time | PK4 Tech

10 ways to track time! Part 2

by Surekha Shetty | Aug 3, 2020 | Software, Time Tracking

Good to see you back. In Part 1 of this blog, we explored the four ways in which you can track time inside Salesforce. Today, we’ll move on and explore how you can track time on the web and on the Time Tracker mobile app. Remember that in all these cases, all your time tracking data is still safely within Salesforce. One other thing to remember is that users who use the Time Tracker on the mobile or on the web, do NOT need to be Salesforce users.

On the Web
There’s two ways to track time on the Time Tracker Web app. You can track time by checking in time for multiple tasks/activities or you can use a timer that you can Start/Stop as you do your work.

Check In/Out: Checking In/Out on the Time Tracker web page means that you are Starting / Ending a timer as you work on a Project / Task (or whatever has been configured for you). You do this by selecting

the Check-in button on the top right hand corner of your screen when you login to the Time Tracker Web. You simply select the Project / Task that you are working on. Key in any notes that you want your manager/supervisor to see and click on the Check-in button. This option tracks time as you are working on a Project/Task. When you are done working, click on the Check-Out Now button, if you want to Check out at the current time. If you forgot to Check-Out at the time that you actually finished your work, you can put in the actual hours and minutes that you worked on the task and click on the Checkout button. This will work as long as the Check-in time plus Hours Worked is less than the Current Time.

Multi Check In: Use the multi check-in option, when you want to add timesheet entries for Project / Task that you worked on each day from

the drop downs, Add any information that you need on the additional fields configured for you. Fill in the Start and End times for the activities that you worked on. You can enter up to 10 different activities on this screen. When you are done, click on the Submit button. If you have more activities that you need to add in, you can do so.

A Manager/Supervisor can also Approve / Reject timesheet entries put in by people that report to her.

On the Time Tracker Mobile app

The Time Tracker mobile app works on both iOS and Android devices.There are four different ways that you can track time on the mobile app. Checking in/out as you work on an activity OR manual entry after you’ve completed the activity. We also have a Kiosk mode that you can use as a replacement for a punch clock. This is really useful in a factory/warehouse/office setting where you want all your employees to Clock In and Clock Out as they start and end their work for the day The Time Tracker Team mode allows a Team Lead/Supervisor to Clock In/Out individual team members and then Check In all Clocked in team members.

Check In / Out: As in the other cases, Check In/Out means that you are starting a

timer for work that you are currently working on. There are two ways that this works. If you are set up as an Individual User, you can check in/out of Projects / Tasks on your mobile device. This is a good option for Exempt employees who need to track time for billing/invoicing. If you are set up as a Personal User, you can clock in at the Start of your work day and Check In/Out of multiple Projects/Tasks with different check-in types. Some check-in types that our customers currently use include options for Job, Travel, Loading, Cleanup, etc. This option is good for non-Exempt employees for whom you need to track hours and breaks for payroll purposes. On the mobile, you can configure the app to collect GPS locations at specific transactions. Users can also take pictures at the jobsite and add them in.Users on the mobile can get notifications, when they are assigned a project or when anything changes on their projects.

Manual Entry on the mobile: Sometimes, you may want to enter your time

Manual Time Entry - Mobile — Manual Time Entry – Mobile

details after the actual work is done. You may have forgotten to enter the time, your phone could have been out of charge or perhaps you left your phone at home, Whatever the reason, you may not have been able to Start/Stop the timer as you worked. In such a case, you do have the ability to add the Project / Task that you worked on along with the Start and End Times for the work done. You can add multiple manual entries. You could use this mode of timesheet entry, if you are adding all of your timesheets after completing the work. In general, we suggest that you do this at the end of the day, so you don’t forget things that you have worked on.

Team Mode check ins for entire team

In the Team mode, only the Team Lead needs to have the Time Tracker on his/her mobile phone. The Time Tracker configuration in Salesforce lets you set up Teams with a Team Lead. When you set up Users in Salesforce, you can assign

them to specific teams.

