Time Period Lock

Time Period Lock is a feature that allows you to prevent Limited Admin users from editing of hours after the payroll has been run. This article explains how to enable and use this feature.

Feature Description:

Time Period Lock allows FULL or PARENT ADMIN to “lock” a time period so that LIMITED ADMIN cannot make edits to that period while it is locked. Parent and Full admin are able to make edits to locked periods but will get a reminder that the period is locked before any edits are saved.

Full or Parent admin can lock and unlock any time period at any time. The time periods are based on the payroll schedule configured in SYNCrew. If you have quesitons about that, please contact us at support@syncrew.com and we can help set that up properly.

Limited admin will be able to see that a period is locked in Worker Time Review and Timesheets but will not be able to change the locked status. Additionally, in places where edits can be made (work block reports, activity reports, worker profile pages, etc), the buttons to edit and/or save edits are simply removed so that they cannot be edited. An example of this in a Work Block report is shown below.

The period that contain the bottom 3 rows has been locked so Limited Admin cannot make edits. The top rows are not locked so the edit buttons remain.

Note that when using the Time Period Lock, it is very important that only payroll administrators and people who understand the implications of editing time after payroll are set up as Full or Parent Admin. Everybody else needs to be a Limited Admin.

How to enable Time Period Lock

Time Period Lock is a company-wide setting (so it cannot be enabled for a single user or team) and is disabled by default. To turn it on

  1. Go to “Settings” in the left-navigation panel and select “Configuration”
  2. Scroll down to the “Timesheets” section of the configuration page
  3. Check the box next to “enable time period lock” (shown below)
  4. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and click “save”

How to lock or unlock a period:

Once you have enabled Time Period Lock as described above, locking or unlocking a time period is done by doing the following:

  1. Go to the Manage Menu in the left-navigation and select either Worker Time Review or Timesheets
  2. Select the time period you wish to lock or unlock
  3. If you are a Full or Parent admin, you will see either a green or red button appear at the right side of the screen. A green button indicates the period is unlocked and a red button indicates that the period is locked
  4. Click the button to change the option from unlocked to locked, or locked to unlock
When time period is unlocked, the indicator is green. Click to lock the period.

When time period is locked, the indicator is red. Click to unlock the period.

A few details

As with all things, the devil is in the details so here are a few of those:

  1. If a period is locked and events come in from a users phone, they will be discarded. As a practical example, If a person clocked out on their phone on Friday while they were out of cell coverage, then the period was locked on Sunday night. When the worker arrives on Monday and the clock out sends, it will be discarded by the system and never be seen. SYNCrew admin will attempt to preserve Progress Photos since they are not part of the timekeeping system.
  2. Events cannot be moved into a period. If a worker was accidentally clocked in overnight and the starting day is in a locked period while the ending day is not, you will be able to edit the clock out so long as it stays outside the locked period. This will have the effect of changing the time shown in a locked period since SYNCrew puts all hours on the day of the clock in.

Skill management

Every event in SYNCrew has a “Skill” associated with it. The information below explains how to enable skills for your company first and then for each employee.

Company enabled skills

Each company must have at least one enabled and can have as many as they wish. To make skills available for your company, go to Settings in the left navigation panel and then select “update skills.” That will show you the list of all SYNCrew skills and you just need to click the box to the left of any skill you want and click “Update” to save.

SYNCrew has hundreds of skills available. You can view the list by going to “Settings” in the left navigation panel, then selecting “Update Skills.” If you need a skill that is not available in the list, please email support@syncrew.com to request a new skill and they can typically be added quickly.

Worker enabled Skills

Each worker has a list of skills and must have at least one skill enabled. To change the skills, edit the list in their employee profile settings by putting a check box next to the desired skills and then click save.

If the employee only has one skill, all their work will automatically get assigned to it. If more then one skill is set up for a given employee, they will be prompted to select the appropriate skill at each clock in.

