicking the OK button will
display those records that match the criteria selected in the List View grid. The Advanced Filter
screen also allows you to define a range of values, such as a start- date and an end-date or numeric
values. A User can also select the Case Sensitive option to match the exact upper or Lower case
spelling of a specific value.
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Figure 9 – The List View grid displaying only the records for RNs and LPNs.
Using our previous example where a user wants to display only RN’s and LPN’s from the List View
grid, by right clicking on the positions column and selecting the Advanced Filter option, then
selecting only RN’s and LPN’s to display and clicking the OK button on the Advanced filter screen,
the List View grid will display only records for RN’s and LPN’s which are scheduled to come in for
the 3:00 PM shift (see figure 9 above). To remove any filtering options selected, right click
anywhere on the List View grid and select the Remove All Filters option.
The Scheduled Employees screen is used to display various types of information. The reason we
are displaying Scheduled Employees is because as you may recall from the Console screen we
wanted to view only scheduled employees who were scheduled to come in for the 3:00 PM shift.
We can just as easily have double clicked on the Departures grid to display all employees who have
departed for a specific shift or even view any differences between those employees who already
have left and those that are scheduled to leave but haven’t punched out yet (see figure 5 above).
Any cell that displays a zero in the Arrivals or Departures grids will NOT display the Scheduled
Employees screen. This means that there are zero employees to display in that specific category.
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Figure 10 – The Attendance Record for an employee.
One last option available through the List View grid is the View Attendance Record For the
specific employee selected on the right click menu (please see figure 7 above). By selecting this
option the user sees the yearly attendance record for the employee selected. This screen will
quickly provide the user with a snapshot of the employees’ attendance record for the year and will
offer the user some additional information which may help them to decide whether this is a repeat
offender or a rare case when the employee is either late or is absent without notifying the manager
or the organization.
The Attendance Record screen features a color-coded legend that can quickly allow users to
ascertain an employee’s time and attendance patterns, as well as any paid or unpaid leaves of
absence for the year. The summary button will quickly calculate how many days the employee has
taken during the course of the year and display this in a popup message box.
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Figure 11 – The Attendance Record Summary Message Box.
The Attendance Record screen also features a Print Button that allows users to print out the
employee’s Attendance record for the year.
3. How do I add a new employee to Time and Attendance?
To add a new employee to time and Attendance, a user must click on the Personnel Screen
button on the Toolbar. The Personnel Screen allows authorized users to view and enter employee
information into the Time and Attendance application. The Personnel screen displays a list of
employees on the left side of the screen grouped by their position. By clicking on a specific
employee on the left hand side of the screen, all their personal and Payroll information is
displayed in the right hand portion of the screen. This information is broken down into several
tabs based on data pertaining to their position and their job type.
All employees are grouped by their department. Figure 12 below, displays all positions available in
the Nursing department. The Personnel Screen Tabs consist of the Personal Information tab, the
Physicals Tab, the Rotations Tab, the Tasks Tab and the Journal Tab. Each of these tabs
corresponds to specific information needed by most organizations.
For instance the Physicals Tab keeps track of all physicals examinations taken by the employee.
The main Personal Information Tab contains several sub-tabs, which break down the employee’s
data into several categories so as not to overwhelm the user with too much information all at once.
This way all the information is well organized and grouped together to quickly allow users to get at
the information that is most pertinent for them.
The Payroll Sub-Tab on the Personnel Screen allows users to set up all the employee’s payroll
information, as well as to assign a specific Badge Id to the employee if they wish.
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Figure 12 – The Time and Attendance Personnel Screen.
The Payroll Tab also contains the Pay Periods button, which will display the Pay Periods screen.
This screen allows users to set up a schedule of when the employee gets paid, which we will
describe later on in greater detail.
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The Payroll tab also allows users to specify whether the employee is on an Hourly Salary schedule,
as well as specify the Pay Rate and Weekly Work Hours for the employee.
Figure 13 - The Payroll Sub-Tab on the Personnel screen.
To add a new employee to the Personnel Screen, click the Add button from the Toolbar, and
the New Employee screen is displayed (see figure 14 below). Upon completion of the New
Employee Screen and clicking the OK button, the new employee is added to the personnel screen,
from which the user can go ahead and add all the other pertinent information available for this
new employee, including Address, Contact, Payroll and License Information.
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To save any additional information which was added to the new employee in the Personnel screen
click the Save button from the Toolbar. To remove an employee from the Personnel Screen,
select the employee to remove and click the Remove button from the Toolbar.
Figure 14 – The New Employee Screen.
You might have guessed by now that in order to assign an employee to a specific shift, unit and
position, all of these items need to be set up prior to adding any employees to the Time and
Attendance application. We will look at how to set up all of these items later on in greater detail.
To generate a badge for an employee simply drag the newly created employee record to the Badge
picture on the right side of the screen (see figure 12 above). Upon dragging the new
employee to the Badge picture, the Badge Preview screen is displayed (see figure 15 below),
allowing the user either to generate the default badge for the new employee by clicking
the Print Button or customize the new Badge as needed by clicking the Advanced button on the
Badge Preview screen.
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Figure 15 – The Badge Preview Screen.
