by Mark Nemtsas | Oct 30, 2008 | Tips and Tricks
It’s a co-incidence that I’ve done two of these ‘Time Clock MTS in Action’ blog entries in two days. However, I got an email from a user of the software who was using it for such a novel purpose that I just had to write about it! The user in question is using the software to record lap times for a particular type of off road racing where times are only required to be recorded to the nearest second. Rather than explain it myself I’ll quote the email I received directly.
As you may have realized I am using your software for a slightly different area that you may have inteneded!!!
I compete in Offroad racing and we do numerous laps following a desiginated course. Each Competitior /car leaves at 1 minute intervals to complete a lap. At the end of 8 – 10 laps all the times are added together and the overall winners of each class are the shortest combined lap times.
Sorry if ive waffled on or if this is a project that you dont believe is suitable for you software, but I am confident that it has fantastic potential for other small clubs like ours, in the timekeeping area.
You’ll see from the screenshot above that the user has customized the interface of Time Clock MTS to suit his particular application. Some time ago I wrote a blog entry showing you how to customize the Time Clock MTS interface by using the Interface Settings screen. He is also making use of the punchcard report with customized headers and footers to produce race reports.
Well it certainly is an application for Time Clock MTS that I had never considered. If you’re using Time Clock MTS in your business and want to share your story with the rest of the companies that use the software please feel free to contact me with your story.
by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Oct 20, 2008 | New Releases, News
A minor release today fixing up a few problems and improving the way that paid holidays function.
- Payroll report total hours are now calculated from rounded daily values rather than raw daily values. This fixes up some rounding errors that could lead to the weekly total being slightly different to the amount if you totaled up the daily amounts. The difference was small (usually only 0.01 of an hour).
- A ‘last week’ time selection has been added to the Edit Times period drop down.
- The punchcard report now shows time notes. If the clock in time has a note, that will be shown, if there is no clock in time note and there is a clock out time note, that will be shown.
- Holidays can now be set to a specific date in a given year or can be set as recurring. Recurring holidays are those that occur on the same date every year (such as Christmas), non recurring holidays would happen on a different date every year (such as Thanksgiving or Labor Day).
- The holidays list displays some extra info, such as whether the holiday is recurring and what year it is set for.
- The holidays add/edit screen will now display non latin characters (such as cyrillic or Japanese) properly.
by Mark Nemtsas | Oct 20, 2008 | Tips and Tricks
Even though it’s been mentioned here several times before it’s well worth mentioning the security features of Time Clock MTS designed to prevent employee fraud. Here’s an email I received recently:
We have found that our employees are able to manipulate their time by simply changing the computer time. Once they change the time on the computer it changes the time on the MTS time clock thus allowing them to clock out early and leave but yet the timesheet is showing them out at a later time. How is it this software allows that? Is there a way to stop it?
This can of course be addressed by Time Clock MTS. The possible solutions in order of preference are:
- Turn on the internet time synchronization feature. This way the clock in and out times are completely un-related to the PC system clock.
- If 1. is not possible setup the PC with a system policy requiring Windows Administrator permissions to change the system time.
- If 1. and 2. are not possible then turn on the ‘admin password required on software startup’ feature and check the ‘do not allow system clock changes’ checkbox. In this case, users cannot change the system clock while Time Clock MTS is running, and while they can stop the software they cannot re-start it without the admin password. The administrator can then check the PC system time before allowing Time Clock MTS to re-start.
If you want to learn about more of the security features within Time Clock MTS take a look at the Security Features of Time Clock MTS weblog post or at the security features help topic in our online help file.
by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Oct 13, 2008 | New Releases, News
A new release today containing some improvements to the new error reporting started in version 2.1.4. The release also contains some fixes and improvements to reports and some other minor changes.
- If an error is raised on the keypad interface (such as a note being invalid, or an invalid clock in/out) then the employee badge number is cleared from the text box.
- The new error text message is now cleared when a new employee is selected or a new badge number is entered.
- The warning messages on the time note entry screen (zero length note or note equal to badge number) are now displayed in the new error status area.
- All report periods are now selected on rounded times rather than absolute times. Previously this was not the case, so while payment amounts were correct sometimes activity could be missing from a report.
- Accruals in the accrual section on reports are now to the end date of the report rather than the run date of the report.
- <SICK_TIME_OWING_PERIOD> and <VACATION_OWING_PERIOD> added to the accrual report section.
- Fix to report configuration screen where the hide employee summary section check box was not re-enabled after the payroll summary report was selected.
- Removed employee summary section entirely from the simple wages report (didn’t make sense having it there anyway).
- Enlarged the section field selection box on the report settings screen.
by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Oct 9, 2008 | New Releases, News
A minor release today containing one small fix, some error checking, and improvements to the software to make it easier to use with touchscreens. The list of changes includes:
- Camera images are now captured on clock in/out via keypad interface.
- Clock in / out errors are now displayed as a status message on the screen rather than a popup box.
- A check is now made when adding time note, if the note is not added correctly then the created clock in/out is rolled back and an error raised.