Project-Specific Skills

The worker enabled skills above can be over-ridden by location-specific skills list. To enable that, go to the project edit screen and scroll down until you see a check box next to “use location skills list”. Check that box and you will see your company’s enabled skills appear below. Select the skills you want workers to be able to select from the list and save the project settings. Once you have a location-based skills list for a project, workers will see ONLY that list of skills when they clock in there, regardless of what their own list looks like.

Skill-based Account Name

You can make the accounting name change based on the selected skill for certain projects. This is described in the “accounting name” section of the Project Settings article you can find HERE.

How employees can use Work Orders on the app

When using Work Orders to instruct your field team on what to do, they can view and close them from the field. This article explains how Workers can do this.

Closing Work Orders from the Admin Portal

Before going into that, many clients simply close It is also possible to close the work Orders from the office by clicking on the work order you want to close to view and edit the details. At the top, select “completed” from the “status” field toward the top of the screen. Then scroll down and click save. The work order will now be closed.

Closing Work Orders from the Worker app

In order to close a work order, a worker my open the work order on their phone. When they arrive a project where they have a work order assigned to them (or where there are unassigned work orders), they will see the screen below.

Clicking “open” above will open the work orders page that will show their work orders at that location. they can also see unassigned work orders by clicking on that tab below. They will see the title and summary in the list and they can touch a row to open it.

They will then see all the details of the work order. Clicking “Work on this WO” will alert the system that they are going to accept that work order and start working.

As a confirmation, they will see the work order number they working on as circled below:

When they go to change task or clock out, the system will ask if they want to close the work order (click “yes”) or leave it open (click “no”)

Once they click “yes” to close, the work order will be closed in the system.

Error 1039 in Quickbooks Web Connector

This error comes up pretty often when a client first starts using the Quickbooks Desktop integration. It is caused when the Quickbooks company file is moved from the computer where it was created. This can happen if you created your company on a desktop machine and now use it on a server or if you simply bought a new computer.

The instructions below are on Intuit’s website and while we at SYNCrew have followed them with success, we do not guarantee this since it is based on another company’s product. We also strongly recommend backing up your company file before starting this.

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/your-books-or-my-company/fix-error-qbwc1039/00/294400#

Rounding of time

Updated 5/25/19

SYNCrew can round work time in several places. Generally, rounding of time worked is legal so long as it is done in a mechanical way and such that it does not systematically work against the employee. Where SYNCrew uses rounding, it is done in such a way that is designed to be nuetral towards time worked when viewed over long periods of time.

Starting in May of 2019, SYNCrew is shifting the way rounding is done and as we make the transition, you may see different results in different places. If you have any questions about these deiscrepancies, please email your account manager or support@syncrew.com and we will be happy to discuss details anytime. Please check back at this page to keep up to date on the transition to the new methodology. We anticipate the transition will be complete by end of Summer 2019.

NEW: Rounding of punches:  SYNCrew’s new rounding methodology works as follows:

  • The company selects a rounding threshold of 5, 10 or 15 minutes
  • Clock in, Clock out, and change task events are rounded to the nearest clock time in the interval of the rounding threshold. That is, if 15 minutes is selected, all events of this kind will have minutes of :00, :15, :30, or :45. Likewise, if 10 minutes is selected for the rounding threshold, then the events will always have minutes of :00, :10, :20, :30, :40, or :50
  • Meal breaks will have their length rounded to the nearest threshold time. So for a company with rounding threshold set to 15 minutes, mealbreaks will always be a multiple of 15 minutes
  • If a worker works at multiple jobs in a given day, the time at each site ends up rounded as does the whole day

This new rounding methodology is used in the following places:

  • Quickbooks exports
  • Results for New Work Block report when option to “show rounded time” is selected (if you would like access to this beta feature, please email your request to support@syncrew.com)

OLD: Rounding of time worked:  SYNCrew’s old rounding methodology works as follows:

  • The time worked for the day is rounded to the nearest 15 minutes
  • Breaks are deducted before the time worked is calculated so they are not impacted
  • If a worker works at multiple jobs in a given day, the time at each site is not rounded

This old rounding methodology is used in the following places:

  • Timesheets (when rounding is selected)
  • Worker Time Review (when rounding is selected)

Admin access on mobile phone (in app or browser)

Admin users can use the admin portal on their phones two ways:

  1. Download the SYNCrew app from your phone’s app store and log in with your admin credentials
  2. Open your phone’s web browser and go to https://app.syncrew.com

If you have BOTH a worker and admin users with the same credentials (email and password), the app will prioritize the worker account and log you in to that. To resolve that, you can either log into the admin portal using option 2 above or use a different email address for your worker and admin accounts.

If you have any trouble with this, please contact support@syncrew.com and we can review your accounts and help you sort things out.

Sharing data between companies

Option 1: Share projects: This option is for when BOTH companies are clients of SYNCrew and lets one company see everything from the other company at shared projects only (work at non-shared projects remain private). This is often more information then either party wants, but it can be very useful depending on the project. 

To set this up, we connect two companies and then one company (usually the “General Contractor”) would “share” the project with the other (we’ll call it the “sub-contractor” here). Everything looks the same in the sub-contractor’s portal except that the projects will be “owned” by the other. The magic here is that all the info shows up in General Contractors portal just as it does in Sub-Contractors’. Specifically, the General Contractor would see:

  • When a Sub-Contractor employee clocks in, out, or takes a progress picture
  • General Contractor can run reports as they would with their regular employees
  • General Contractor can search photos and notes
  • Again, the General Contractor CANNOT see work that Sub-Contractor employees do at other projects that are not shared. The Sub-Contractor employees will basically disappear from General Contractor’s view if they do work for other clients

Option 2: Set up limited admin accounts: This requires no real setup and is typically used when a SYNCrew client wants to provide access to a client of theirs for just one or a few of their projects. To set this up, just create a Limited Admin account for the person you want to be able to see and configure that admin with the appropriate access. Limited admin accounts can be set up in many ways and you can consult this article or contact SYNCrew support for help.

Option 3: Email progress pictures taken by managers: This requires no real setup either. SYNCrew has many ways to share photos which may assist in sharing data:

  • Photos can be manually sent from the app at Change Task or Clock Out. The app user can just enter the email address then and all photos taken at the time will send
  • Rules can be set up so photos that meet certain criteria can be sent automatically to pre-specificied email addresses
  • Reports: Some reports including Work Block reports and Daily Site reports can be emailed automatically or manually (varies by report)

Worker Portal

Most SYNCrew users use the app in the field, but many companies have at least a few people in the office and want to have them log hours in SYNCrew as well. This feature allows those users to add hours from a web browser.

Enable Access

Access to the Worker Portal is on a worker-by-worker basis so you can enable only for those who need it. To enable access, go to their worker profile in the Admin section and check the boxes circled to allow the appropriate level of access for that user. Click Save.

If the Worker is ALSO an admin user, you can link the accounts together. Doing this will allow them to log into the admin portal and quickly go to their worker portal by going to the menu shown at right so they can manage their own hours.

To set up this connection, go to the person’s admin account and click “Link worker.” Then search for their worker account and click save.

How to use

Once a Worker is set up, they can access the portal by going to www.syncrew.com and clicking “employee login” at the top-right. Then they log in with the same phone number and password they use to log into the app. You can reset it for them if they have forgotten it.

Once they log in, they will have several options (these can vary a bit based on the level of access provided in their settings). They can track in real-time, add time in the past, or edit past hours.

Track in Live Time: Some users will want to track hours as they work. To do that, they can select the project and skill (circled in red below) and click “start working.” The screen will then show a clock for how long they have been at work and they can change task, clock out, or even upload a photo.