The Badge ID number is automatically generated from the application or can be manually entered
using the Payroll Tab on the Personnel screen. To capture a picture for the new employee, from
the Personnel screen simply click on the Capture button above the picture (see figure 16 below)
holding area and the Picture Capture screen will be displayed allowing a user to snap a picture
using the included software. After capturing the picture, the Time and Attendance application
integrates this picture with the employee record and allows the user to save the employee record.
To remove an employees’ picture, simply click the X button next to the Change and Capture
buttons on the personnel screen. After saving the record using the Save button from the
Toolbar, the user can go ahead and generate the Badge for the employee as described earlier in
this section.
Figure 16 – The Picture Capture and Change buttons on the Personnel screen.
4. How can I see all the punches for the day?
To see all the punches for one day a user may click on the Daily Punches button on the toolbar.
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By clicking the Daily Punches button the Time and Attendance application displays the Timeclock
Transactions screen, which will display all the Punches for a specific date. By default the
Timeclock Transactions screen, displays today’s punches for the specific department as displayed
at the top right hand corner of the screen (see figure 17 below).
Figure 17 – The Timeclock Transactions Screen.
The Timeclock Transactions screen displays the Employee Name, Position, Punch In and Punch
Out times, the Punch Interval (which is the number of hours the employee worked), the
Employees Scheduled Start Time and End Time, as well as their Scheduled Work Hours Interval,
Unit Name as well as a Comment Section that can be filled in using the Punch Detail Screen which
we will discuss later on in greater detail. The Timeclock Transactions screen offers some
additional features, which are accessible by right clicking anywhere in the grid. These features,
which we have already seen on the Scheduled Employees screen in prior sections, include the
Filter by Content option, the Advanced Filter option, the Remove All Filters option, the
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View Attendance Record For a specific employee option, as well as two additional options
which we haven’t seen yet, the Generate Warning and Show History options.
Similarly to the Scheduled Employee List View Grid, a user can Filter the contents of the
Timeclock Transactions by a specific value or by a combination of values using the Advanced
Filter option. To remove any filters from the screen, right click the Timeclock Transactions grid
and select the Remove All Filters option. The Generate Warning option is used to display
the Generate Warning Screen, which will allow a user to generate a formal warning to the
employee. This is a generated report, which is sent to the employee for disciplinary action. If your
organization has a rule that any employee who is late three times during a period of thirty days,
then a user can generate a warning to this employee who has broken a company rule. The warning
is a document stating that the employee is put on notice that they have been coming in late and are
put on probation. Depending on the situation, further disciplinary action may be taken by the
manager or the Human Resources department.
Figure 18 – The Generate Warning Screen.
When generating a warning, most of the Key fields are automatically filled in by the Time and
Attendance application, the user only has to select the Warning Reason and enter a comment
if they wish. Upon clicking the OK button a Warning Report is printed which may then be handed
to the employee or sent to them in the mail. The other option, Show History (see figure 19
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below) is used to display the Punch History screen, which will display any manual changes or
overrides that were performed to a specific punch record for the employee for the day. This option
is seldom used but is included to show any modifications made to the employees’ punch record.
The fields displayed include the Punch In Time, the Punch Out Time, the Punch Interval, the
Modified by and Modified Date. A user may recall a prior punch in the day, if any exist, as the
final punch if they wish by selecting the punch and clicking the Recall button on the Punch
History Screen.
Figure 19 – The Punch History Screen.
5. How can I override an Invalid Punch?
To override an Invalid Punch, an authorized user must first locate the invalid punch. This can be
easily accomplished by selecting the Invalid Punches option from the View Menu bar (see
Figure 20 below).
Figure 20 – The View Menu Bar displaying the View Invalid Punches option.
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After selecting the Invalid Punches option the Invalid Punches screen will be displayed which
allows the user to select the specific date of the punch, which will display all the Invalid Punches
for that date (see figure 21 below).
Figure 21 – The Invalid Punches Screen.
To update the invalid punch, a user can select either “IN” or “OUT” for the punch type from the
drop down box and check the Select checkbox for the punch to update. The Apply button will
update the selected invalid punches to be valid, and the OK button will do the same, as well as
close the Invalid Punches screen. To select all the punches to update, a user may click the Select
All button, but will still need to select either “IN” or “OUT” for the punch type from the drop down
box. To print out the contents of the Invalid Punches Grid, a user may click the Printer button in
the top right-hand corner.
Figure 22 – The Right-Click functionality for the Invalid Punches screen.
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Similar to other screens we have seen with grids, the Invalid Punches Screen also has right click
functionality including:
• the Filter By Content option,
• the Advanced Filter option,
• the Remove All Filters option
• as well as the View Transaction Details option.
The last option will bring up the Punch Detail screen, which allows users to make any changes to a
Punch record. Using the Punch Detail screen, users can make a variety of changes to the punch
record, including the ability to:
• Add punches for a specific employee, for a specific date,
• Delete punches for a specific employee, for a specific date,
• Edit any of the punch details for a specific employee, for a specific date,
• Add exceptions to the punch record,
• Approve and lock a punch record, meaning that this record cannot be modified,
• Edit the employees schedule record.
