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 an address to ensure your employees are clocking in/out in the right place at the right time.
In this article, we'll cover:
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 a designated 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 create two geofences and associate them with projects A and B:
The first geofence will be associated with Project A (Job 1)
The second geofence will be associated with Project B (Job 2)
In terms of driving (Job 3), there is no need to have a geofence limitation, meaning that employees can clock in/out wherever they want for this particular job.
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.
To set up a geofence:
Access the Time Clock feature from the left sidebar, and then select Access clock
Click on Settings at the top right corner
Navigate to the Geolocation tab
First, you'll need to turn on your geolocation main setting. Please choose one of the following options:
Clock in & out and toggle on "Users must enable location sharing to clock in & out"
Breadcrumbs (live-tracking)
On the same tab, hover over the Geo fence sites section and click on Add sites
A new modal will open, click again on + Add sites and set your geofence with all its details:
Site Name - write a name for your convenience (e.g., customer A, project B, headquarters, worksite 3, office location, etc.)
Site Address - type an address or a location name. To integrate the address with Google Maps, make sure to select the address from the suggested results.
Fence Size - set the size of the fence around the selected location. The fence size can range from 246 to 5000 feet.
Available jobs - 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)
When a user who is clocked in leaves the Geofence, you can choose to do nothing or to automatically clock them out. If you select to automatically clock them out, they will be auto-clocked out when they leave the site, provided their location services are enabled.
Once you've added all necessary details, click on Save site, then Save, and finally Save Changes
💡Tip: We highly encourage you to toggle on the option "Require admin’s approval if users clock out outside the geo-fence," shown in the illustration above.
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Which Jobs Will Appear for Users?
For employees to clock into a job, users must be qualified and be within that specific fence range, 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 map, making it easy for the user to see where they are located in relation to 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 from the previous question, the map displays the user's live location when trying to clock in/out. While the dot might be slightly within the area, the user's GPS is not always perfectly accurate and may differ due to connectivity, location, device, etc. 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 anyway - If the user chooses to clock out outside the fenced area, they can add an employee note to their shift explaining why they decided to do so. When a user clocks out outside the geofence, the admin will receive a shift request notifying them. The admin must either accept or decline this request. The request will state that the user clocked out outside the work zone and will include the user's explanation if they provided one. Once approved, the shift will automatically be added to the employee's timesheets.
User:
Admin:
💡Tip: As an admin, you can track your employee's location live via our Breadcrumbs capability.
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'll no longer have to worry whether your employees clocked in/out of the workspace.
*Our Geofence capability starts from the Advanced Operations Plan. On this plan, you can create up to 10 geofences. From the Expert Operations Plan, you can create unlimited geofences*
Want a Pro to create your Geofences for you? 🤓 Click here to learn more.
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