NFC stickers are stickers which utilise Near-Field Communication (NFC) to interact with a smartphone. These stickers are usually located on certain objects, or in different areas, allowing the user to contact their smartphone against the sticker, which causes an action to occur.
In the case of TimeTac, we use NFC stickers as quick methods of tracking arrival at specific locations. This allows many interactions in multiple locations within a short period of time; it also further automates the time tracking process, requiring even less input from the user.
Some industries that already use this technology include security firms patrolling various buildings, as well as care workers that visit patients at their places of residence.
NFC Time Tracking with Employee Time Tracking
As the Employee Time Tracking solutions allows the tracking of working time and not working time divided between different tasks, the use cases of NFC stickers are limited. However, the stickers can still be useful for increasing the speed of interaction when tracking time in the office. Employees would simply need to contact a smartphone against an NFC sticker to begin tracking their working time.
Correct Setup of Projects and Tasks
If you are using Project Time Tracking, you will already be familiar with the Projects and Tasks structure of TimeTac.
Tasks are what time is recorded against in TimeTac. Use this as your focal point for calculating what time should be recorded against. For example, care workers would want to record their time by patient and perhaps commuting time in between. Security companies may want to record the amount of time spent patrolling a specific building.
You can group your tasks into projects as you see fit. Look at the following examples:
In the example of the health care company, the first level of projects grouped areas and regions together. We can then see that a second level of projects was used, grouping the type of visits together. Finally, we have the tasks within these second level projects, with each task representing a patient that they would visit.
The security company only used a project to group areas and regions together. The tasks within these projects are the specific buildings that they patrol.
Visits to Multiple Locations
With an NFC sticker located at each of these locations, an employee can contact the sticker with their smartphone to begin tracking time for that task. Another contact on that same sticker will stop time tracking. Alternatively, contacting a different NFC sticker will begin that new task, automatically stopping the old one.
If you have tasks which are not affixed to one location, such as tracking the amount of time spent commuting between patients, then you can also create a task for this. The user can have the possibility to start this manually, or you could locate an NFC sticker within the vehicle of the employee.
Assigning NFC Stickers
Ensure you are logged into the browser version of TimeTac with the administrator account which was used to create your company account. Navigate to , then .
Now, log into the smartphone application with the same user account (ensure that NFC is enabled). Contact a blank NFC sticker with the back of the smartphone; a prompt will appear asking you to confirm you wish to use this sticker with TimeTac. Select
The next display will ask you for the type of transponder that this sticker should become: select Task. Another prompt will appear, requesting you to confirm that you have the correct NFC sticker by contacting it once more with the smartphone. Do this, and click once the next notification window appears.
Return to the desktop browser, and click within the display. You will now see a blank row that has appeared with a unique transponder ID. This is the NFC sticker that you have just scanned.
Double click within the field under the Task column, and select the task you would like to assign to that NFC sticker. Once you have selected the task, simply click outside of the field and the data will be saved.
Now that the NFC sticker has been assigned to a task, you can contact it once more with your smartphone to begin tracking that task. Contact it once again to stop time tracking. This sticker is now ready to be affixed to its correct location.
Viewing NFC Time Tracking Data
Time tracked via NFC can be viewed in exactly the same manner as other time tracking data: via the or .
If you navigate to the display however, you will be able to see specific data relating to the GPS location of the employee. This can be viewed my clicking on the map symbol.