The Punch Detail screen was designed to be intuitive and easy to use, including functionality to
calculate all of the time intervals for all the punches.
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Figure 23 – The Punch Detail Screen.
The Punch Detail screen can be called from most other screens in the Time and Attendance
application, since most of the manual editing will take place using this screen. To add a punch,
simply click the button at the top of the screen. The Punch Edit Screen will be displayed
enabling the user to enter the either an “In Punch”, an “Out Punch” or both.
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Figure 24 – The Punch Edit Screen.
The user will enter the Punch time information, as well as select a timeclock from the Timeclock
drop-down box and click the OK button to save the punch. Once the punch has been saved it will
appear in the Punch Detail screen. As you will note the punch interval has been automatically
calculated for you.
6. How can I create a manual punch?
To create a manual punch, a user can click the Ledger button. This displays the Time and
Attendance Ledger screen, which provides the user with a snapshot of all the employees for the
specified department, along with their punch information for a specified range of dates (see figure
25 below). The ledger screen lists all the employees in the department along with their job
positions on the left side of the screen, with all the dates selected in the date range displayed as
columns.
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Figure 25 – The Time and Attendance Ledger screen.
By double clicking any of the date cells, the user can display the Punch Detail Screen ( see figure
22 above) and the user can go ahead and create a manual punch for a specific user for a specific
date. The Total column on the right of the screen, displays the number of hours worked by the
employee for the date range. To select a different date range a user can click the From Date and
To Date in the upper left-hand corner of the screen and click the Reload button. The Reload
button reloads the screen after a change is made. The Legend button will display a Legend
window (see figure 26 below), which identifies what the various symbols mean that are used
throughout the Ledger screen.
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Figure 26 – The Legend Popup Window in the Time and Attendance Ledger screen.
If an employee has an Exception in their daily punch record the corresponding Exception color
will be displayed in the Ledger screen. If an employee has multiple exceptions for a specified
punch date then the symbol will appear in the corresponding cell. The Ledger screen will display
the symbol if the date matches the start of the employee’s payroll cycle. In order for all the
Exceptions to be displayed in the Ledger screen, they must first be set up by an authorized user.
The Format button will display the Grid Format pop-up window, enabling the user to choose
how the data is displayed in the Ledger grid. By default the data is displayed showing the Start
and End Time in the Ledger grid.
Figure 27 – The Format pop-up window in the Time and Attendance Ledger screen.
The Ledger screen also contains a wealth of functionality by right clicking the grid and selecting
one of the many options available to the user. These include:
• The Open Punch Detail Screen option
• The Filter by Content option
• The advanced Filter option
• The Remove All Filters option
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• The Hide column option
• The Show all Columns option
• The Send Personal Message option
• The Pay Periods option
• The Attendance Record option
• And the Show History option.
Figure 28 – The Right click menu options on the Ledger screen.
The Open option will display the Punch Detail Screen enabling the user to either view, add, edit or
delete additional punches for the employee, for that day. The Hide Column option hides the
column the user clicked on. This can be done for multiple columns as well by right-clicking the
individual column and selecting the Hide Column option. The Show all Columns option
displays all the hidden columns on the Ledger screen. The Send Personal Message option
allows users to send predefined messages to employees, which the employees can view through the
timeclocks when they punch in or out. These messages can direct employees to specific units or
floors in the organization or to inform them of specific information or events. When a user selects
the Send Personal Message option the Personal Messages screen is displayed (see figure 29
below). The Personal Messages Screen will display the selected employees Name in the top right
hand corner of the screen. The message section contains all the predefined messages that can be
sent out to the employees.
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Figure 29 – The Personal Messages Screen.
For some of the messages that contain Date and Time information, the user must fill these in
manually and then select when the message to the employee should expire from the Message
Expires drop down box. Upon completing this, the user clicks the OK button and the message will
be displayed on any timeclock in the organization where the employee punches in or out. If an
employee currently has a Personal Message that has still not expired, the Personal Message screen
will show the message in the bottom bar of the Personal Message screen. Otherwise the bar will
display “No Current Message” for the employee.
Getting back to our right click Ledger options, the Pay Periods option will display the Pay
Periods screen (see figure 30 below), which allows users to setup the pay periods for the employee,
as well as display the pay periods, which already have passed. This way a user can quickly view
whether an employee’s pay period has been approved and locked by a manager or payroll.
An employee’s pay period depends on the payment schedule agreed upon when they were hired.
Some organizations like to pay weekly, others bi-weekly, and still others on a monthly basis. That
is why we made the pay periods screen flexible enough to accommodate any of these choices.
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Figure 30 – The Setup Pay Periods Screen.
Once the pay periods have been set up for an employee, the Time and Attendance application
handles the rest. When an employee’s pay period passes it will automatically be added to the pay
periods list (see figure 31 below).
The pay periods list is displayed by year. So a user can view all previous year’s pay periods for an
employee by selecting a prior year from the drop-down box. Along with the start and end date of
the pay period, the list also includes an indicator to show whether an employee’s manager has
approved and locked their pay period record. The process of approving an employees pay period
will be described in the next section.
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Figure 31 – The Pay Periods Screen.
