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Check-in on the web, the phone and attendance devices

Staff mark attendance in the browser from the office network, or from their own approved phone with a selfie and a location check. ZKTeco and eSSL device punches come straight to the server. All punches of a person count together for the day.
PLANSEvery plan
Built. Devices are checked with stand-ins only, not yet on a real ZKTeco or eSSL device. We try your model with you before go-live. The app is not in the app stores yet.
Compare plansHow it works

The problem it solves

  • Field staff send a WhatsApp photo to say they reached the site, and someone types it into a sheet.
  • Anyone can mark attendance for a friend from any phone or from home.
  • The fingerprint reader's data is downloaded on a pen drive once a month, and missing days are argued over at payroll time.
  • Office staff without a device have no way to punch at all.

How it works

  1. Choose per person how they may mark attendance. On the employee record, tick Phone Attendance Allowed or Web Attendance Allowed. Fill in Biometric User Id for people who punch on a device.
  2. Phone: the employee taps Use this phone for attendance in the SmartMy HRMS app. The attendance office approves the phone. From then on Check in and Check out take a selfie and the position when your rule asks for them.
  3. Web: tick Web Check-in in the attendance rule and list the office network addresses in Web Check-in Allowed From. Allowed people click Punch In and Punch Out under Time & Attendance > Attendance > Mark Attendance.
  4. Devices: register each device under Time & Attendance > Configuration > Devices, with its serial number, direction, time zone and work location. Choose its connection: the sync agent, pushing to the server, or read by the server.
  5. Each punch is kept as it arrived. A device punch with an employee's code becomes that person's punch. An unknown code waits until you give it to someone, and the earlier punches are then linked by themselves.
  6. The day's attendance is worked out again whenever a punch arrives, from the first in and the last out of all sources.

Everything it does

Phone check-in

  • Only for people HR allows on their record, and only if the attendance rule has Mobile Check-in on (on to start with)
  • One approved phone per person; approving a new phone ends the old one; Revoke stops a phone
  • Phones are approved through the Attendance phone approval chain; Attendance Managers decide to start with
  • Selfie Required: on to start with; with face recognition (Scale) a face check replaces the selfie
  • Mobile Location Check: only inside the location's geofence (the default), allowed outside but flagged, or no location check
  • Per person, Phone Attendance Location can override it. The choices: only inside the work location, anywhere with outside flagged, or anywhere with the place recorded for field staff
  • Geofence: the work location's latitude, longitude and Geofence Radius, 200 metres to start with
  • The punch time is the server's time, not the phone's; each punch keeps the selfie, the place and Inside Geofence

Web check-in

  • Web Check-in in the attendance rule: off to start with
  • Web Check-in Allowed From: addresses or networks, such as 203.0.113.10 or 10.0.0.0/8; empty means from anywhere
  • Web Attendance Allowed on each person's record; without it the browser cannot be used, whatever the rule says
  • Mark Attendance shows the time, whether you are in or out, today's punches, and why you cannot punch when you cannot
  • Each web punch keeps the network address it came from

Attendance devices

  • Kinds: fingerprint, face, RFID card, QR code; brands ZKTeco and eSSL are read, Warden, Realtime, Matrix and Other can be registered but are not read
  • Through the sync agent: the SmartMy Attendance Agent on a site computer reads the devices every few minutes. It keeps punches during an outage and sends them later
  • The device pushes to the server: for devices with a cloud server (ADMS) setting; Only From (address) limits who may send
  • Read by the server: about every 10 minutes, for a device the server can reach, port 4370 to start with. It needs an extra package on the server
  • Direction: in only, out only, or in and out (the device's own in and out used when it gives one)
  • Time Zone of the device's clock, Work Location, Take Punches From a date
  • A resent punch is kept once, however it arrived
  • Sync agent tokens are shown once and kept only as a fingerprint

Checking the punches

  • Punches: every punch with time, employee, device code, in or out, source, device and Inside Geofence; filter Not Linked to an Employee
  • Device Punches Received: every device punch as it arrived, with Taken By
  • Unknown Device Codes: punches whose code nobody has, grouped by code, with Match Again
  • Last Sync and Last Error on each device
  • Delete Device Punches Received After (days): 0 to start with, meaning keep them

Who uses it

EmployeeChecks in on the phone, in the browser or on the device.
Attendance ManagerRegisters devices and sync agents, sets the check-in rules, approves phones.
Attendance UserLinks device codes to people, allows phone and web attendance per person, follows unknown codes.
Site IT personKeeps the site computer with the sync agent running.