When the Team Lead of a specific team logs in, she sees the names of all the people on her team. The Team Lead can Clock In each member of the Team as they arrive for work. When the Team Lead clicks on the Start Job, Start Travel or Start Loading buttons, all Clocked in Team Members are checked into the Selected Project and Task for that Check in type. When the Team Lead clicks on Stop on the previously Started Check in type, all checked in Team Members are automatically checked out of that Project / Task. This is a great option for teams working together on Construction/Landscaping/Installation type of work. GPS locations and photos can be configured to be collected at the jobsite.

Team members can be transferred between teams for better utilization. A Team Lead can Release a Team Member from her team, if needed. Another Team Lead can “Add” the released Team member to their team, as needed.

Kiosk mode Check In / Clock In

The Kiosk mode can be used in a factory/warehouse/office to replace the

traditional punch card / bio metric time clock. With the Time Tracker in the Kiosk mode, the big advantage is that all time tracking data is in Salesforce and can therefore be used for analysis. Depending on how your Users are set up in the configuration, Users may be able to Check In/Out OR Clock In and then Check In/Out of individual projects. We suggest using an iPad or an Android tablet for the Kiosk. Since multiple people will need to use the same device. The app works just as well on a phone, but the larger format is useful, when you need multiple people to access the device.

So that covers all ten ways of tracking time using the Time Tracker for Salesforce. Whether you want to track time in Salesforce on a web app or on a mobile device, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a solution as configurable and as user-friendly as our Time Tracker for Salesforce.

10 ways to track time! Part 1

by Surekha Shetty | Jul 24, 2020 | Software, Time Tracking

Yesterday, we had a long and interesting demo of the Time Tracker with a fairly large group of people at a new prospect. During the demo, one of the people commented “So you have four different ways of tracking time inside Salesforce”. It struck me that I had never thought about it that way. Perhaps, when you work with the product every day, you gloss over some of these facts.

In any case, this morning, I decided that I’d make a list of all the ways

that you could track time with the Time Tracker. It turns out that there are 10 different ways in which you can track time with the Time Tracker for Salesforce. See my list here on the right. That’s 4 ways within Salesforce, 4 ways on mobile devices and 2 ways on the Time Tracker web app. Pretty cool, huh?

Based on my list, here’s a short description of each of the ways of time tracking and where you could use it.

Within Salesforce

Within Salesforce, you can track time by Check-in, checking in time for multiple tasks using the Multi Check-in, tracking time automatically to specific Salesforce whenever you are on that record in Salesforce and manually entering the time for a specific task when you are on that record.

Check in: Checking in to work within Salesforce means that you

are tracking time to a specific project/task (or whatever has been configured for you). You do this by selecting the Track Time button on the Salesforce Utility Bar. Clicking on the button, pops up a configured window that lets you choose your Project/Task from drop-downs. You can also enter in any notes that you may have. In this case, you are tracking time for an activity as you work on it. So you Check in when you Start on the activity and Check out when you are done.

Multi Checkin: Use the Multi Check in option when you want to

add multiple activities in a time-sheet format. You may choose to add in all your activities for the day at the end of the day or maybe at the end of the week. We suggest doing this on a daily basis, because chances are you’ll have forgotten something important that you did on Tuesday by the end of the week. 🙂 You select the Project / Task / Worktype fields from drop-downs. Fill in the Start and End times or the number of hours that you worked on each activity. By default, you’ll see 5 lines on this screen. Once you click on the Submit button, you can add your next set of activities.

Automatic Time Tracking: This is a great way to track time for

people who spend most of their time inside Salesforce. You do NOT need to Start / Stop a timer like you do with the Check in process. Every time you go to records in Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Cases or any other Salesforce object, an Automatic Timer starts right away. It keeps tracking time until you move away from that record. If you move to another Opportunity, the Auto Timer starts tracking time to the new Opportunity. The Auto Timer can be added to all the objects that you want to be able to track time to.

