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How Do You Punch In?
grantedparole asks: "My company is planning to switch from an antiquated punch card time clock to a software based time clock, and a recent search on Google yielded many results. Searching on Freshmeat for 'timeclock' yielded two results, both of which do not appear to have any recent updates. Searching for 'time clock' returned more results, but all of those seem geared towards project management, rather than real world time keeping for many employees who don't work on projects (ie: sales people). What are the people on Slashdot using and is it running on *nix?"
Oh, and give them root access too.
Here at the bank we have a web page we can go to throughout the week that you basically enter your work/breaks/vacation, and then submit at the end of the week. It's really handy and well programmed (as it should be).
Dave
Chain your employees to their work stations.
That way you know where they are at all times.
It's also easier to get them to work overtime with no notice.
Speech: Free
Beer: $699.00
We use an app called Kronos. Pretty good and very flexible. One of the largest time keeping apps around.
Cincinati Time clocks. Badge style reader, RS-232 data feed (modem mounted inside clock if necessary) converted to RS-485 for long distance runs (4,000 ft).
The clocks are literally quite dumb. They just log everything and upload to a software package which was DOS based when I was installing them.
The DOS application allowed an HR person to edit and upload the data to a company like ADP (automated payroll) to cut the checks.
The software allowed for easy editing and various rounding rules (usually 7min before and after).
I am now required to fill out timesheets on a web based system managed by eLabor which is part of ADP (ironically)... It's used for project tracking mostly (I'm salary not hourly).
Far as I can tell, no one really uses these numbers they just require everyone to fill out their timesheets. It's stupid really... It's not used for payroll. I figure only 5% of the IT workforce actually logs useful data, the rest is worthless. For example, I've logged 40 hours a week for months for nothing special.
I suppose one could get the data file spec and protocol for just about any time clock and write a web based tool or Linux native application with a little bit of effort.
The market for these devices is still out there but many of the small customers are going with those timeclocks listed in the bag of computer magazines, etc. Same with bar-code readers. There are a ton of companies selling the stuff dirt cheap.
The software is where it's at. It's not that complicated either.
Do employers trust employees anymore?
I can understand having a clock in some environments, but I dont see the need for a clock in the typical Office Space style workplaces. My own timesheet doesn't even ask for times, just the total hours worked for each day and for what contract. My supervisor signs the sheet at the end of the week, and I feel it's more than sufficient. If someone feels that there's some tampering or other shenanigans going on, there are ways to figure that out. Like when they're work doesn't get done, or keeping tabs on when they actually show up and leave the office.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
The tagreader by the front door just scans the RFID implant in the back of my neck every time I walk by! Ahhh, freedom...
Jason
"FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
Why would a field that seems to be defined by unpaid overtime need timeclocks?
Really, it doesn't matter. The only use I see is if you're using it to find out which of your employees aren't smart enough to figure out how to forge, fake, and abuse the system.
No Zen is good zen
I'm a salaried employee, so I don't punch a clock.
Those of our employees that do, however, use a mechanical punch clock with time cards. There's a lot to be said for an incorruptable paper trail when it comes to money owed.
NO CARRIER
I wrote a PHP/MySQL web app for such a task about a year ago. Feel free to contact me if you're interested.
There's a reason why companies use mechanical timeclocks: they're highly tamper-resistant. The Department of Labor and the various state and county workforce commissions have rules governing the collection of employee time data, and those rules are very specific. If you don't use a qualified tamper-resistant system, you're liable. If somebody should decide to sue you for unfairly collecting their time data, you're going to lose.
The solution to every problem is not a whiz-bang gadget.
You know what would be KEWL is a webcam that updates every min and some image processing that says car here or not here for each spot and then given employees assigned parking spots!!!
You could automate the whole process of time clocks for the whole building and even have those too long lunches noted. It's so brillant it's evil. OR the barcode on cars for the whole gate thing, just need to also include it on the exits.
Caveats: car pooling.. (F U environment) and motorcycles (F U rebels.. oh wait) and Bill Gates helo-pad / personal jetpack
If you did it in as week then you'd still find bugs for some time, plus you've just wasted 3k or so of developer time in order to get this amateurish, buggy system.
The only place I ever worked that had a flexi-time system and therefore needed clocking on systems used little mechanical clocks, one for each person which could only be switched on or off with a key. Unfortuantely, it was eventually found that a fault in these clocks made them a fire risk, and as the manufacturer had gone out of business they couldn't easily be replaced.
The management toyed with going for a software-based system, but this was unpopular with the staff as it was felt that the time it would take to boot up one's PC in the morning, logon to the mainframe (this was a while back!) and navigate to the timesheets system would cause, cumulatively, a lot of time to be lost to the staff's flexi-time accounts. There was also the issue of the system forwarding late clock-ons to Personnel (what we used to call HR back in the day), which again could have been unfair as you could have arrived on the premises on time, but might not be able to "clock on" for another five minutes before the hardware and software let you.
In the end, we just went to a paper-based system which worked fine.
Journyx Timesheet is a nice, lightweight product, and we just rolled it out at my company. An OSS plus is that it is written in Python, although I believe it is compiled. It is webbased, and uses anything you can hook up via ODBC for the back end. We run it on a beefy desktop and it is responsive enough for 70-some users. Not affiliated, just a satisfied customer and all that jazz.
Well, generally I come in at least twenty minutes late, I sneak in through the backdoor so Lumberg won't see me, then for the next hour I just kinda space out.
Q: Space out?
A: Yeah, I just kinda stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working... I'd say in a given week I do about, oh, 15 minutes of real, actual work.