Time and Attendance User Manual. By SmartLinx Solutions, LLC.

Transcription

1 Time and Attendance User Manual By SmartLinx Solutions, LLC. 1

2 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? 2

3 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 3

4 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 labortransaction 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? 4

5 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 timetracking 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. 5

6 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. 6

7 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). 7

8 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. 8

9 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. 9

10 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 10

11 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. 11

12 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. 12

13 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. 13

14 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. 14

15 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. 15

16 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. 16

17 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. 17

18 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. 18

19 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. 19

20 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. 20

21 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. 21

22 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. 22

23 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 23

24 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 24

25 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. 25

26 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. 26

27 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. 27

28 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. 28

29 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. 29

30 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. 30

31 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 31

32 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. 32

33 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. 33

34 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. 34

35 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. 35

36 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 36

37 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. 37

38 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. 38

39 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. 39

40 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. 40

41 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. 41

42 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, 42