7. What kind of information can I get from Time and Attendance?
Besides the wealth of information that we have so far described, the Time and Attendance
application offers a variety of statistical and comparison data as well. The Time Cards screen (see
figure 31 below) displays both the Time cards of all the employees for a given pay period as well as
an individual employees time card for that pay period. This screen is displayed by clicking the
Time Cards button from the toolbar, or selected from the View menu.
When the Time Cards screen is displayed it will list all the available pay periods on the left side of
the screen. Clicking on a pay period will display all the employees, in the selected department on
the right side of the screen. Besides listing the Employee Name, the Time Cards screen also lists
the following fields:
• Approved indicator – displays whether or not an employee’s pay period has been approved.
• Locked indicator – displays whether or not an employee’s pay period has been locked.
• Total Hours – displays the total number of hours worked.
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• Productive Hours – displays the Total number of productive hours worked.
• Non-productive Hours – displays the total number of non-productive hours, such as
vacation days, personal days, jury duty, etc.
• Pay Rate – the regular pay rate that is assigned to an employee.
• Regular Pay – the regular total amount paid for the pay period.
• Overtime Pay – the Overtime total amount paid for the pay cycle.
• Total Pay – combined regular and overtime pay for the pay period.
Figure 32 – The Time Cards Screen.
Besides listing all the employees in the department for a specific pay period, the Time Cards screen
also presents summary information for all the employees as a group. An authorized user can
quickly approve all pay data by clicking on the Approve button. The Approve indicator for all
employees will change from the not approved status, to an approved status . When all of the
employees in the department, for a specific pay period have been approved, the top left-hand
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corner of the Time cards screen, next to the Print button, will display the Approved indicator,
otherwise the screen will display the not approved status (see figure 33 below).
Figure 33 – the Pay Period Approval Indicator for the department.
To view an individual employees’ time card the user can expand the selected Pay Period, which
will list all the employees in the department, and click an individual employee. The user can also
double-click the employees name in the Time Cards screen on the right-hand side of the screen to
display the individual Employees time card.
Figure 34 – The Individual Employee Time Card.
The individual employee’s time card displays the,
• Time In - which displays all the In Punches.
• Time out – which displays all the Out Punches.
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• Manual Update indicator – which means that a punch was manually updated.
• Absence Code – indicates why an employee was absent that day.
• Pay Rate – The regular pay rate of the employee.
• Regular Hours – the total regular hours worked that day.
• Total Hours – the total hours worked including overtime.
• Regular Pay – the regular pay for the regular hours worked
• Overtime Pay – the overtime pay for the overtime hours worked
• Total Pay – the total pay including both regular pay and overtime pay.
The bottom section of the Individual Employee’s time card contains totals information for the
employee for the specified Pay Period. These include,
• total hours worked for the Pay Period;
• total pay for the pay period;
• regular hours worked by an employee for the pay period;
• total regular pay for the pay period;
• total paid absence hours for the pay period;
• total overtime pay for the pay period.
By double-clicking an individual day’s record for an employee the application will display the
Punch Detail screen, which will display all the punches for the day (see figure 23 above). Users
may update the daily punches for the employee in the Punch Detail screen and the changes will be
reflected in the individual employees Time Card.
The top portion of the individual Employee Time Card includes the Format button (see figure 35
below), which enables the user to change the format of how the data is displayed in the grid. The
Approve button allows a user to approve an individual employee’s pay period. To remove the
approval for the pay period simply click the Approve button again. The Lock button locks the
employee’s time card for the specific pay period thus preventing all users from updating this pay
period for the employee. To unlock the pay period simply click the Lock button again. The Print
button prints the contents of the individual employee’s Time Card. The Excel button
allows users to export the data to an excel spreadsheet. The Internet Explorer button
allows users to generate HTML files based on the individual employee’s Time Card. The not
approved symbol at the top left-hand corner of the screen indicates this pay period has still not
been approved.
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Figure 35 – the top section of the Individual Employee’s Time Card.
Next on our list of comparison data screens is the Attendance vs. Scheduling screen. This screen is
displayed by clicking the Attendance Vs. Schedule button in the Toolbar, or it can be displayed
by selecting Attendance Vs. Schedule from the View menu bar. The Attendance Vs. Schedule
screen contains a wealth of comparison data (see figure 36 below) including,
1. all discrepancies between employees who are scheduled to come in for a specific day and
those who still haven’t punched in,
2. all discrepancies between employees who punched in but were not scheduled to come in,
3. all schedule discrepancies between the scheduled hours of an employee and their actual
hours worked.
This information can be grouped by a specific shift group, such as Day, Evening or Night, and can
be displayed for a specific date range.
By double clicking any of the employees listed in the discrepancies sections, the application will
display the Punch Detail screen allowing users to easily update the employees punch record for
that day and then quickly returning back to the Attendance Vs. Schedule screen.
The right hand side of the screen displays daily totals for the number of scheduled, actual and
budgeted hours for the date range selected. All of these values are also available in a graph.
The Budget button in the top left hand section of the screen will display the Budget screen
enabling users to enter a budget for a specific date range. The Refresh button enables users to
refresh the screen after making any changes, such as changing the Date Range. Please note that all
data is based only for the selected department. As a side note, users have the ability to click on the
chart and rotate it in any direction, providing a different angle to view the data.
