The Manage Connections Screen

by | Feb 23, 2014 | How To, Tips and Tricks, Using the Software

The Manage Connections Screen

The Manage Connections Screen

Above you can see the Manage Connections screen. This screen is used to view and manage the connections to your Time Clock MTS database. Generally you won’t need to use this screen for much, but every now and again you may need it to delete old, stale connections that are using up your Time Clock MTS Client Licenses. This can commonly happen two ways. Firstly, you’ve installed the Time Clock MTS Client software on too many computers and you’re continually using up your client licenses (you should only install the Time Clock MTS Client software on as many computers as you are licensed for). The second reason is that perhaps a computer with the client software on it has suddenly died or shutdown incorrectly and you’re going to install the software on a new PC because the old one is kaput. In this case the connection record for the old computer can often not be deleted correctly and you’ll need to remove it manually.

This blog describes the process to remove a connection record from Time Clock MTS.

1. Find the connection you want to remove in the list on the Manage Connections screen. You can identify the computer the connection is coming from by the name of the computer or the MAC address of the computer.

2. Ensure that the computer named is no longer running the Time Clock MTS Client software.

3. Click on the connection record you want to delete.

4. Click the Disconnect button to remove the connection record.

That’s all there is to it, but as always if you have any problems please Contact Us and we’ll do our best to help you out!

Czech Time Clock

by | Feb 17, 2014 | Tips and Tricks

A Time Clock MTS user in the Czech Republic sent us in their time clock data last week and we were delighted to see that they’d translated the main screen labels in to Czech. You can see what this looks like below. Nifty.

Time Clock MTS in Czech

Time Clock MTS in Czech

The user has done this by changing all of the the main screen labels in the software on the Display Settings screen. If you want different time clock stations to have different display languages (for example Czech on one computer and English on another) then you can also translate the screen labels for each different client computer.

Problems with Upgrading SQL Server to Time Clock MTS Version 5

by | Feb 17, 2014 | Tips and Tricks

Some users have reported some problems upgrading to Time Clock MTS Version 5 when they are using SQL Server as a backend database. I suspect this only occurs for users who have imported an Access database using SQL Server Management Studio. It appears that this process creates some indexes and constraints that prevent the upgrade process from occurring. Unfortunately there’s no automated fix because the names of the constraints and keys are randomly generated during the import process and will be different in each case.

The fix for this issue is complex and should only be attempted by users who are familiar with SQL Server and SQL Server Management Studio. If you’re not sure what either of these are or you think I’ve suddenly started talking another language then you’re not the right person to be implementing this fix. Talk to your IT staff or your database administrator before continuing.

You can be sure you’ve got this problem when you see an error like this the first time you run Time Clock MTS Version 5 after upgrading:

version-5-sql-server-upgrade-1

Note down the name of the object (of the form DF_tblEmploy_lngEm_XXXXXX) because we’re going to need that later. Close down Time Clock MTS and open up SQL Server Management Studio.

1. Backup your Database

Before we start this process you should backup your database. In SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) you can do this by right clicking on your time clock database in the object explorer and choosing the Tasks->Backup menu option.

2. Determine Name of Constraints/Indexes to Delete

In SSMS we’re going to determine the names of the constraints and indexes to delete. The first is the one shown in the image above (but of course yours will most likely have a different name). Open up the table tblEmployees in the SSMS object explorer and click on the “Indexes” folder icon. It should look something like the image below. You may see an index called “strEmployeeID” there. If so, note down the name.

version-5-sql-server-upgrade-2

Now scroll down to tblSettings in the SSMS Object Explorer and open the Constraints folder. Scroll through the list of constraints looking for a constraint of the form “DF__tblSettin_lngLa_XXXXXX”. It might look something like the image below. If you find the constraint note down the name.

version-5-sql-server-upgrade-3

Click on the Indexes folder icon for tblSettings and you may see an index named “lngLastEmployeeID”. If you do note down that name.

3. Build and Run a Query to Delete Indexes/Constraints

Now we’re going to build a query to delete the offending indexes and constraints. Click on the New Query toolbar button in SSMS and cut and paste the code below into your new query window.

