Q. We use Extreme Blue Enhanced. Do I need to resend the profiles from TimePilot Central to the smartphones every time there is a change, for instance a new employee?

A. Yes, anytime you add, delete or modify an employee, you should update the profiles on the app. The process is detailed on page 2 of your Quick Start Guide, but here’s a quick summary:

  1. Start Clock Manager and right-click the image of the phone that will receive the new profile(s).
  2. In the menu that pops up, click “Send Profiles to Phone.”
  3. In the phone app, tap “Settings,” then “Cloud Functions,” then “Get Profiles from Cloud.” It may take a few minutes for the data to arrive.

Repeat these steps for each phone.

Q. Is it possible to re-use the iButtons that were assigned used by employees who have left the company? I’ve tried to clear out the iButton # on their profile and make them inactive, but when I try to use it for a new employee, TimePilot says the button is still attached to that old user.

A. Yes—you can re-use the iButtons over and over. First, though, you will need to make sure any transactions belonging to the iButton’s previous user are removed from your “Current Transactions.” This can be done by extracting your pay periods until all of those transactions are gone from Current Transactions. (Otherwise, TimePilot won’t know whether a transaction belonged to the old user or the new user.) When all of the former employee's transactions are out of Current Transactions, you can then delete that employee's profile, freeing up the iButton. For more on extracting pay periods, click here.

Q. We have a Vetro clock, but we have forgotten its password. Help!

A. Start TimePilot Central and log in. Now click "Setup," then (depending upon your software version) either "Vetro Data Manager" or "Clock Manager". When this opens, right-click on the picture of your Vetro clock and select "Properties." This will show you its current password.

Q. We have a Vetro and one day this week after some of our employees had clocked in in the morning, the screen changed from the clock to blank with one vertical line. I restarted the clock to make it go away. What would have caused this?

A. This could have been caused by a spike in electricity from the wall outlet or a static shock to the clock. Neither will permanently damage the clock and rebooting the clock should resolve the issue. To do so, simply unplug the power cable from the clock, wait 20 seconds and then plug it back in.


Parents get a pass, too!: This one is for the parents of young children: The “Bedtime Pass” system can keep your kids from waking you repeatedly during the night. Children are given a card—the “Bedtime Pass”—that allows them one opportunity to get up during the night. Once they’ve used the pass, they have to stay in bed.

Source

When less is more: Some people like to brag about their 80-hour workweeks. However, a study has found that some men and women are faking it—but they’re getting their work done and receiving promotions and raises anyway. The secret: They’re organizing their workday to reduce (often wasted) time and teaming up with colleagues so all can have more flexible hours.

Source
Welcome!
TimePilot newsletter No. 46

Whether you're a current or future TimePilot customer, we're glad to see you.

Every month we'll offer news about TimePilot products, tips on how to use them more efficiently, some of the "cool stuff" our employees have come across and a special deal available only to those who receive this newsletter!

In this issue:

  • TimePilot Q&A: Updated profiles in Extreme Blue Enhanced; reusing iButtons; forgotten passwords.
  • TimePilot Lead Story: Using Tap+ to track time spent on clients.
  • Cool Stuff: Google Cardboard.
  • The Deal: 25% off iButtons.

TimePilot Tap: It's also
the perfect timekeeper

TimePilot Tap is an extremely versatile little guy, and he can do much more than keep track of your employees’ work hours.

For instance, Tap clocks can be useful to any organization that keeps track of hours spent on a particular project. Below is a hypothetical example of how you could set up such a system to track the timer spent on clients' cases at a law firm. Even if you don't run a law firm, this example might give you other ideas of where to use Tap clocks:

The situation:

For the last 50 years at the Hatfield and McCoy Law Firm, each client’s hours have been recorded on a timesheet that accompanied the client’s file. When an attorney or staffer works with the file, they record their start and end time. Every two weeks the hours are calculated and multiplied by each employee’s hourly rate to get billing totals.