Add past time: The easiest way to add past time is to do it while clocked out. When the user is clocked out, they will see the information and buttons circled at the bottom of the screen shown below.

To add time, pick the day you want to add by clicking on the blue box with the date. To see a different week, click the arrows to the left or right of the blue boxes to go to the next week. Once you have the day selected, pick the project, skill (plus any optional fields your company has), select the number hours and minutes for that task. Once that is complete, click one of the buttons to add the hours:

  • Add hours in beginning: Adds hours before the earliest event. For example, if the hours currently show 9am to 3pm, using this option to add an hour will add the time from 8am to 9am.
  • Add hours at end: Adds hours at the end of the currently entered hours. In the example above, this hour would be added from 3pm to 4pm.

You can enter more time by following the same process.

Edit time: Sometimes time needs to be edited after the fact. Doing so can be done for prior days only (so you cannot do this “today”). To edit the time, simply click on the time shown in the “Total” colum (circled in red below) and change the time in the pop-over that opens.

How to close your account

First off, we will certainly be sorry to see you go! Before you go through the effort to cancel, here are two things that have helped many clients get SYNCrew working above expectation again:

1) Ask support: Email support@syncrew.com with what you want SYNCrew to do. Most requests for new features or questions about whether SYNCrew can do something they saw in another app are already available and it’s just a matter of changing the configuration.

2) Check your plan: To accommodate the wide variety of clients on SYNCrew, we have different plans to ensure each client gets all the features they need, without paying for those that they do not need. Have a look at our current plans:

View Current Plans

Finally, if you are sure you wish to close your account, you can email support@syncrew.com with that request and they help you out.

Cancel service.

SYNCrew Forms Overview

This article has some overview information and a video of how the forms look on the app. To jump in to how to create a form, jump over to SYNCrew Forms: How to set up.

SYNCrew Forms are a powerful way to capture information from the field. Like everything with SYNCrew, the information and photos are organized and saved forever so you can always find the form when you need it most. As always, please contact us with your needs so we can help you set up exactly the forms that will eliminate your paper-chasing!

How does it work:

  • Set up forms: Forms are configured by an admin user (email your forms to support@syncrew.com and we’ll help set them up). You may have many different types of forms
  • Employees complete forms: Employees select which form they need to fill in and complete it on their phone
  • When a form is submitted: Once the employee submits a form, the following happens automatically:
    • Emails will be sent to contacts for the projects, emails set up for that form type
    • Forms become searchable in Reports –> Custom forms report
    • Forms and data are saved forever and can be exported to spreadsheets, pdfs, or viewed on screen

What kind of data can a form capture? Below are the types of information that can be collected and each type can be used many times in the same form

  • Signatures: Collect employee, customer, or other signatures directly in the app
  • Dates: Pick any calendar day
  • Time of Day: Pick any time of day
  • Check Boxes: The user check put a check-mark in a box (usually to mark completion of a task)
  • Text: Text or numbers can be entered
  • Pick Lists: a pre-set list of options. For short lists, all options are displayed while long lists allow you to search (2 to thousands of options supported). You may allow user to select multiple options or only one option
  • Worker List: This is like the pick list but pre-populates the list of workers in your system
  • Headings: There are two kinds of headings that can be used to group things together within the form
  • Photos: Photos can be added to any of the above data types. Photos for each item can be optional, required, or not available to take

Since the forms are 100% customizable, clients are using them for many different things and you can use it for anything you traditionally used a paper form for. Here are a few examples:

  • Customer acknowledgement of work
  • Employee vacation or sick time request
  • Material request
  • Tenant chargeback form
  • Walk-through inspection report form
  • Customer and employee signed daily work log report
  • Security company incident report form
  • Pool cleaning and chemical reading log
  • Expense reimbursement
  • Mileage reimbursement forms
  • Company phone use acknowledgement

Email your current paper form to support@syncrew.com so we can help get rid of the paper!