Why use the attendance program?
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In compliance with the labor law to accurately track the work hours for hourly-paid employees.
Depending on where your MSP is located, the local labor laws might require you to keep a detailed clock in/out record for the hourly employees. There are multiple stories about MSPs' lost lawsuits due to the mis-category of the hourly employee into salaried employees or not having timekeeping software that keeps detailed in/out/lunch/break for hourly employees.
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Provides insight into your team’s current status
- Current attendance status: Who's working, on break/lunch, or out for the day.
- Current in-progress ticket status
- Color coding based on the ConnectWise / Autotask Ticket priority color setting
- Shows how long the ticket has been in progress.
- In-progress ticket status is attached to the user who changed the ticket to in-progress status.
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Accurate work hours for accurate utilization calculation
- We can use in/out/break/lunch records to calculate exact work hours in the utilization calculation, instead of using the standard 8 hours a day as the denominator. Below is an example of a message sent to the end-user every day 10 minutes before the logout time:
- We can use in/out/break/lunch records to calculate exact work hours in the utilization calculation, instead of using the standard 8 hours a day as the denominator. Below is an example of a message sent to the end-user every day 10 minutes before the logout time:
What's New?
- ONSITE button and status. Use for technicians who are doing on-site services at the client's location.
- New and Organized Attendance App Menu:
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Auto-detect the integration connections, such as ConnectWise integration, Autotask integration, will display the current ticket the member is working on or display the ticket for which the member changes the status to In Progress, based on your settings. It will also show the duration of the tickets in progress:
- New Attendance Record with "TEAM" option: Additional feature under SETTING to group members to TEAM (Groupings):
- Settings | Team Members grouping:
- Modify the Bots from within the Attendance App:
How to use Attendance Manager
A. Use the Attendance Manager in Microsoft Teams by typing the appropriate command.
- in: Updates your status and records the time you started working in the database.
- in at [time] because [reason]: Tells the bot the actual time you started working and why you weren't able to clock in on time.
- break: Updates your status and records the time in the database.
- lunch: Updates your status and records the time in the database.
- back: Updates your status from break or lunch to your previous working status, such as BACK to IN/WFH/ONSITE, and records the time in the database.
- out: Switches your status to OUT and records the time you stopped working in the database.
- out at [time] because [reason]: Tells the bot the actual time you finished working and why you weren't able to report so on time.
The Attendance Manager bot recognizes the 24-hour format (HH:MM) for timestamps. Follow this format when using the commands in at [time] because reason and out at [time] because reason to ensure you get a response from the bot and your clock in or clock out is recorded.
B. Use the Attendance Manager from the MSPbots app.
You can also log attendance using the button on the Attendance dashboard in the MSPbots app. Read the article Attendance Manager Dashboards for the steps.
What is in the ticket number panel?
The ticket number is displayed when the employee changes a ticket's status in ConnectWise or Autotask to the "In-progress" status. Hovering over the ticket or clicking it will show the ticket's details.
The time displayed on the ticket number shows how long the ticket has been in the "In-progress" status.
The color coding on the Attendance dashboard is based on the color settings in Connectwise or Autotask.
How to hide or disable users in the Attendance Dashboard
Generally, you can hide or disable members in your company who do not need attendance, such as admins.
However, we recommend keeping at least 1 Admin as an attendance admin user so that the Admin can view the attendance dashboard.
However, we recommend keeping at least 1 Admin as an attendance admin user so that the Admin can view the attendance dashboard.
- Go to Attendance on the MSPbots app.
- Click Settings, and select Users Work Schedule.
- In the Attendance column, click the Disable attendance button in the row of the user that needs to be hidden.
- To hide multiple users, select the names of the users to be hidden and click the Disable attendance button. This action disables the attendance function for users.
- To enable or show users, click the Enable attendance button.
- To hide multiple users, select the names of the users to be hidden and click the Disable attendance button. This action disables the attendance function for users.
- Use the Refresh Data button next to the MSPbots logo, the user should no longer show up in the attendance dashboard.
Bots related to the attendance program
Clock In Reminder | Reminds users after their shift's start time to clock IN. |
Clock Out Reminder | Reminds users after their shift's end time to clock OUT. |
Task Prompter (Beginning of Day) | Reminds users before the start of their shift to clock IN. |
Task Prompter (End of Day) | Reminds users before their shift ends to wrap up their remaining tasks and clock OUT when done. |
Time Exceeded Alert (Break) | Reminds users to clock 'BACK' when they've gone over their 'break' schedule. |
Time Exceeded Alert (Lunch) | Reminds users to clock 'BACK' when they've gone over their 'lunch' schedule. |
Set up the work schedule
- A work schedule is needed to remind users to check in and check out.
- Some bots like the Tech stats review bot use the information in the work schedule to alert the user based on their check-out time.
- Go to the Attendance Manager, click Settings from the main menu, and select the Users Work Schedule
- Template Setting to add or change the current schedule template.
- Use the Batch apply to apply the schedule template to multiple users.