USE [YourDatabaseName]
GO

/** if you have a lngLastEmployeeID index in tblSettings include this line**/
DROP INDEX [lngLastEmployeeID] ON [dbo].[tblSettings]
/** if you have a strEmployeeID index in tblEmployees include this line**/
DROP INDEX [strEmployeeID] ON [dbo].[tblEmployees]
/** if you have a constraint of the form DF__tblSettin__lngLa__XXXXX tblSettings include this line**/
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[tblSettings] DROP CONSTRAINT [DF__tblSettin__lngLa__XXXXXX]
/** if you have a constraint of the form [DF__tblEmploy__lngEm__XXXXXXX] tblSettings include this line**/
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[tblEmployees] DROP CONSTRAINT [DF__tblEmploy__lngEm__XXXXXXXXX]

GO

Make sure to change YourDatabaseName to the name of your database. Delete the lines from the code that you do not need. For example, if you didn’t find a “lngLastEmployeeIndex” in step 2 then you can delete that line from the code. Also, make sure to change the names of the constraints to match those you found in Step 2. For example, if your tblEmployees constraint was named DF__tblEmploy__lngEm_20C1E124 then you’ll have to change DF__tblEmploy__lngEm__XXXXXXXXX to match that name.

When you’re happy that your query is correct we can run it by clicking the Execute toolbar button in SSMS and the offending indexes and constraints will be deleted.

4. Change Time Clock MTS Startup Settings File

Now you’re going to need to open up the Time Clock MTS Startup Settings file in Windows Notepad. The file can be found here:

c:\Program Data\Time Clock MTS\timeclock.ini

Look for a setting at the bottom of the file called “Version5DatabaseUpdates” and set the value back to 0 (it should be set 1) so that the entry looks something like this:

Version5DatabaseUpdates=0

Save the changes to the file and startup Time Clock MTS and everything should now work just fine.

Time Clock MTS in an Upholstery Company

by | Feb 12, 2014 | News

United Commercial Upholstery of New Ulm, Minnesota are, as their name suggests, a commercial upholstery firm who specialize in seating for golf carts and cushions/stools for locker rooms. They also offer high volume upholstery services, design and color consultations, and CNC fabric and wood cutting. They have been using Time Clock MTS since 2009 and their President, Phil Vorwerk, took some time out of his week to send through an account of how they’ve used the software and the benefits they’ve seen from doing so.

We started using Time Clock MTS in our business in 2009. I wanted a time clock system that would give me a summary of each employee’s hours per pay period rather than the manual time clock we had been using, which required me to enter each punch in and punch for each employee to get a total when doing payroll. Time Clock MTS has filled this need for us exactly as I had hoped, and it has scaled well as our business has grown. We have over 3 times the payroll now as compared to when we first started using the software in 2009, and we are still only using a fraction of the features that are built into the program.

The reason that the software has so many extra features is that the support staff at Time Clock MTS invites and follows up on feedback from its users. They have listened to my suggestions in the past, and if they thought it would be feature that may be of use to other users they have been great about incorporating what they’ve learned into the next update – and the updates are frequent as they constantly tweek the software. I have also realized many benefits that I had not anticipated when I first purchased the software, such as:

1.) We no longer have “accidental” overtime, because it is very simple for employees to check on their total hours for the pay period, and know if they are short hours or approaching overtime hours.
2.) We have a complete, easy to access history of the hours and the punch in times for each employee. This has made it very simple when I need to document the grounds for termination for a few employees, based on frequent absenteeism or tardiness.
3.) Multiple client stations create a network of time clocks all in sync, so employees are able to punch in at one station and punch out at another if it is more convenient.
4.) At any given moment it is simple for me to pull up the software on my own computer and see who is all “on the clock” and what time they punched in.
5.) There are many features built in to ensure the security of the system, such as protection from someone manipulating the system clock, and an option to use a fingerprint reader or camera at the punch in station to prevent “buddy punch ins”.

Phil M VorwerkPresidentUnited Commercial Upholstery IncMinnesota, USA

It’s always great to receive these sorts of customer testimonials, and it’s especially great to receive one that has clearly had time an effort put into it. Thanks Phil and thanks to United Commercial Upholstery.

Time Clock MTS Version 5.0.3 Released

by | Feb 6, 2014 | New Releases

Just a short entry to note the release of Time Clock MTS Version 5.0.2 (yesterday) and Time Clock MTS Version 5.0.3 today. Version 5.0.2 added a check to stop users setting the employee badge number to “0” or “000” or any repeating number of zeros. It also fixed up an issue some users were seeing with deleted emails still displaying on some lists. And finally it addressed a mysterious bug one user was having with adding new employees. I am baffled as to what was causing this as simply rebuilding the software for him seemed to fix up the issue without any actual code changes being made.

Version 5.0.3 was released today, It included one enhancement which now allows emails to be added directly from the Add/Edit Email Alert Screen. This version also escaped XML excluded characters from email alerts which was stopping some email alerts from being sent correctly. And the final change was a fix to all reports where time off (vacation or sick time) was taken on the last day of the report period. This could result in the balance of available vacation / sick time to be incorrect.