Single record time tracking: This feature again allows you to easily

track time to specific records in Salesforce. But it’s meant for use when you do NOT want time to be tracked automatically. This is meant for users who want to be able to track time to specific Accounts, Opportunities, Cases. But if the users work primarily outside Salesforce using other tools like AutoCAD, drafting and design tools, then this is a great way to track time. These users can go to the specific record where they want to add their time to. A Salesforce component allows you to add the task and the time that you spent on the activity; while the main Opportunity / Case is automatically selected.

So that’s 4 ways to track time just inside Salesforce. Checkin, Multi Checkin, Automatic Time Tracking and Single record time tracking.

Phew! that was a lot. Next week, we’ll talk about the different ways of tracking time on the Web and on the Time Tracker mobile app. Until then, auf wiedersehen!

Automatic Meal and Rest Breaks – An Employer’s Guide

by Surekha Shetty | Feb 17, 2020 | Software, Time Tracking

ifferent forms of rest breaks are important for your employees’ physical and mental well-being. When structured properly, they can have a positive impact on health and safety and also improve the productivity in your workplace.

Workday Breaks

Breaks during the workday allow employees to rest during the workday. They could be in the form of rest breaks, coffee breaks and meal breaks.

Most national and EU regulations require specific breaks based on the number of hours worked. Depending on the country, some or all of these breaks could be paid or unpaid.

Break Times

Meal breaks and rest breaks are essential for workers during a long work day. The U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not mandate an employer to offer meal or rest breaks to employees. But several states have their own laws that obligate employers to give paid and unpaid breaks to employees.

Whether it is mandatory or not, many employers do allot paid /unpaid time for lunch and other breaks. Federal law does designate what time is considered paid and unpaid.

Tracking Break Times

Lunch and rest breaks can be tricky to track. Some employees may forget to clock out. Others may forget to clock back in, when they start working in. This leads to either minutes being added to employee timesheets or being reduced from their time worked. This means that the timesheets are inaccurate and therefore payroll is inaccurate too. In order to make timesheets more accurate, many employers choose to implement automatic time deductions for meals and rest breaks. This ensure that employees get their daily breaks automatically deducted. This is great for employers who want to ensure that they are paying employees accurately. But many people still question the legality of automatic meal and break deductions.

Are Automatic Break Deductions Legal?

Yes! According to the U.S Department of Labor (DOL) and FLSA, it is legal for employers to automatically deduct lunch breaks. As long as the employee actually takes the lunch break. A legal meal break has to last at least 30 minutes according to the FLSA. The key is that employers need to communicate meal periods unambiguously to employees.

Unpaid Meal Breaks

States that enact meal break laws require a half hour break if the employee’s work day is longer than 5 or 6 hours. These meal breaks must be at least 30 minutes long, according to the FLSA. Meal breaks are uncompensated as the employee does not perform any work duties during this time. If an employee works during the meal break, she has the right to be paid for that time.

Paid Rest Breaks

Rest periods are smaller breaks that are 5 to 20 minutes long. These breaks are compensated as they are considered normal working time. Some states require 10-minute break times for every 4 hours of an employee’s shift. These short breaks are generally considered to promote better productivity.

You can find more information about which hours are considered paid and unpaid.

Keeping Track of Breaks Automatically

You can keep track of your employee’s work times by implementing an easy-to-use time tracking app in your operations. With the Mobile Time Tracker’s Auto Breaks feature, you can automatically deduct time from employee timecards, based on the specifications that you have set up. You can add as many break rules as you need to ensure that your employees break times are properly accounted for.

Why use the Auto Breaks Feature?

Managers and Administrators have a lot on their plates when it comes to tracking employee times. Week after week, they need to make sure that all employee work and break time is recorded automatically. The Time Tracker’s Auto Breaks feature does the heavy lifting for you. It can automatically apply the break rules, based on the rules that you have set up.

