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Status: Completed
From Client:
What would also be really helpful is a clock-in URL where employees can clock in without the need to login. Just a drop down windows for the name and a clock-in/clock-out button. This way we could put a small touch terminal screen somewhere in the store without any keyboard and allow for clocking-in and out.
Please! Please! Please!
Perfect suggestion. I have a addition though:
Instead of a drop/down window of names, there should just be a password box that is tied to the employees account, so instead of "logging in" the password simply clocks their time, and then a dropdown window allows the employee to choose a schedule to clock-in with.
Nice idea. We do have plans to develop this functionality. We're currently working on a larger internal update, afterward we have a number of time-clock updates ready to roll-out. I will update here as we progress.
Ryan
What kind of ballpark timeline are we looking at for these features? We are currently working on a company-wide rollout of shiftplanning, but have decided that these clock in/out features will probably need to happen first. It just takes too long for 6-7 employees to log in/out of shifplanning at the same time when leaving for and coming back from lunch.
To help me provide a better est. can you please provide some more details as to how you would see this working:
Instead of a drop/down window of names, there should just be a password box that is tied to the employees account, so instead of "logging in" the password simply clocks their time, and then a dropdown window allows the employee to choose a schedule to clock-in with.
The original suggestion for this feature was for use with a touch screen, where actually typing would be inefficient. I think the idea for having an extra layer where needed is a good idea, however the password suggestion above won't work quite as planned:
1. We can't simply compare passwords as they are stored encrypted with a unique salt, which prevents a straight look-up.
2. There would be potential for collision allowing this to by used as a method to brute-force account access.
Open to suggestions.
Ryan
Instead of a drop/down window of names, there should just be a password box that is tied to the employees account, so instead of "logging in" the password simply clocks their time, and then a dropdown window allows the employee to choose a schedule to clock-in with.
I wonder if this request was just asking for something similar to the "Login" screen. User types in their username and password, but instead of "Login" button there would be "Clock-in". If the user is scheduled on one schedule only, he/she would see a confirmation of successful Login. If the user is scheduled on multiple shifts at the same time, next screen would let the user select what shift or shifts to clock in on. That 2nd screen could also let user enter comments if Login event falls early, late or on the off-duty day.
The original suggestion for this feature was for use with a touch screen, where actually typing would be inefficient.
If the user has to type in the password anyway, what kind of use-case would make typing in the username prohibitively inefficient?
Last edited by mgolitsyn (Jan 26, 2011 - 4:20am)
I agree with these comments, I'm just not sure that by the time you've: logged in, selected schedule, clocked in - You've really saved any time over the way it currently works now. Essentially you've saved just one mouse click from the top 'time clock'..
The original concept here removes all that by simply just selecting a user 'touching', and hitting clock in/out. This of course won't work for all businesses that need more security/control, but for those that don't, it's an elegant solution to a time-clock terminal.
Ryan
Hi Ryan, I'll do my best to describe my vision for this feature.
1. An office manager/administrator logs into the shiftplanning portal (xyz.shiftplanning.com). This authenticates the system at the beginning of the work day.
2. One option given to the manager/administrator under the "time clock" tab is to launch the "Time Clock App." This also causes the administrators control panel to be logged out.
3. Users are now left with a browser window that looks something like the picture I have attached below. There is a secure session that was started by the manager/administrator, but that session only has write-access to the database to log clock punches and location data. (this could be configurable by the administrators).
4. If the window is closed, a new session would need to be started by an administrator.
I'm not a web dev so I'm not sure of all the nuances of database security. But a system like this would really make shiftplanning a more viable option for us as a company with multiple offices to manage.
Thanks Ryan.
Current work flow:
1. enter username
2. enter password
3. click login
4. click timeclock
5. click login
6. select schedule/enter notes
7. click save
8. click logout
9. arrive at confirmation screen
Proposed workflow:
browser homepage set to "clock-in/out" page
1. enter username
2. enter password
3. click clock-in or clock-out
If login is within defined time frame for employee's scheduled shift (this should be the most frequent scenario)then:
4. arrive at confirmation screen that times out back to "clock-in/out" screen after a set duration.
