View in Help Center/New Window

Overview: Geofences are able to restrict the areas your employees are allowed to punch from, but on their own, they can't prevent an employee from punching in at the wrong job site. Follow the steps here to learn how to use Scheduling, Location codes, and Geofences together to prevent employees from punching in at the wrong job site.

Instructions:

Creating and Assigning Location Codes

Assigning Location Codes to Geofences

Assigning Location Codes to Scheduled Shifts

Disabling the "No Shift" Option

How It Works

The first step in preventing employees from punching at the wrong job sites is creating Location codes. If you already have Location codes on file, skip to the next section.

1. Start by navigating to the Settings > Locations page, then click Add a New Location:

2. Give your location a Name, then check the box next to any employees that should be assigned to the location. Click Save at the bottom of the page when you're done:

3. You'll be returned to the Locations page, where you'll see your newly created location:

Geofences are created according to geographic locations, and by default are handled separately from Location Codes. To associate the two features, follow the steps here.

1. Start by navigating to Settings > Geofences, then click Edit next to the geofence you're assigning a Location Code to:

2. On the right side, check the box for Assign all punches inside the Geofence to, then select the desired location code from the Location dropdown and click Save at the bottom of the page:

3. You'll be returned to the Geofences page, where you'll see the selected Location Code listed under the Location Assigned column:

Now that the Locations are assigned to the Geofences, all that's left is making sure the system knows which Location (and associated geofence) an employee is supposed to be working at, which is where Scheduling comes in!

1. Navigate to the Schedule page, then click the open space for the date and employee you're trying to schedule at a certain location:

2. In the shift creation window, after specifying their shift details, be sure to select the Location Code for the job site they'll be working at before clicking Add Shift:

3. The shift will be in a draft state. Click Publish Shift to make it visible to the employee:

As a final step, you'll need to ensure that employees aren't able to use the "No Shift" option. This will make it so that they're only allowed to punch with the job codes they're scheduled at, instead of manually choosing the codes themselves.

1. From the Settings > Scheduling page, uncheck the box for Allow employees to select "No Shift", then click Save at the bottom of the page:

If job codes are selected when creating a shift, those codes will be automatically selected for the employee when they punch into that shift. Assigning job codes to a geofence will automatically assign those codes to the employee's punch anytime they punch from that geofence.

When both Scheduling and Geofences are configured to assign job codes to punches, in order for an employee to punch, they must be punching from the geofence with the same code that was used on their scheduled shift.

If the employee attempts to punch at a different job site than where they're scheduled, they'll get an error stating that the selected Location Code does not match the geofence they're punching from:

Q: Why can't geofences restrict punches from the wrong site on their own?

A: Geofences are intended to restrict employee punches to only specific regions, but on their own, geofences don't have enough information to know which geofence an employee is expected to punch from. In order for them to have enough information, the same Location code must be assigned to the geofence and to the employee's scheduled shift in order for a geofence to prevent them from punching at the wrong site.