Where you use it

  • Web: Time & Attendance > Attendance > Mark Attendance and Punches
  • Web: Time & Attendance > Configuration > Devices, Sync Agents, Device Punches Received, Unknown Device Codes, Mobile Devices
  • The SmartMy HRMS app: Check in and Check out on My day. HR approves phones and allows phone attendance on Phone attendance in the Menu (built and in testing, not in the app stores yet)
  • The SmartMy Attendance Agent: a desktop program for the site computer, built and run on macOS; the Windows and Linux versions are not built yet
  • Not in the phone app: devices are managed on the web

What you control

Settings

  • Mobile Check-in: on; Selfie Required: on; Mobile Location Check: only inside the geofence
  • Web Check-in: off; Web Check-in Allowed From: empty
  • Geofence Radius: 200 metres per work location
  • Phone Attendance Allowed and Web Attendance Allowed: off per person until HR ticks them
  • Device port: 4370; Direction: in and out

Approvals

  • Attendance phone: the phone an employee asks to use, one chain per Entity; Attendance Managers decide to start with. Rejecting revokes the phone.

Notifications

  • HR Request to Approve (level): to the approvers of a phone, in the app, by push and by email. It is transactional, so a person can switch off only a channel, and in-app notices always arrive

Questions

Which attendance devices work?

ZKTeco and eSSL devices, through the sync agent, by pushing to the server, or read by the server. Each way was checked with stand-ins, not yet with a real device. We try one device of your model with you before you buy more.

Can someone check in from home on the web?

Not if you list the office network in Web Check-in Allowed From. Punch In then works only from those addresses, and the page tells the person why it is refused elsewhere.

Can an employee punch from a friend's phone?

No. Each person has one approved phone. A punch from any other phone is refused, and with a selfie or a face check you can see who punched.

What happens when the internet at the site is down?

The sync agent keeps reading the devices and holds the punches on the site computer. It sends them when the server answers again, and the days are worked out again.

Our sales staff are always on the road. Can they check in anywhere?

Yes. Set their Phone Attendance Location to anywhere with the place recorded. Each punch keeps where they were.

Can the phone app punch without signal?

No. A phone check-in needs a connection. The face kiosk tablet is the exception: it keeps punches without signal and sends them later.

Related features

ATTENDANCEFace attendance on a kiosk tablet or the phoneA tablet with the SmartMy HRMS app at the entrance records each punch by face after a blink. The phone check-in checks the face instead of taking a selfie. Only people who gave consent are enrolled, and no photo is kept: only numbers made from the face.ATTENDANCEDaily attendance, regularisation and the registerEvery employee gets one attendance record a day with the status, paid days, loss of pay and late, early and overtime minutes. It says in plain words which rules gave the result. Employees correct missed punches by request, only authorised HR can change a day, and the monthly register exports to CSV.SHIFTS, OFFS AND HOLIDAYSShifts, rotations and the roster plannerDefine fixed, night, split and flexible shifts and run 24-hour rotations with teams offset from each other. Plan who works what on a grid of people by days. Shift swaps need the colleague's acceptance and the manager's approval, and every change flows into that day's attendance.SELF-SERVICE AND APPPhone app for employees, managers and HROne SmartMy HRMS app for everyone: employees check in, apply for leave and see payslips. Managers approve and see their team, and HR and payroll do their daily work. The server decides what each person sees, by the same access as the web.EMPLOYEES AND ORGANISATIONDepartments, grades, locations and policies by scopeModel the organisation as it is: departments with sub-departments, designations, grades, employment types, staff categories and work locations. Every HR rule says who it applies to, from the whole Entity down to one employee, and the most specific rule wins.

See your own month run in it.

Tell us how many people you have, how you take attendance and how your salary is structured. We will show you SmartMy HRMS set up that way.
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