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Figure 36 – The Attendance Vs. Schedule Screen.
To set up the budget for the department, a user can click the Budget button and display the
Budget Screen (see figure 37 below). If a budget has not yet been set up for specific period, the
budgeted hours in the Attendance Vs. Schedule screen will display zeros, and the graph’s Budgeted
hours line will not display.
The Budget Screen enables users to set up a budget for the entire year or any other date range
needed. The only exception to this rule is that a new budget for a specific department may not
conflict with another budget that already exist for the same department. The Budget screen
enables users to set up a budget for Regular Pay, Overtime Pay and Allocations Pay. Allocations
are paid to employees for special situations, such as reimbursement for a nursing uniform, travel
expenses, etc.
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Figure 37 - The Budget Screen.
To add a new budget for a specific time frame,
1. Click the Add button;
2. The application will prompt you to enter the Start and End Dates for the budget and click
the Next button (see figure 38 below);
3. Select the shift group you want to create the budget for (see figure 39 below) and click the
Next button;
4. The Budget screen will load all the available job positions for the selected department, in all
three categories (Regular, Overtime, and Allocations), enabling you to enter the budget
hours and amount needed for each job position;
5. Once you have entered all the budget hours and budget amounts for all the positions you
can click the Save button to save the budget for the specified dates.
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Figure 38 – the Budget Start and End dates. Figure 39 – The Budget Shift Group Screen.
A user may create a budget for all the shift groups together or for a specific shift group
individually. If a budget has been created for the “All” shift group then no other budget may be
created for the same range of dates, for an individual department. A user may create a separate
budget for the same date range, for each shift group individually.
To delete an existing budget, select the budget dates from the Budget Period drop-down box, and
click the Delete button. If the deleted budget contains more than one shift group, then all the
shift groups for that range of dates will be deleted within the department.
The graph on the right of the Budget screen is a pie chart displaying the portion of the Budget
hours or amounts allocated for each of the three budget types (regular, overtime, and allocations).
A user can view either the Budgeted Hours or the Budgeted Amounts chart by selecting either
option from the Chart Type drop-down box above the chart (see figure 37).
8. How can I view Employee information in Time and Attendance?
There are several ways to view employee information in Time and Attendance. The Personnel
screen, which we have already reviewed, provides users with all the information available about a
specific employee. Another method of viewing an employee’s information is by using the HR
Information Screen , which is accessible from the Toolbar or from the View menu.
The HR Information screen provides a wealth of information about all the employees in a specific
department. Depending on a users access rights, they may be restricted to view only certain parts
of the employee’s information. To view the full contents of the HR information screen, a user’s
access rights depend on three conditions, whether they have the right to view an employee’s,
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• Personal Information
• Payroll Information
• and License Information.
When the HR information screen is initially displayed, by default the Organize options are
hidden. To view the Organize options for the HR information screen, a user may choose the
Organize button from the Toolbar Menu, or select the Organize option from the View Menu.
Upon clicking the Organize button, the user is presented with a variety of options to choose from.
These are intended to help the user view only the data they are interested in instead of
overwhelming them with too much information.
Figure 40 – The HR Information Screen with the Organize option selected.
The HR information screen is one of the only screens in the Time and Attendance application,
which allows users to view employee information across multiple departments. This is achieved
by listing all the available departments in the left-hand list box. By checking the checkbox next to
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each department that a user wants to view and clicking the Apply button, the employees from
those departments will be included in the data grid. The user also has the option of either viewing
only active employees or all employees, including employees who have been terminated, by
selecting one of the two option buttons from the top of the Organize section.
The fields list box in the middle of the Organize section lists all the available fields that an
authorized user may view. A user may check the checkbox next to a field and click the Apply
button, to include this field in the data grid.
To aid an authorized user to quickly select all the available departments and all the available fields,
the organize section contains a Select All and a Deselect All button, next to each of the list
boxes. A user can quickly ascertain whether they have access rights to a specific department, by
the PPL indicators next to each department listed. As you might have guessed, PPL stands for
Personal, Payroll and License.
Like many other data grids that are used throughout the Time and Attendance application, the HR
Information data grid contains a wealth of additional functionality using the right-click menu. To
invoke these options simply right-click anywhere on the grid (see figure 40 above). The right click
menu includes the following options:
• Filter by Content
• Advanced Filter
• Remove All filters
• Hide Column
• Show All Columns
• Pay Periods
• View Attendance Record For…
• Add Employee
The first seven options we have already seen before, and therefore we’ll skip them here and
concentrate only on the last option. The Add employee option will bring up the New Employee
Form (see figure 14 above), which enables the user to enter the basic information needed to add an
employee. After entering all the necessary information for the new employee, and pressing the OK
button on the New Employee screen, the employee will be automatically added to the HR
Information screen.
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A user may also double-click on a specific employee in the HR Information screen to display the
Employee screen, which is very similar to the Personnel screen, although it doesn’t have the Badge
creation capabilities of the Personnel screen.
Figure 41 – The Employee Screen.