Make sure that you are complying with all federal and local laws concerning break times. That way you avoid trouble with employees, DOL and FLSA. And you make sure that your payroll is accurate.

Image by Engin_Akyurt from Pixabay

Automatic Case Time Tracking in Salesforce

by Surekha Shetty | Jan 8, 2020 | Software, Time Tracking

Assume that your Customer Support gets a Case that comes in late Friday evening. It doesn’t get worked on until Monday morning. While your Support Team spends just 10 minutes working on the Case, the Case Age calculation tells you that it took almost 3 days to close! Throws your Case handling metrics completely out of whack, doesn’t it? So how do you find the actual time spent on the Case?

With the PK4 TimeTracker version 1.52, we’ve introduced a new Lightning Component to automatically track time. You can select the Objects that you want to automatically track time for. Your Salesforce Administrator can set up the Lightning Component for any/all objects that you want automatic time tracking for. In this specific case, your administrator sets up and activates the Track Time component for Cases.

The Track Time Lightning Component

Case Console with automatic timer — Automatic Time Tracker component

Now, every time an agent opens the Case View page for a specific Case, the timer automatically tracks time spent viewing the Case. If the agent closes the view page or navigates away to a different page, we automatically update a Time Detail log. Let’s say your agent navigates to a specific Case multiple times, then we create a Time Detail log each time. Assume different agents access the same Case, then each agents’ time is tracked against that Case. And your agents do not need to click on a timer or do anything special. All she does is View the Case that she’s working on. Finally, a simple Salesforce report gives you a summary of all the time that has been spent by one or more agents on that Case.

Increased visibility

Your Case metrics are no longer skewed by night times, weekends, or holidays. You get a clear insight into actual time spent by agents on

Time Detail Case Report — Case Time Report

Cases. You no longer need to guess why some Cases take longer than others. The data and statistics are clear and compelling.

Accountability

Your staffing decisions, reports, stats to leadership, and service bills to customers all have solid data to back them up. Respond to questions about time spent with confidence.

Native Salesforce component

The Track Time component integrates seamlessly into your Salesforce Lightning environment. All-time tracking data is safely stored in Salesforce. That makes integration with billing and payroll systems simple and effective. And with Salesforce, it’s easy to create any additional reports you need.

More uses of the Track Time component

Assume that you set up the Track Time component on your Salesforce Accounts object. Law firms can easily use the Track Time component to track time that lawyers and paralegals spend on specific customer accounts. Now you can manage billable time with minimal effort.

Set up the component on Opportunities or Leads. You get a complete insight into how much time your Salespeople are spending on each Opportunity.

Set up the component on Projects. Now you have a view of the time your operations team spends on Projects.

The possibilities are endless with automatic time tracking.

Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash

6 Top Time Clock Rules for Hourly Employees

by Surekha Shetty | Nov 12, 2019 | Mobile Apps, Software, Time Tracking

As an employer, you have many responsibilities but perhaps the most important one is complying with government rules and regulations. Recently, the time clock rules for hourly employees have changed and you need to make sure that you comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). You need to be compliant in recording work hours, breaks, overtime and calculating wages for hourly employees.

The Department of Labor (DOL) is very strict about enforcing time clock rules. If you break these rules, your company can be penalized with substantial fines for every lapse. The best way to ensure that you fulfill federal and state time clock rules is to use a good time tracking software system. Ensure that the system tracks employees clocking in and out at the beginning and end of their workday. And lets them check in and out of specific jobs/projects.

Hourly Vs Salaried Employees

When understanding the FLSA rules, the most critical thing is the difference between salaried and hourly employees.

A salaried employee receives pay based on an annual sum or salary. As the employer, you decide the pay period – weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. A salaried employee is not obligated to complete a time sheet, though you may use one for project management or other tracking purposes. The salaried employee’s pay is based on the salary as a whole, rather than on the actual hours worked. So, if a salaried employee works a little over or under the normal 40-hour work week, the employer doesn’t need to keep track of their work hours.

