Using the time clock

The clock lives at /time. It records what a person was doing and for how long, and it is where a repair order's labour cost comes from — so every figure on it is to the minute, and nothing on a saved entry can change without leaving a record of who changed it and why.

Getting on the clock

1. 1

   Step 1: Pick an activity, if your shop uses them

   Activity is the shop's own list — shop floor, training, maintenance, whatever this location set up. It decides whether the time is paid, and it travels with you when you move between jobs.

2. 2

   Step 2: Pick the job, or pick shop time

   Job is what the clock runs against, and it is what prices the labour on that repair order. Shop time — no job is a real answer, not a blank one: sweeping the floor, a parts run and a staff meeting are all paid time with no ticket.

3. 3

   Step 3: Press Clock in

   Clock in opens the entry at that moment. A note is optional. One person can have one punch running at a time, and the database enforces that, so a second tab cannot open a second one.

4. 4

   Step 4: Move between jobs without leaving the clock

   Move to another job and then Move closes the punch you are on and opens a new one at the same instant. The hours already worked stay on the job they were worked on; nothing is carried across. You are never clocked out during a move.

5. 5

   Step 5: Press Clock out at the end

   Clock out completes the entry. Nothing can stop it — not a missing location, not a phone that cannot see a satellite — because a refused clock-out leaves somebody on the clock.

The same three controls are on My day so a technician need not leave their work: Start job when clocked out, Switch to this job when a punch is already running, and Clock out on the clock card. Shop time, manual entries and every correction stay here on the full clock screen.

What the screen says while a punch is running

The clock card says On the clock since and the time of day. When the punch did not open today in the shop's own timezone, it also names the day it opened — on this screen and on My day. A time of day on its own is exactly what this morning looks like and exactly what last Friday looks like, so the day is said whenever those two could be confused, and left off when they cannot.

Beneath it is the elapsed figure, and the sentence that goes with it: an open punch is in no total. It is never counted as zero and never counted as running, because the first undercounts real work and the second lets a forgotten clock-out accrue days of pay. It is excluded and then disclosed — the totals band says how many entries are still open and that their time is not in the figures above.

Reading your week

Three tabs — Today, Week and Month — and every boundary is a boundary in the shop's timezone, not the tablet's. The three figures above the table are Hours present, Paid hours and Breaks: present is time on the clock, paid is what payroll uses after breaks and adjustments, and they are different numbers on purpose.

The table gives each entry its day, both ends, break, paid hours, a Review flag, a Method and a Where, then the activity, the job and the note. Method says whether the punch was made at the clock or typed in afterwards, and names whoever typed it. Where has its own page.

Demo and test entries never appear in a live shop's table or its totals. With the time-clock manager key the page also hangs a card per person and lets you open anyone's log; without it, the page is your own record.

The review flag

At sixteen hours an entry stops being presented as ordinary and carries a Review flag. That is not a cap and nothing is refused: a genuine double shift has to stay recordable, or people start lying to the clock. While a punch is still open the flag appears as a panel on the clock card, saying how long it has been running and that clocking out will stop it. Once the entry is closed the flag is measured from the saved clock-out, so it reads the same on every screen and never depends on the browser's clock.

An entry whose end somebody typed in by hand carries the flag too — Review — closed by hand — however short it turns out to be. The length is not what is worth a second look there; the fact that the end was stated afterwards, instead of recorded when it happened, is.

Fixing a punch after the fact

Three doors, and all three are corrections: each takes a reason, writes the value that was there before beside the value that replaced it, and puts your name on the change. The record is in the same save as the change, so if the record cannot be written the change does not happen. Open Correction history under the table to read every one of them — what changed, by whom, before, after and why.

Add time manually

For the shift that never got punched at all. Give the day, the two times in the shop's own clock, a break if there was one, and the job. Tick Ends the next day for a shift that ran past midnight. The entry is stamped as entered by hand with your name on it.

Attribute a punch to a job

For the punch that went on the wrong job, or on none. This moves the whole punch, including time already worked — which is exactly what Move to another job deliberately does not do.

Close a punch you left open

For the clock-out that never happened. It appears only while a punch is actually running. See below.

A punch left open overnight

Somebody forgets to clock out on Friday at five. On Monday morning Clock out will refuse: the entry is now longer than thirty-six hours, and thirty-six hours is almost always a forgotten clock-out rather than a shift. Start job gives the same answer, and Clock in says you are already clocked in, because a person can only have one punch running.

The way out is on this screen, in the group headed Close a punch you left open. Say when the shift actually ended and why the punch is being closed by hand, then press Close this punch. Day it ended and Time it ended are the shop's own calendar and clock. If your shop has set opening hours, the time is filled in with the closing time on the day the punch opened; if it has not, or the shop was shut that day, the box is left empty for you to type rather than filled with a guess.

The entry closes at the time you gave, the correction goes into the trail with your name and your reason on it, the entry is flagged for review in the table, and the clock is free straight away — the next press of Clock in works. Your own punch needs only the clock-in key; closing somebody else's needs the time-clock manager key, and they have to work at this location.

What the clock refuses