Users can make any needed changes in the employee screen, save the employee record and the
changes will be automatically reflected in the HR Information screen.
9. How can I set up an operating budget in Time and Attendance?
As we have seen in section 7 above, the Budget screen is used to create an operating budget for a
range of dates for either a specific shift group or for all the shift groups within a specific
department.
10. How can I compare an employee’s schedule to their actual attendance record?
The easiest way to compare an employees schedule to their actual attendance record is to,
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1. Click on the Daily Punches button on the Toolbar
2. Select the desired date from the drop-down box
and optionally,
3. Click on the employee in question
4. Click the Employee Window button at the top right hand corner of the screen
Figure 42 – The Daily Punches screen displaying the Employee window
The daily punches screen lists both the Punched in and Out times as well as the Scheduled Start
and End Times for that date for all the employees in the department.
11. What are System Messages?
System messages are alerts from the database that are sent to appropriate users to take a specific
action or to inform them of key events. Some exceptions may be setup to send system messages to
application users to alert them to certain conditions.
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12. What is a Timecard?
As we have seen in section 7 above, a Time Card can either be for a specific pay period listing all
the employees in that department or an individual employee’s Time Card, which provides payroll
information about the employee for a specific pay period.
13. How do I add users to Time and Attendance?
To add a user to the Time and Attendance application an authorized user or a system
administrator can select the Manage User Logins button from the Toolbar, or select the
Manage Logins option from the Tools Menu, which will display the Manage Login Screen.
Figure 43 – The Manage Logins Screen.
To add a new user, select the Add User option from the File Menu. Enter Login and Password
information for the new user and click Apply.
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Figure 44 - The Login Properties Screen.
The Set as Corporate System Administrator option allows the new user to have complete
access to all parts of the Time and Attendance application, in essence granting them super-user
rights.
14. How do I assign access rights to users?
To assign rights to a new user or to change the rights of an existing user, the Login Properties
screen (see figure 44 above) has a second tab, the Assign Rights tab. Upon clicking this tab the
user is presented with a wide selection of access rights. One of the most important options in user
rights is the Set as System Administrator option (see figure 45 below). This option allows the
user unfettered access to all parts of the application within the selected organization and
department.
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Figure 45 – The Access Rights tab on the Login Properties screen.
The main difference between the corporate system administrator and the system
administrator, is that the system administrator has unlimited rights only within the selected
department, whereas the corporate system administrator has unlimited rights across all
departments and organizations.
The Access Rights Tab also has 4 sub-tabs corresponding to all the available access rights within
the Time and Attendance application. Keep in mind that if you want a user to have rights in
multiple departments, you must select the desired department from the department drop-down
box and set up the access rights for the user accordingly for each department. Likewise you can
limit the types of reports that are available to the user by selecting the Reports sub-tab and
assigning access rights for the user to the available reports in each department.
15. How do I view Exception Rules and Formulas in Time and Attendance?
To view Rules and Formulas in Time and Attendance the user must,
1. Select the Configuration option from the View Menu
2. Select the Exceptions option from the Configuration sub-menu (see figure 46 below)
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Figure 46 - The Configuration Menu options.
This will display the Exception Setup screen (see figure 47 below), which enables users to view the
Exception Rules and Formulas. To view the rules for a particular exception, click the Rules button
from the Exceptions list. The application will display the Rules Screen, which displays all the rules
that are used to calculate or generate the exception (see Figure 48 below).
Figure 47 – The Exceptions Setup Screen.
Only authorized users have access to the Exception Rules and Formulas screens. The exception
rules screen can either create an exception record for an employee or can generate a system
message as needed.
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Figure 48 – The Exception Rules Screen.
16. What are Alerts and Messages?
Alerts and Messages are notifications to either employees or to other users of the Time and
Attendance application. These notifications can be viewed in several places. The most convenient
location is the Console screen, in the bottom right hand corner of the screen (see figure 5 above).
The Messages and Alerts section contains two tabs, one for user messages and one for employee
messages as well as a button (see figure 49 below), which displays the Received Messages screen
(see figure 50 below).
Figure 49 – The Messages and Alerts section of the Console Screen.
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Employees are able to send and receive predefined messages through the timeclocks when they
punch in or out. Messages that are sent by the employees can be viewed in the employee messages
tab (see figure 49 above). The Received Messages Screen displays all messages sent or received by
the employee. Users have the ability to update the Action Taken column to describe what action, if
any was taken by the employee, and then save the record by clicking the Save Changes button.
Figure 50 – The Received Messages Screen.
Users have the option of viewing all messages, read or unread messages by selecting one of these
options from the Show drop-down box in the top right-hand corner of the screen. A message can
be selected by checking the checkbox to the left of the message and can be marked as read by
clicking the Mark As Read button, at the bottom of the screen. Users can delete messages from
the screen by checking the desired messages and clicking the Delete Selected button.
Another method of viewing messages is from the Message History Screen, by clicking the
Message History button from the Toolbar, or selecting the Alerts and Messages option
from the View menu. The Message History Screen (see figure 51 below) is a self-contained
communication feature of the Time and Attendance application, which allows users and
employees to communicate with each other without having to use any other software. The
Message History Screen displays all the available messages, which have not been deleted.
