Auto Attendance

Automatic Attendance

ERPNext's Auto Attendance feature automatically logs employee attendance based on their scheduled shift and the check-in/check-out logs that are recorded in the Employee Checkin document. Auto Attendance is the process of accurately marking attendance without the need for human intervention by using the Auto Attendance Settings that have been set up for that particular shift.

Organizations that use biometric devices, have multiple shifts, or require precise timekeeping will find this feature especially useful. It minimizes human error in attendance marking and spares the HR department needless labor.

Note: Before creating "Employee Checkin" logs, a shift type needs to be configured and allocated to staff members. Only when the shift type is established and assigned to the employee will attendance be automatically recorded in check-in records

How to Configure Automatic Attendance

1. Define the type of shift and enable Auto attendance

First, turn on the Auto Attendance feature and specify a shift type in ERPNext. This gives the system instructions to automatically process the employees' attendance for this shift based on their check-in and check-out timestamps. You can specify parameters like:

Change the start and finish times.
Grace periods before and after work hours
Minimum hours of work required to be deemed present
Tolerances for early departure and late arrival
To learn more about each field and how to do this effectively, consult the Shift Type documentation.

2. Assign Workers to These Shifts

You must assign your shift type to employees once it has been set up. There are two primary methods for doing this:

Assign employees to shifts during specific time frames by using the Shift Assignment document. If shifts are rotated or fluctuate frequently, this is convenient
Making use of the Employee master's Default Shift field Give a worker a default shift for every day.

Advice: Shift Assignment takes precedence over Default Shift if an employee has both a shift assignment and a default shift set. In this manner, whenever there is an overlap, the appropriate shift will always be applied

3. In the Employee Master, enter the Attendance Device ID.

In order to link check-in records to the appropriate employee, ERPNext needs the device ID that an employee has been assigned through biometric or RFID attendance systems

This can be set up in Employee > Attendance and Leave Details > ID of the Attendance Device (Biometric/RF tag ID)

4. Sync or import employee check-ins

After completing the aforementioned steps, you can import or sync check-in records from biometric readers or other attendance tracking systems.

For instructions on configuring manual import or real-time syncing, see Integrating ERPNext HR with Biometric Devices. In order to generate attendance records, Auto Attendance will process imported check-ins.

Commonly Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How Are the Real Start and End Times of a Shift Calculated?

Let's say there is a morning shift:
Start Time: 8:00 a.m.
Time of End: 11:30
Check-in should start sixty minutes prior to the start of the shift.
Permit check-out sixty minutes after the end of the shift.

The system calculates:

Start Time - Start Check-in Before = 07:00:00 is the actual start time.
End Time + Permit Check-out After = 12:30:00 is the actual end time.
This avoids discarding check-ins that occur very near the start and finish of shifts.

2. When Does a Shift's Attendance Get Automatically Marked?

Auto Attendance operates on an hourly basis according to the designated shift type. Alternatively, you can click Mark Auto Attendance in the Shift Type document to manually carry it out.

Attendance is only processed by the system after the "Last Sync of Checkin" surpasses the Actual End Time of the shift.
In the scenario described above, Auto Attendance would attempt to record attendance for the relevant shift only at 12:30:00.

3. How Can Auto Attendance Determine a Worker's Shift?

The following priority order is used by the system:

Change the assignment document for the specified date.
The Employee document's Default Shift field is used in the absence of a shift assignment.
Auto Attendance disregards recording attendance for that day if neither is available.

4. What is meant by a holiday list?

Employee absences on holidays will not be marked by Auto Attendance. The following is the order in which holiday lists are defined:

Holiday List for the employee's designated shift type
The employee document contains the holiday list
The company document's default holiday list.

5. What happens to devices that don't return IN/OUT log types when using Auto Attendance?

Check-ins with IN or OUT are not stamped by some biometric devices. ERPNext will choose the log type in those cases based on:
Configure the check-in and check-out procedures under Shift Type.
The calculation of working hours is based on a setting that specifies first and last logs, log pairs, or other rules.

For examples of such configurations, see the Shift Type document.