Tips For Integrating Time & Attendance |
At CNY Centro, Inc. we had a long standing issue of how to capture time and attendance for our maintenance employees. We had an old outdated system that we were using that hadn’t been supported for quite a while. We also knew that, at some time in the near future, it wouldn’t work anymore. We had looked at other time and attendance programs in the past, but didn’t find one that would fit our needs until Vista Time came along.
We looked at a demonstration of the product and were excited with the possibilities. We looked into the cost of Vista Time compared to other programs and decided that it was time to get a new time and attendance program. Vista Time was the one we chose hands down for many reasons. The biggest one is that integrates with the payroll system we are currently using.
Before the process began nettime solutions sent us a spreadsheet to complete. It basically asked for detail regarding our business rules. We needed to include several other managers in our organization in this process to make sure that this information we provided was complete and correct.
The first item we needed to work on was how our employees would clock in and out through the new system. PDS arranged for nettime solutions to test our current door access cards. We have HID access cards and two different types of fobs. We had no issues with the door access cards or the fobs working with the new system. There were several employees who had a card and a fob, so we had to identify which door access card they were using. The card number then had to be entered into Vista Time as a badge number.
Next, we decided how many clocks would be needed. We have seven locations (one per location with an extra clock for backup) where our employees punch in and out. We did not install clocks in two locations due to the number of employees that utilize that area. Those employees would be able to clock in and out through a Web browser using Vista Time. The clocks required a network drop and setup.
Once we got the hardware issues straightened out, we were able to move on to setting up employees in Vista Time. Employee data between Vista and Vista Time needed to be synchronized. Within the Vista System Administration application, the Vista Time Configuration page needs to be populated before the synchronization process can begin. This should be coordinated with PDS. Once that was done we were able to go into PDS and set the flag “synchronize to Vista Time”. This gave the administrator’s access to Vista Time via Vista without having to sign on again.
Vista Time generally uses employee ID number as an identifier. Since we have five different pay companies, we had two employees with the same employee ID. Therefore, we modified a PDS user exit to convert employee ID to person ID. We also run a nightly update to verify that the employee ID is equal to the person ID.
There are several other areas to keep in mind during the setup process:
- Rounding rules: Decide how you want to round beginning of day, end of day, meal period, and any other time you may use.
- Employee schedules: Gather all schedules. It is easier to customize a schedule per employee than make changes for daily exceptions.
- Shift differentials: Know when your shifts start and end.
- Overtime rules: Is your overtime calculated daily or weekly?
- Employee groups: Decide on a reporting structure to allow supervisors to see and approve times and requested time off for the appropriate emploeyes. The reporting structure is important to decide ahead of time. Designated administrators need to have access to certain employees and they should not have access to others.
- Training: Who to train and when.
- Pay codes: Try to keep pay codes the same throughout all pay companies.
- Labor levels: Decide whether these are needed.
Best of luck in your own implementation!
Linda Montroy
HR Manager
Central New York Regional Transportation
lmontroy@centro.org