Else (arrive at confirmation screen or display Schedule/Notes/Save Notes):
4. select schedule/enter notes
5. click save
6. arrive at confirmation screen
The benefits of this workflow would be:
- no need to have an administrator on location to start up / restart the clockin/clockout application
- increase the throughput for clock-in/clock-out
- decrease chances that less than tech-savy employees forget to logout and thus compromise their accounts
Last edited by mgolitsyn (Jan 26, 2011 - 6:08am)
Thank-you both for your detailed messages. We're reviewing this internally now.
Ryan
From Client:
What I propose to you is an option for employee authentication. For example…
Option A = Require full login credentials for clock in
Option B = Require username only for clock in
Option C = Require only employee ID number for clock inThis way the manager gets to decide which method of authentication suits their need best and each less secure option speeds up the process. These options coupled with the limitation of time clock location and the webcam really give the employer full control.
Great idea! If such options can be set to specific time-clocking terminals, then terminals with a webcam could allow for operations with Option B or Option C only - and webcam-less terminals can be set up to operate with Option A.
I find that it is best to keep it quick and easy at the employee level.. The employee would key a 3-4 digit code and perhaps a password. There would be a clock in button, department select button, and a clock out button. I've noticed that your company has been just super in helping with new suggestions and ideas. I know that you dealt with a couple of our issues with choosing to publish schedules. I'll keep watching for the update.
Great idea! If such options can be set to specific time-clocking terminals, then terminals with a webcam could allow for operations with Option B or Option C only - and webcam-less terminals can be set up to operate with Option A.
I also love this option. A couple of our offices have webcam-enabled computers, and we would love the option to utilize this hardware!
Update -
This is in active development; We'll have a preview for feedback within a day or two. 
And we're live! Please see our recent blog entry for full details:
http://www.shiftplanning.com/blog/time- … -live.html
We look forward to hearing your comments once you've had a chance to try it out.
Looks like a solid first implementation, glad to see it rolled out. Here are a couple of thoughts:
I really like the idea of using a gallery or drop-down list. However, for a group the size of ours (60+ employees), it would be nice to only display the employees that are assigned to the location of that terminal. Currently, it displays all company employees. Seems unnecessary.
Also, I would love an option to allow the "login" button to actually initiate the time punch, and it will simply register a punch with the default/scheduled schedule assigned to that employee (see mgolitsyn's workflow). I don't know if this is outside the technical limitations of the system, but I thought I would throw it out there.
Thanks for rolling out the feature!
Brian
Last edited by blocker85 (May 2, 2011 - 10:43pm)
I really like the idea of using a gallery or drop-down list. However, for a group the size of ours (60+ employees), it would be nice to only display the employees that are assigned to the location of that terminal. Currently, it displays all company employees. Seems unnecessary.
I agree. Right now time clock locations aren't assigned to a ShiftPlanning 'location. We would need to add that in order for the filter to work at that level.
A couple more idea's we had when developing this were to:
- Smartly filter the lists based on staff that are:
- Working soon (clock in)
- already clocked in (clock out)
- Adding an optional 'letter' selection that would quickly filter the lists based on first letter of their name.
Also, I would love an option to allow the "login" button to actually initiate the time punch, and it will simply register a punch with the default/scheduled schedule assigned to that employee (see mgolitsyn's workflow). I don't know if this is outside the technical limitations of the system, but I thought I would throw it out there.
I agree this would be a useful option. Right now our behind the scenes integration between scheduling/time clocking isn't what it needs to be, which makes stuff like this a little bit harder. Rather then implement an *ugly workaround, we're going to wait until we implement the next version of our scheduler. We're working on it now, and it will improve this integration as well as enable a ton of the other long-awaited items such as timezone support,etc.
Thanks
Ryan
Have you thought about integrating with 3rd party timeclocks at all? In the not too distant past we purchased a biometric (face scan) time clock that is connected to our network - and could probably feed clock punches to a network location...
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