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A user can select either to view all the messages, those that are in their Inbox, or those that they
sent, by selecting one these options from the Show drop-down box at the top right-hand side of the
screen. A user may delete any of the available messages by checking the checkbox to the left of the
message and clicking the Delete button at the top left-hand side of the screen. To delete all
available messages for the user, they can check the Select All checkbox and then click the
Delete button.
Figure 51 – The Message History Screen.
The Message History screen will only display information about the message such as who sent it or
what time it was sent as well as the subject of the message. To view the contents of the message a
user can double click on any of the available messages in the Message History screen (see figure 52
below).
There are three types of messages in Time and Attendance, High, Medium and Low priority. High
Priority Messages appear in Red text, Medium and Low Priority Messages appear in Black text.
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Similarly the messages themselves can give the user a clue whether they are high, medium or low
priority. A high priority message has a Red header, a medium priority message has a Yellow
header and a low priority message has a Green header.
Figures 52 - A High Priority Message. Figure 53 – A Low Priority Message.
To create a message, a user can click the Send Message button from the Toolbar, which will
display the Send Message screen enabling the user to,
• Select who to send the message to – one or more recipients
• Specify an expiration date and time for the message
• Set the priority of the message
• Specify the message subject
• and finally, the content of the message.
17. How do I add new Departments to Time and Attendance?
To add a new department to the Time and Attendance application a user should,
• Select the Properties option from the File menu
• Click on the Departments tab
• Click the Add button
• Enter a description into the New Department description text box
• Select the new department start date from the start date drop-down box
• Click the OK button
To change the Department name,
• Select the Properties option from the File menu
• Click on the Departments tab
• Select the department from the list
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• Click the Rename button
• Enter the new department name in the input box
• Click the OK button.
To delete a department,
• Select the Properties option from the File menu
• Click on the Departments tab
• Select the department from the list
• Click the Delete button
• Click the Apply button
Figure 54 – The Departments Tab on the Properties screen.
18. What is the Audit Screen?
The Audit Screen (see figure 55 below) can be called from the Toolbar by clicking the Audit
button. The Audit button displays all manual changes to an employees punch record. This means
that if a User instead of a Timeclock entered a Punch, it will be displayed on this screen. The Audit
screen provides for the user a date range that they can use to select the desired data. The screen
displays:
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• the user who made the manual edit
• the date when the edit was made
• the name of the Employee, job position, hours worked and Overtime indicator
Figure 55 – The Audit Screen.
The desired range of dates can be selected by using the Date From and Date To calendar
controls at the top left-hand corner of the screen. The Statistics button displays the Audit
Statistics screen, which displays a graphical representation of the statistical information, displayed
on the Audit Screen.
The Audit Statistics screen (see figure 56 below), displays either a Bar or Pie chart representation
of all the statistical data displayed on the Audit screen. The data grid on the right side of the
screen is the summary information from the Audit screen. The data grid allows a user to send a
message to the user who made the manual change, by right-clicking the record and selecting the
Send Message option on the context menu. The statistical information only pertains to the
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range of dates selected on the Audit screen. The audit screen will display all the users who made
manual changes to any employee punches.
Figure 56 – The Audit Statistics Screen.
19. What is the Timeclock Statistics Screen?
The Timeclock Statistics screen can be displayed by clicking the Timeclock Statistics button
from the Toolbar. The Timeclock Statistics Screen displays a list of all the timeclocks used
throughout the organization as well as their status and online availability (see figure 57 below).
The Timeclock Statistics screen also provides additional Statistical information such as,
• The Total Number of Timeclocks throughout the organization
• The Total Number of Activ e Timeclocks
• The Total Number of Punches for Today
• The Total Number of Punches to date.
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The Timeclock Statistics Screen offers additional functionality. By right-clicking a timeclock
record, the user has two additional options available to them, the Open Timeclock option and
the Show All Punches at clock option, displaying a list of all punches made through the
selected timeclock.
Figure 57 – The Timeclock Statistics Screen.
The Open Timeclock option displays the Individual Timeclock Statistics Screen (see figure 58
below), which displays additional statistical information about the individual Timeclock, instead
of all the timeclocks as a group. The Individual Timeclock statistics screen provides the following
information,
• Name of the Timeclock
• The Date and Time the Timeclock went offline
• Online and Offline Percentages Overall
• Online and Offline Percentages Today
• Recorded Punches Percentage Overall
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• Recorded Punches Percentage Today
The Individual Timeclock Statistics screen also features a Details Button, which displays a grid
outlining the Start of each Downtime Time and the Downtime Interval (see figure 58 below).
Figures 58 - The Individual Timeclock Figure 59 – The Downtime Detail
Statistics Screen. Feature.
The Show All Punches option selected on the Timeclock Statistics Screen, displays the
Timeclock Punches Screen (see figure 60 below), which lists all the punches for the Timeclock
selected for a specific date. By default the date displayed will be today’s date. The user has the
option of selecting any of the available Timeclocks from the Timeclock drop-down box and can
select a different date from the Calendar control. Each of these actions will automatically refresh
the screen, which will provide the most up to date information on the data grid.
