Why are Public Holidays not Working?

One question we get asked occasionally is from users wanting to use Public Holidays in Time Clock MTS. They setup their holidays using the Tools->Options->Holidays screen, run a payroll report for the time period the holiday should apply, but cannot see that the holiday has been paid to the employee. There are three reasons that this might be the case:

 

  1. The most common reason is that employee is not setup to get paid holidays. Each employee must be setup to get paid holidays by checking the Allow for Paid Holidays checkbox on each employee’s Payroll Information screen.
  2. The employee hire date (set on the Employee Information screen) falls AFTER the date on which the the holiday occurs. So, if for example your employees get paid for the 4th of July and an employee has their hire date set to 10 July then they will not get paid for the preceding July 4th holiday.
  3. The last reason isn’t actually a reason, it’s a mis-interpretation of the payroll reports. Time Clock MTS does not add time punches for public holidays, so if you’re running (for example) a Punchcard Report you won’t see a time punch for the July 4th Holiday. What you will see is holiday hours broken out in the Payroll Information (or Summary) section of the report. See below for an example of what this might look like.
Holiday Hours noted in Payroll Summary Section

Holiday Hours noted in Payroll Summary Section

Last Person Out Message

Whether you’re a store, a doctor’s practise, a dentist, a mechanic, or a factory you need to make sure your alarm is armed each day, the back door is locked, your POS system is shut down, and (of course) the lights are switched off. Recently an astute user of Time Clock MTS suggested that the software could help him make sure that all those routine end-of-day tasks that each and every business needs actually get done. How? By showing the last person to punch out a message. Great idea we thought, so we’ve gone ahead and implemented what we’re calling the Last Person Out Message.

Setting the Last Person Out Message

The Last Person Out Message is set on the Display Settings screen. See the image below and look for the Last Person Out Message text box.

Setup the basic report display settings and time format settings here.

Setting the Last Person Out Message

Showing the Last Person Out Message

Display of the Last Person Out Message is simple, the last person who punches out will be shown the message. See what that looks like below:

Showing the Last Person Out Message

Showing the Last Person Out Message

Be aware that EVERY time the last person punches out this message will be shown, so it could be shown multiple times a day, not just once.

That’s all there is to it, make use of the Time Clock MTS Last Person Out Message to remind your employees of tasks that need to be completed when you’re closing up for the day. It really couldn’t be much easier.

Employee List Messages

We’ve spoken previously about using Time Clock MTS as an Employee In/Out Board. Using it this way is particularly useful for two main reasons, firstly, your employees will know at a glance if someone is currently at work or not, and secondly, in the case of an evacuation due to fire or other emergency you can easily print a list of employees that are at work. However, what happens if an employee is punched in but they are on vacation and you need to know when they are back? Or what if there is an emergency and an employee is punched in but they are off-site doing a client visit or attending a training course? To handle that situation we’ve got a system called Employee List Messages. These are neat little messages that can be displayed next to an employee’s name if you’re using the Employee List Interface. Those same messages will also be displayed on the Employee Status Report which can be printed quickly in the event of an emergency.

Employee List Messages in Action

Employee List Messages in Action

Above you can see what employee list messages might look like in action. Note that Frank Hardy has a message next to his name as does Melissa Minh. You’ll see those same messages next to to the employee names when you print the Employee Status Report.

Entering Employee List Messages

Employee List Messages are controlled from the Time Clock MTS Administrator software from the Tools->Employee List Messages menu. You must be logged in as the administrator to access the menu.

The Employee List Messages Screen

The Employee List Messages Screen

Above you can see the Employee List Messages screen annotated to explain what the toolbar buttons do. Adding a message for an employee is dead simple, just click on the employee’s name in the list and then click the Add/Edit Message button and you’ll be able to enter message for that employee using the screen below:

Entering a Message

Entering a Message

Note that you can just double click on an employee’s name and you’ll be able to add or edit the message without needing to click the toolbar button first. There are some other useful buttons that make editing messages a bit easier. The Clear Selected Message button will clear the message for the selected employee, the Clear All Messages button will clear the messages for all employees. The Restore Original Messages will reload all messages if you happen to make an unfortunate mistake with the Clear All Messages button.

That’s all there is to it. Employee list messages are a great way of keeping your employees informed of the whereabouts of each other, they are also a great way of keeping an up-to-date employee location list in the case of an emergency. It’s easy to use and something that will prove to be useful to almost any Time Clock MTS user.

Post a Review of Time Clock MTS Online

We’re always interested to hear what users of Time Clock MTS have got to say about the software. When we receive a review or testimonial we post it over on our customer reviews page. Other people have posted up reviews via online review sites, which is always great as it helps get the word out about Time Clock MTS. If you’re feeling like you want to share your experiences (good or bad) with Time Clock MTS with the world at large then we’d love it if you posted a review online. There’s a number of ways you can do this, but we suggest one of the following methods:

If you’re wondering what other people have had to say about Time Clock MTS use the slider below to look through all of them:

Time Clock MTS and WebRoot Anti Virus

An update released for the WebRoot Anti-Virus / Cyber Security software on or about the 24th or 25th of April 2017 has started identifying the main Time Clock MTS executable file as suspicious and quarantining the file. Of course our program files do not contain any sort of malicious payload and this is a false-positive on behalf of the WebRoot product. It turns out the update to the AntiVirus software has broken all sorts of Windows programs and even Windows itself. This has hit the mainstream media, see the Denver Post, The Register, and Bleeping Computer for more information.

While I am sure that the authors of WebRoot will fix up their software soon enough it’s best to add an exception to WebRoot to stop this sort of thing happening in the meantime. WebRoot includes options to ignore particular files during scans and real time shielding.

How to Exclude a File from All Scans and Shielding in WebRoot

How to Allow (Ignore) a File During Scans – Direct Link to WebRoot Website

The files you need to ALLOW for Time Clock MTS to run correctly are:

64 Bit Versions of Windows

C:\Program Files (x86)\Time Clock MTS\timeclockmts.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Time Clock MTS Client\timeclockmtsclient.exe

32 Bit Versions of Windows

C:\Program Files\Time Clock MTS\timeclockmts.exe
C:\Program Files\Time Clock MTS Client\timeclockmtsclient.exe

Fire or Emergency Evacuation Tip

Time Clock MTS has a useful feature that can be used in the event of an emergency evacuation or fire.  The time clock administrator can immediately print out an employee status report which can then be used to determine who should (or should not) be present after an evacuation. Here’s how to print the report:

The Current Status Report Menu

The Current Status Report Menu

  1. When using the Time Clock MTS Administrator Software or the Client software with the Reports User enabled go to the Reporting->Current Status Report Menu (see image above). 
  2. Printing Immediately

    Printing Immediately

  3. You’ll be asked if you want to print the report immediately (see above).  Choose the Yes option and you’ll be given the chance to select a printer (see image below) on which your report should appear shortly.
  4. Choosing a Printer

    Choosing a Printer

That’s all there is to it. You might be wondering why users need to log in before being able to print this report? The answer is that when it was available without logging in first we had many (many), oh so many reports of employees printing the report accidentally (or perhaps deliberately) in their day to day use of Time Clock MTS. Hence, it’s now only available when logged in.

This guide is just one of many you can find over at our Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guides page