The problems:

  1. Inaccuracy. Attorneys and staffers who forget to keep track of their hours end up making their best guesses. This leads to overbilling or underbilling.
  2. Errors. Manually adding up hours and minutes is a mistake waiting to happen. One study pegs the error rate at between 1% and 8% of total dollars calculated. In other words, if Hatfield and McCoy bills $1 million a year, they may be losing between $10,000 and $80,000 a year.
  3. Wasted time. It takes hours to perform the calculations, and then more time to enter the numbers into an accounting program.

The solution:

The firm puts Tap clocks on the desks of each attorney and staffer. Where convenient, the clocks are connected to the person’s networked computer with a USB cable. If an attorney will be working outside the office, he or she can toss their Tap clock into their briefcase and use it on battery power. When they return to the office, they simply plug the clock into their PC.

Each client file is assigned an iButton, which accompanies the file everywhere. When work is started on that file, the person doing the work simply taps the file’s iButton to the “In” probe of the clock; when they’re done, they tap the iButton to the “Out” probe.

When it’s time for billing, the office manager starts the TimePilot software and downloads the data from the Tap clocks that are connected to PCs. They collect any Tap clocks that are being used outside the office, download the data from them (it just takes a few seconds) and return the clocks to their users.

With all the data in the TimePilot database, the office manager can see whose clock logged what hours and at what rate, as well as how much each client should be billed.The data can be exported to Microsoft Excel, QuickBooks, ADP or other accounting software or services.

The firm’s partners can also install the included TimePilot Central software on their PCs and track their employees’ work.

Taking the solution to the next level, let’s say Hatfield and McCoy also wants to keep a record of when a client’s file is shredded. With a Tap clock, it's no problem.

They use Velcro to attach a Tap clock to their industrial-strength shredder. When the file is brought to the shredder, the employee taps the file’s iButton to the clock’s “In” probe. When the shredding is complete, they tap the iButton to the “Out” probe.

Now there’s a record of exactly when the file was shredded.

The iButton is returned to the office manager, who prepares it for use on another client’s file. iButtons have a lifetime guarantee and can be used over and over.

Hatfield and McCoy's problems are solved: 

  • Inaccuracy: A tap of the iButton at the start and finish result in exact times, not guesses.
  • Errors: Computer calculation is far more accurate than manual calculation, especially when dealing with hours and minutes.
  • Wasted time: All the calculations are done in just seconds, not hours.

And as a bonus, they've also added a record of when a file is shredded.

Do you have a need for a timekeeping system? Contact our sales department at sales@timepilot.com or 630-879-6400—we have the solution!

 

This month’s special offer to TimePilot newsletter readers:

25% off iButtons!


Choose your color, choose your quantity!

5 iButtons: $30 (regularly $39.50)
10 iButtons: $44 (reg. $59)
30 iButtons: $119 (reg. $159)
50 iButtons: $187 (reg. $249)
100 iButtons: $337 (reg. $449)
200 iButtons: $536 (reg. $715)

These prices are available for a limited time. To learn more about the deal, click here, visit www.TimePilot.com/newsletter/newsletter4.htm or call us at 1-630-879-6400.

Every once in a while, our employees come across “cool stuff.”
This is where they share their finds.

Google Cardboard

So what's all this talk about virtual reality, anyway? If you have a smartphone—iPhone or Android—and $20, you can find out. Google has designed a cardboard virtual reality viewer that folds together. (For those of us of a certain age, it's a bit like a View-Master.)

You assemble the cardboard viewer, download a VR app to your smartphone and place the phone inside the viewer. Looking through the lenses in the viewer, it's like you're really there. You can look left, right, up and down, and see things. There are games, documentaries (the New York Times has made a bunch of them) and music apps. You can stand on the stage while the White Stripes are playing, fly over New York City, ride a roller coaster, test drive a Volvo or play a great Star Wars game. Make sure you use your headphones—sound makes it seem even more real.

For the viewer: Google Cardboard    For a list of great apps: Wareable.com