TimeSimplicity & Other Product Ideas

Clock Management: Clock Lockout Lunch Period option

Hello Team

         Within the TWP system> Processing Rules> in the "Clock Management" tab, there are the "Meal Tracking" and "Clock Lockout" options. I would like an additional sub-option added to the "Clock Lockout" option, where I could enter in a Lunch Period, the amount of time a lunch is supposed to last, like a half hour, or a whole hour.

Some of our clients only schedule the "first in" and "last out" times for a particular schedule, and are flexible with when an employee takes their lunch, as long as it's within a certain amount of hours, and as long as it's for a specific amount of time. For example, as long as they take their lunch within the first 5 hours of work, and as long as it's for 30 minutes.

Since they are somewhat flexible when it comes to WHEN an employee takes a lunch, they can't really schedule the lunches, at least not without some frustration. (We try to avoid frustrating clients, it makes them cranky.) But IF  the requested changes were to be made, THEN as long as the employee took their lunches within the designated amount of time, like within the first 5 hours, then the employee would be locked out until their 30 minutes for lunch were done. (By the way, WHEN the employee took their lunch wouldn't be a factor in setting this "Lunch Period" Sub-option up. I'm mainly concerned with the "Lunch Period" sub-option clock lockout working. I could care less if they took their lunch within the first 5 hours of work or not!)

Now you currently have the "Restrict employees from Clocking In" option within the "Clock Management" tab, which specifies how early the system will allow an employee to clock in, based on their schedule. This sub-option would work very similarly, except instead of looking at the employee's schedule, we would specify the "Lunch Period" amount of time, and if this option is utilized, then the system will look at this instead of the schedule when it comes to the "Lunch Periods" and revert back to looking at the employee's "Schedule" once the "Meal End" button accepted the employee's punch. It could also either trigger a timer on an employee, once the employee clicked the "Meal Start" button. Or it can be setup to be triggered when the employee clicks the "Meal End" button, and the system compares the "Meal Start" and "Meal End" times and sees if the "Lunch Period" time amount has been reached or not.

Either way this could fix a lot of issues, and probably be quicker over all, then having to try to create a bunch of schedule variations, or adjust lunch periods for every specific employee within a company and then try to force them to keep to that schedule.

This would fill a need, fix a problem, allow for flexibility, save time, and improve the product. You can't lose! True Story! 

Bobby Bowden

Payality

12/13/17 P.S. We just lost a potential client that was ready to start with us, but backed out after they realized that the Clock Lockout feature won't keep an employee from clocking in early unless their lunch is scheduled. And since their old Time and Attendance system would do that, and there are other Time and Attendance systems out there that will do that, they decided not to go with us. We really need to have this addressed ASAP. We're getting requests for this more and more, and existing client's are getting frustrated that we can't do this, and if we're losing potential clients because of this, then it's become a problem that needs to be addressed!

Thank you

Bobby Bowden

Payality

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  • Dec 7 2017
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  • Bill Masur commented
    25 Jan, 2019 06:47pm

    This feature is now available in TWP.  Thanks for your feedback!

  • Bill Masur commented
    20 Dec, 2017 06:57pm

    Hi Bobby,

    Thanks for the feedback!  We are actually working on a meal compliance rule and it will support your scenario.  It will be released early in 2018.  

    Best, 

    Bill