The Time Clock will simplify and automate your time tracking and payroll process by getting accurate information regarding employees working hours and easily controlling when and where users can clock in and out. The Geofence is a capability that allows you to create a geographic "fence" around a site or an address in order to ensure your employees are clocking in/out in the right place at the right time.
In this article we will go over:
How Does the Geofence Work?
Let's say you have 3 jobs. For two of them, you want to make sure that employees clock in within the geofence (Project A and B) and for the final job which is 'Driving', you don't mind where they clock in and out from as they might be going to the store to pick up supplies before heading to the project site and you want to track those hours separately. To set it up you would add two sites and associate them with project A and B:
The first site will be associated with Project A (Job 1)
The second site will be associated with Project B (Job 2)
In terms of driving (Job 3), it would not have any geofence limitation, meaning that employees can clock in and out to it where ever they want.
How to Set Up a Geofence?
Setting up a geofence is easy and can be done from the time clock settings, under the geolocation tab. Below we will walk you through creating a geofence step by step.
Access the Time Clock
Click on Settings at the top right side of the screen
Click on the Geolocation tab in the Settings menu
Choose one of the following options:
Clock in & out and toggle on 'Users must enable location sharing in order to clock in & out
Breadcrumbs (live-tracking)
On the same page under Geofence sites, click on Add sites
On the Geofences sites editor, add a new site
Name the site for your convenience (e.g. customer A, project B, worksite 3, office location, etc.)
Type an address or a location name. To integrate the address with Google Maps, make sure to select the address from the suggested results.
Set the fence size
Select which jobs will be available to clock in from within that site (Jobs that are not listed under any of your sites can be clocked in from anywhere, but are limited to the user's qualification)
Which Jobs Will Appear for Users?
In order for employees to clock into a job, users must be qualified and be within that specific fence, or else the job will not appear for them to clock in. Taking the example we're using - when your employees are within the first site, they will see Project A and when they are within the second site they will see Project B. Driving will always appear on the list of jobs to clock in for, as it is not attached to any geo-fence.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can users know they are within the worksite location?
Our time clock app displays a huge map which makes it easy for the user to see that they are within the geofenced area.
My employee is within a site. Why can't they clock into the job that is associated with it?
The first thing you want to make sure of is that the user is qualified for the job. If they are, this might be a case of the employee not having great service. As shown in the image above, the map displays the user's live location when trying to clock in and out. While the dot might be slightly within the area, the user's GPS accuracy is not always perfectly accurate and may differ due to connectivity, location, device, et cetera.
In order to ensure location within the fenced area, the user should simply move further into the fenced area so the entire blue circle is in the fenced area. Then, the user will be able to clock in or out.
What happens when the user tries to clock out outside of the fenced area?
When outside the fenced area, if a user is trying to clock out, the user will receive a message with two options:
Move to the fenced area and try again
Clock-out outside the fenced area - in that case, an admin will receive a request (same as an absence request or a shift edit request) that must be approved from their dashboard or app. The request will state that the user clocked out outside the work zone. Once approved, the shift will automatically be added to the employee's timesheets
User:
Admin:
Pro Tip: As an admin, you also have the ability to live track your employees via our Breadcrumbs feature.
Summary
In the article, we went over how the geofence works, a step-by-step guide to setting it up, and what the employees will see on their end when they are not in the geofence range. With the geofence, you will now no longer have to worry whether your employees clocked in/out of the workspace.
*Our Geofence capability starts from the Advanced Operations Plan*
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