The Timeclock Punches Screen features additional functionality, by right-click the data grid, the
screen will present the following options for the user:
• Open Transaction Detail – which displays the Punch Detail Screen
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• Employee Info – which displays the Employee Screen
• Pay Periods – which displays the Pay Periods Screen
• View Attendance Record – Which displays the Attendance Record Screen.
Figure 60 – The Timeclock Punches screen.
20. What is the Exceptions Screen?
The Exceptions Screen displays all exceptions for the course of the year, and can be accessed from
View Menu by selecting the Exceptions option. On this screen, the color intensity represents the
volume of exceptions for any day within a selected year. The more intense the color, the greater
the volume of exceptions. This means that either there were too many absences for a particular
day, or possibly many employees worked overtime to cover a very busy day, or even a combination
of both, since each is considered to be an exception. Users have the ability to display weekend
information, company holidays, show the data in Exception Groups or view the data across
departments. Users also can display data for prior years if it is available.
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The bottom of the screen displays all the details for the date selected. Detail View Button at the
bottom of the screen will display the punch record in detail for the employees with exceptions for a
selected day. Users have the ability to Print the contents of the bottom data grid by clicking the
Print button next to the selected date.
Figure 61 – The Exception Distribution Screen.
21. What kinds of Reports are available in the Time and Attendance application?
There are a variety of available reports in the Time and Attendance application. A user’s access
rights will determine which reports are available to them. Many screen feature the Print
button or may have the Print option from the File menu, enabling users to Print the contents of
the screen. A user can select to display only the data they are interested in, using Content and
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Advanced Filters as well as hiding certain columns from the Grid and clicking the Print button to
generate a report that is based strictly on the data they see on the screen.
There are also numerous predefined reports that are available to the users. These range from
Schedule Discrepancies to Summary Hours and Earnings to a Staffing Hours Analysis Report.
To generate a predefined report the user can,
• Click the View Reports button to display the Reports List screen
• Select the report to generate from the Reports List
• Click the OK button
• Once the report is displayed on the screen, click the Print button from the top of the
screen.
• Click the Close button to close the report
• Click the Cancel button to close the Reports List screen
22. How can I configure Time and Attendance to my organization’s needs?
There are several different ways to customize the Time and Attendance application to your
organization’s needs. The first thing that an authorized user needs to do is set up the Time and
Attendance Properties (see figure 60 below). This includes setting up Facility Name, the
departments, the Calendar Year Start Date, the Time Rounding option, the Program start up
screen, Printer options, as well as Custom fields. Users have the ability to set up custom
departments, shifts, units, positions, pay cycles, company holidays, exceptions, accruals, and
allocations.
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Figure 60 – The Time and Attendance Properties Screen.
V. Technical Information
1. Supported Operating systems
The Time and Attendance application supports a variety of Operating Systems, these include:
• Windows 98 second edition,
• Windows NT 4.0,
• Windows Millennium Edition (ME),
• Windows 2000 Professional,
• Windows XP Home Edition,
• and Windows XP Professional Edition
2. Supported Databases
The Time and Attendance application supports Microsoft SQL Server 2000 exclusively.
3. Database Connectivity
To ensure proper database connectivity, a System Data Source Name (DSN) must be set up on the
users PC. This includes setting up the,
• DSN Description
• Selecting the correct server from the Server list
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• Supplying the correct user id and password
• Selecting the correct database
• Testing the connection
VI. Summary
1. Maximizing the Time and Attendance Functionality
To maximize the Time and Attendance functionality the user needs to keep in mind that certain
screens are readily accessible from almost every other screen in Time and Attendance. One of
these screens is the Punch Detail screen. By double-clicking most grids that describe a punch
record, the Punch Detail screen is displayed. Another readily accessible screen is the Employee
screen. Many screens throughout the application, which describe employee information, have
links and shortcuts to the Employee screen. All changes made in the Employee screen will be
reflected throughout the application.
2. Links from various screens
There are a large variety of links and shortcuts throughout the Time and Attendance application.
Any underlined link in the application will display a corresponding screen. For instance, the
Scheduled employees screen contains several links, which include shortcuts to the Punch Detail
screen, the Attendance Record Screen and the Dial Phone Number Screen if the phone number is
available (see figure 6 above).
3. Context Menu functionality
The Context menu appears in every screen, which includes a data grid. Many of the options
available are standard such as the Filter by Content Option and the Advanced Filter option.
Others including the View Attendance Record, Pay Periods, Generate Warning, and Send Message,
exist in those screens where the functionality is appropriate. If a user is unsure of the functionality
of the context menu for a particular screen, they should right-click on the grid to view all the
available context menu options.
4. What if I need additional help?
To get additional help using the Time and Attendance application, you can use this User Manual to
browse for the information that you need. You can also consult the Help file, which is available in
the application by,
• Selecting Help from the Menu
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• And selecting Contents from the Help Menu
A lot of information is available to the user including animations and visualizations of how to use
the Time and Attendance application.
VIII. About
Contact Information for Time and Attendance Support
To reach Customer Support or for additional Technical information for the Time and Attendance
application, please call: SmartLinx Solutions Customer Support at 1 (877) 501 – 1310.
