You know those moments when someone points out something that's been right in front of you the whole time? That might be happening right now with your Chronotek Classic system. Beyond the core time-tracking features you use daily, a wealth of powerful tools is just waiting to be discovered. These valuable features can streamline your operations, improve compliance, and give you deeper insights into your business. Let's explore some hidden gems that might make your workday easier and your business run smoother.
Review Clock In/Out Maps from the Workforce Dashboard
When you log in, you may land on the Workforce Dashboard (WFD) and wonder what the colored cells are all about. The yellows and reds are the important cells. Yellow are GPS location violations, and red cells indicate a missed clock out. Did you know you can click into the yellow cells and see maps of where your employees clocked in/out compared to where they should have been? Check out our article, Monitor Employee Activity with the Workforce Dashboard, for more details.
Understanding and Customizing Your List Views
Every list in the system has insightful info with column headers you can sort and views you can change. For example, your employee list at List Maintenance, Employees, has the following column headers:
Zone
Access Code
Name
Status
M (Mobile - for employees who have the mobile app)
You can sort your list by clicking any of the headings. To quickly view everyone currently on the clock, click on the Status column (the Main Dashboard, Employee Status, also offers a great view).
Change How Your Employee Names Appear in Reports
Here’s something you may not know: you can switch how employee names appear in all your reports with one simple setting. Just go to List Maintenance > Employees and use the "View" dropdown to choose between "First, Last" or "Last, First" format. This changes the name display across all your reports, making it easier to find employees and match your preferred format. Your view is custom to you and doesn’t affect other users in your company.
Filter Your Views by Zone
Do you want to view reports or edit time cards just for your Southeast zone? You can easily do that with the zone filter at the top of your screen. Click on All Zones, and a filter box will appear with a Zone dropdown. Select your zone, click “Apply Filter,” and your screen will refresh to that zone. All screens and reports will show data only for that zone. Be sure to change back to All Zones when you’re finished.
How to See Reports on Multiple Zones
But what if you’re an admin and want to see information for multiple zones? Here’s a workaround that few people know about: choose your visible zones under My Account, Admin Site Users, and see information only on the zones you select. Here’s how:
Click on your username.
Choose “Select Zone” at “Visible Zones”
Check the boxes for the Zones you want to view
Save
Your screen will refresh and show data for only those zones. When you are finished, be sure to change it back to “See All Zones.”
Note: The Payroll Snapshot does not zone filter. It will always show time card information for all zones.
See Employees’ Weekly Total Hours for An Extended Date Range
The ACA Report is excellent for viewing the total hours by month and year for each employee and all employees. Many people like it for end-of-year reporting. But did you know you can also view an employee’s total hours by week for an extended date range?
The Over 40 Check Report, under Reports, by Employee, pulls weekly hours for every employee for the date range you choose. Since the primary purpose of this report is to help monitor overtime, the onscreen report is arranged by total hours rather than by week or employee. However, you can export to Excel and re-sort the order.
How to Use the Over 40 Report for One Employee
What can you do when you want a report on one employee and the Over 40 won’t pull for your extended date range? We have a workaround:
Create a new zone called Temporary Zone
Go to List Maintenance> Employees, and select the employee.
Put the employee in the Temporary Zone and Save.
Use the Zone filter at the top of the screen and go to the Temporary Zone. Your screen will refresh.
Go to Reports> by Employee> Over 40 Hour Check
Change the dates of the report and refresh.
Export to PDF or Excel.
Change your Zone filter back to All Zones
Put the employee back in their normal zone and Save
Prevent Employees from Calling from their Cell Phones to Clock In
Are you tired of Bob calling from his cell phone to clock in, leaving you no idea where he is? You can easily block employees’ caller IDs so they can’t use them to call and clock in. Check out this article on blocking employee cell phone numbers for more information.
Store and Track Vital Employee Information
The Notes tab in the employee section under List Maintenance is a great place to store and track information about employees, such as call-outs, performance evaluations, PTO accrued, infractions, warnings given, pay raise dates, etc.
Here’s How to Create Employee Notes:
Go to the Notes tab in an employee’s profile
Add New Note
Type a label: this is like an email subject line; you can reuse it for subsequent notes.
Type your note in the body field and save. Your note appears in a list with a date/time stamp and can be edited or deleted.
Pay Employees Different Rates for Different Work
You may have employees that you pay different hourly wages depending on the work they do. If you run a window cleaning company, you probably pay an employee a higher wage for cleaning windows on the outside of a skyscraper than the windows on the inside, right?
Don’t worry; we thought about that. You can apply different pay rates by separating hours using Job Pay Types and the Payroll Snapshot. For more information, check out the article, How to Pay Different Rates for Different Work.
Quick Hits
Using the Job Activity Detail and Employee Activity Summary reports, you can view the total hours for any job or employee. Then, you can use the dropdown filters for each to select a single job or employee.
Sort the Edit Time Card screen by hours by clicking the Time column.
Add time cards for new employees on the Edit Time Card screen by changing the View dropdown to “All Employees.”
When you see a small gray triangle on the Travel Manager screen, you can click it to access additional information.
In the List Maintenance section, you can export your employee and job lists to view all your information for each quickly, including system settings such as supervisor alerts.
Use Activity Codes to track tasks, approve time cards, and track call-outs.
Use Custom Prompts (dial-in only) to track breaks, inventory counts, tips, and more.
Track open shifts that need to be filled with this workaround.
Track time for independent contractors with this helpful tip.
Did an employee text you that they forgot to clock in 30 minutes ago? Use the Supervisor Clock feature to start their time card at the correct clock-in time.
Review and edit time cards on the mobile app while binging Netflix.
Prevent your employees from seeing all your jobs on the mobile app.
Enhanced location tracking can report when your employees leave the job site while still on the clock (the Support team must enable the feature).
Find the last day an employee worked.
Prevent your employees from clocking in from the parking lot.
Take some time to explore these features in your Chronotek system. Small discoveries can lead to big improvements in how you manage your workforce. And remember, our support team is always here to help you get the most out of any feature – whether it's been hiding in plain sight or you're just ready to put it to work.
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For a complete walk-through of the system, check out our system guide.
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