Employee Geofencing Time Tracking App

A large number of businesses make use of field employees to run their day to day operations. From customer service to quality control, it is essential for field managers to closely monitor and track the whereabouts of employees in real-time.

While it is easy to find out when an employee is working, it is a little trickier to find out whether they are present at the site or work. There are plenty of reasons why field managers might need to track an employee's location. For example, if you are in the construction or healthcare industry, you may want to know whether your employees are at the job site or clinic and at what point of time they are present there.

What is a Geofencing Time Clock?

A geofencing time clock is a technology that combines the concepts of geofencing and digital time tracking to monitor employees' work hours based on their location. It's a beneficial tool for businesses with remote workers, field teams, or those that operate across multiple sites.

Geofencing involves creating a virtual geographic boundary using GPS or RFID technology. When a device enters or exits this predefined boundary, it triggers a response or action. In the context of a time clock, the action is typically the start or end of tracking work hours.

Here's how it works: An employer or manager sets up a geofence around a specific worksite, and when an employee with a GPS-enabled device enters the geofence, the time clock software automatically starts tracking their work hours. When they leave the geofence, the system stops tracking.

This technology has several benefits:

Accuracy: By using GPS or RFID, the system ensures accurate and fair time tracking, preventing any discrepancies in work hours.
Automation: The automatic start and stop of time tracking reduces the administrative workload associated with manual time tracking, ensuring employees can focus more on their core duties.
Accountability: It increases accountability among employees by accurately tracking when they are at the worksite.
Compliance: It helps with labor law compliance by maintaining precise records of employees' working hours.
Efficiency: It can improve payroll efficiency by directly integrating hours worked into the payroll system.

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Field managers and supervisors have easier ways to track the location of field employees for efficient field operations.

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What are the Field Operations carried out by Field Employees?

Field staff have a wide range of responsibilities. It encompasses every process in between, from going to the work site to reporting back with the obtained data, such as:

Reporting at the designated location
Acquiring the required information
Getting necessary approvals
Forwarding the same to the supervisor or the field manager

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The challenge for the supervisor or the field force manager here is to know whether the employee has actually been to the work location and has gathered genuine information. This is when Live Tracking and Geofencing with GPS Location come in handy.

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Live Tracking - Monitor Field Employee Movements in Real-Time

Live Tracking, as the name implies, tracks the movement of field employees as they perform their duties in the field. Before heading out to the job site, the field employee needs to enable location on their smartphones, open the mobile application, and begin tracking. Tracking must be stopped once the work is completed and the employee has returned from the job location.

This helps the supervisors and the managers to monitor the movement of field employees in real-time and see the path traveled by the field employee during the site visit.

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GPS Location and Geofencing

Field employees are provided with the GPS location of the site where they have to conduct their work, by being present physically. Geofencing ensures the field employees are present at the work location.

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This is how it works:

Geofencing allows the supervisor or the field manager to set a radius (in meters) around the site or work location, preventing field employees from submitting data if they are not within that radius. By making the field employee ‘geo-fenced’, supervisors and managers ensure that the field employee will be able to submit the data from the site if and only if they are physically present there.

Geofencing ensures that the field employees are truly working in the field and not gathering arbitrary data and submitting just for the sake of finishing the job.

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Live Tracking and GPS Location with Geofencing are both the automations in Field Force Operations

What is Field Force Automation?

Automating the field force operations using software solutions or cloud based solutions is known as field force automation.

Live tracking helps the supervisors and the field managers to monitor the path traveled by the field employee during the whole time of the field work in a single dashboard of a mobile application.

With the geofencing feature, field managers and supervisors can also monitor field employees in real-time who are working outdoors at the site through a dashboard of a mobile application.

The mobile application also sends accurate automated reports, including location, to the manager’s dashboard to easily supervise employee’s activities. This is called Field Force Automation. Automation of Field Force Management ensures transparent and efficient operations of the Field Employees.

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Automation in Clappia for Field Force Management

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Clappia is a No Code platform that allows anyone with basic excel skills in your organization to build powerful business process applications for your field employees, without having to write a single line of code. Field Operations can be efficiently automated just by using simple drag-and-drop blocks and mobile applications can be built for your field employees.

Clappia has a stack of efficient features, including Live Tracking and GPS location with Geofencing, which will help businesses in accelerating the process of automation of their field force operations.

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Conclusion

Live Tracking and GPS Location with Geofencing are crucial elements for supervisors or field managers to increase the rate of productivity and have absolute control over field employees by making the field force operations transparent.

This can be accomplished by using No Code platform to automate field force operations. Clappia, your No Code platform, helps in achieving the automation of all the processes of field force operations through a suite of useful features such as Live Tracking and GPS Location with Geofencing.

Since No Code is the future of application development, it is the only sensible option for businesses to adopt No Code as soon as possible and ‘Future-Proof’ field force management of the business.

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Help Video

FAQ

1. Is Geofencing a tracking?

Geofencing can be considered a form of tracking, as it involves monitoring the location of devices within a defined virtual boundary. By leveraging GPS or other location services, geofencing allows businesses and organizations to trigger specific actions when a device enters or leaves the established area, enhancing user experience or aiding in targeted marketing efforts.

3. Is Geo tracking the same as GPS?

Geo tracking and GPS are not exactly the same, but they are closely related. GPS (Global Positioning System) is a satellite-based navigation system that provides location and time information to GPS-enabled devices. Geo tracking, on the other hand, is the process of monitoring and recording the location of objects or individuals using various technologies, including GPS. In short, GPS is a specific technology used for geo tracking.

5. Geofencing vs Geo tracking?

Geofencing and geotracking are both location-based technologies, but they serve different purposes. Geofencing involves setting up a virtual perimeter around a specified area, triggering actions when devices enter or leave this boundary. Geotracking, in contrast, focuses on monitoring and recording the movement and location of objects or individuals. While geofencing is primarily used for targeted marketing, notifications, or security measures, geotracking is often employed for asset tracking, fleet management, and personal safety applications.

2. Does Geofencing work if location is off?

Geofencing typically does not function when a device's location services are turned off. To ensure accurate location data and enable geofencing, users must have their device's GPS or other location services activated. However, some geofencing systems may use alternative methods, such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, to approximate a device's location when GPS is not available.

4. How accurate is Geo tracking?

The accuracy of geo tracking can vary significantly depending on the technology used and environmental factors. GPS, for instance, can offer accuracy within 3-10 meters in most cases. However, factors such as atmospheric conditions, signal obstructions, or the device's hardware can impact this precision. Alternative geo tracking methods, like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, may provide less accurate location data, often within 10-50 meters.