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Time and attendance and access control in one system
Access control and time and attendance ask the same question about the same person in the same second: who has just gone through, and in which direction? Historically, two different systems answered it, because they came from two different suppliers, and that is how you end up with sites where two readers hang side by side at the entrance.
Apart from the second set of hardware, a split like that means reconciling every month. HR has an entry at 5:58 in one system and at 6:01 in the other, and someone has to decide which one is true.
In TraxSystem, time and attendance is built from the access control passage log. It is a single record, so there is nothing to reconcile.
Working time report for HR
The working time report in TraxSystem shows the presence periods of a selected employee over a selected date range, based on card reads at the readers. It shows every entry and every exit, so a dispute about a missing day is settled at the screen, on the basis of the recorded reads.
The summary gives totals for a group or for the whole plant, with export to Excel and PDF. The export headers are translated, so a file going to a head office abroad doesn’t need retyping.
Work schedules are defined separately: shift patterns, shift groups and advanced schedules. A working shift can run past midnight, in which case 00:00 is treated as 24:00 of the previous day, because that is how HR counts it.
What time and attendance does not do
Before talking to HR, you need to know that some expectations of time and attendance systems concern things this module does not cover. Time and attendance in TraxSystem does not calculate pay: it supplies the time and knows nothing about rates, allowances or pay components. Nor does it handle holidays or absences. Holiday requests, sick leave and business trips are a matter for the HR and payroll system, and TraxSystem only shows that there were no card reads on a given day.
The system does not replace the working time records kept by the employer; it is a source of data for them. The employer is responsible for making sure the records comply with the applicable employment law.
Time and attendance does not recognise people biometrically. Identification is based on the card, so a card handed to a colleague will be counted as presence. Anti-passback control and taking the direction from the access point type work against this, but no card-based system solves it completely.
Frequently asked questions about time and attendance
Will the data reach our HR system?
Export to Excel and PDF works straight away. We build direct data exchange on our application programming interface; we don’t have a ready connector for any particular HR system and don’t promise one in our quotes.
Do we need separate readers for time and attendance?
No. Time and attendance uses the same passages as access control. Separate readers are usually installed when the moment of entering the site has to be told apart from the moment work starts in the production hall, and then they are points in the same system too.
Who sees whose data?
Only people with the appropriate visibility scope. Employee attendance data is personal data and is subject to the same retention rules as the rest of the data. Visibility scope and retention rules are described on the data security page.
Is the night shift calculated correctly?
Yes. Schedules handle shifts that run past midnight, and 00:00 is then treated as 24:00 of the previous day.
Related
Access controlReports and exportData security
Further reading: Time and attendance vs access control · Permissions vs visibility scope