An hourly employee, gets paid by the hour for the number of hours that they worked. As the employer, you decide how many hours your hourly employee must work. Some US states and cities have authorized predictive scheduling laws that mandate that hourly employees be given a specified amount of notice of the hours they need to work.

An hourly worker is obligated to record their working hours through a timesheet or timecard system that the employer must verify.

Time Clock rules for Hourly Employees

To help you with your FLSA obligations with hourly employees, we reviewed the important rules that you need to keep in mind. These rules are for your hourly employees clocking in and out and tracking their work hours. Here are the top 6:

Time tracking system
Reported Hours Rounding
Maintaining time sheet records
Clocking in and out
Confirming hours
Clarifying time tracking policies

Time Tracking System

The FLSA does not obligate you to use any specific kind of time tracking system.

Mobile and web time tracking — Mobile, web & Salesforce time tracking

You are free to choose any type of system to track employee time as long as it is accurate. It’s important that the system that you use tracks actual hours worked including any breaks.

dftly’s Time Tracker app is used by many businesses to track time for individual employees and teams. It works on mobile devices, on web pages and within Salesforce, with all time tracking data securely inside Salesforce, regardless of what device it was recorded on. Click here to see how your employees can record their time easily and accurately, wherever they may be working.

Rounding work hours.

The FLSA allows you to round your employees’ reported time to the nearest specified increment. You are permitted to round your employees’ time up or down. For example, if you are rounding off in 10-minute intervals and your employee finishes work at 5:16 p.m., the time should be rounded up to 5:20 p.m.

You need to round up and down fairly. If you are always rounding down (where minutes are deducted), you may be breaking overtime and minimum wage laws.

Make sure that your time tracking system automatically rounds up or down to ensure accuracy and fairness. If the rounding up has caused your employees to be entitled to overtime, then you are obligated to pay that overtime, based on the overtime laws for your state/city.

Maintaining time sheet records?

Employers are required to keep time cards (or other records) that demonstrate how your hourly employees wages were calculated for a period of at least two years. The two-year period is required by the US Department of Labor and you are required to provide access to the Wage and Hour Division access to inspect your records when necessary. So make sure that your time tracking software can store timesheet records for as long as necessary. With the Time Tracker, since all records are stored securely in Salesforce, you can always maintain time records for the necessary time-frames.

Clocking in and out

As the employer, you can decide whether your hourly employees are allowed to clock in early or clock out late. However, it should only be a few minutes and not hours. With the Time Tracker, you can easily add a limit on clocking in early and clocking out late. In addition, you can configure the Time Tracker to automatically log out or check out an employee after a certain number of hours or minutes for mandatory break times.

Confirming hours

Your hourly workers should have the opportunity to confirm their hours at the

end of every pay period. Although a good time tracking system would have recorded the work time accurately, your hourly employees should be able to review and verify their hours,

Your time tracking system should give you or a designated supervisor/manager with the functionality to approve time cards. In addition, you or the manager should receive emails notifications if there are any anomalies in the time cards.

Clarifying time tracking policies

As the employer, you must inform all hourly employees of the policies and procedures regarding your time clock rules. We suggest that you include it as part of your employee handbook and provide training on how to use the time tracking system. Policies that should be explained include:

What happens if employees are caught tampering, or attempting to tamper with the time tracking system
The consequences if employees are caught trying to commit time theft
What happens if employees are caught buddy punching (trying to clock in and out for their colleagues).

Make the right choice for your business

Given the importance of adhering to time clock rules, it may be impossible to adhere to state and federal requirements, with just manual time cards. Investing in a good, accurate time tracking software system is the right choice for most businesses. It’s not just about potential legal and compliance problems, but you could be losing money on payroll, if you are not correctly calculating work hours with overtime and rounding.

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