The app solution to make time registration a lot easier
Introduction
We have always had a problem with our hour registration. It was a thing that was often forgotten by everyone that works in our studio.
After some months we decided to do something about it and the idea to create an app was born.
The check-in app is an application that helps us with the registration of working hours in our studio. By scanning an NFC sticker with a smartphone in the office personnel can check-in, check-out and note their break time.
Within the application, it is possible to set the attendance per person.
With this function, the team always knows who is going to be in the office on which day.
Workflow:
We started off by deciding what programs and application would be good and effective to use for the creation of our app.
The only limitation that we had was that all the applications had to be able to work with Google Spreadsheets because there all the data is stored.
To establish a communication between the mobile check-in app and spreadsheet we used Google's app script.
The app is made using the Cordova framework. Within Cordova, we used a system called Vue. The communication between the interface elements within the mobile application is controlled by Vue, and it makes it possible to easily update the interface by using the data in the Spreadsheet.
First, we started by making the spreadsheet for our hour registration data.
The next step was to think about what the actions would be that the user could do. examples of actions are:
– Checking-in and -out using NFC.
– Keeping track of the length of breaks.
– Employees can edit their attendance each week.
– Weekly overview, employees can view the attendance of all coworkers for the current week.
Next, we designed a nice looking and simple interface for the app, with icons and interface pieces in our own home style.
Testing:
Throughout the whole development of this app, we created 4 different builds for testing purpose. Every build was tested in-house by our team. Testers had an opportunity to give feedback on our product and be part of the development.
After the testing period, we added some missing functions to the app like the attendance and weekly overview.
Future plans:
In our studio, we use this app every day. It made the tedious task of keeping track of our hours a lot easier.
We will be adding some small new features and improvements to the app.
We also want to cooperate with other companies and implement our app in their planning and hour tracking.
Conclusion:
Every company in the Netherlands is required to keep track of working hours. We found out this can be a tedious task which often gets forgotten.
At that time we had two options to choose from. Either we could get an online check-in solution, or we could just make it ourselves.
Ambitious as our team is we choose to create an hour registration app.
