A Quick Tip On Internet Options

Every so often we notice some minor technical problem that is affecting a small number of our users.  Because of how closely we monitor our own system, we can always immediately see if the problem is with our own servers- but it gets a little more tricky when the problem is with a customer’s computer.  One of the best aspects of Chronotek is that it can be accessed from any web browser, on any operating system.  This means that Chronotek works on almost any kind of computer- PC, Mac, and even on mobile devices through our Mobile Chronotek feature.  While this flexibility is a very positive feature, it also means that our support staff is often confronted with a baffling array of potential issues when troubleshooting problems that prevent users from accessing our system.

Faced with this broad range of potential problems, we always try to root out the most obvious and common ones right away.  With that in mind, we wanted to provide this quick tip on internet options.  One of the minor issues we experience the most is with some parts of the system appearing not to refresh quickly, or at all.  Your dashboard screen may not show all the information you need, or you may not be seeing employee activity that you know is occurring.  These users sometimes think that our system is running a little slow, or behaving sluggishly in showing their information, but the culprit instead is an obscure option within Internet Explorer.

If you think you may be experiencing this issue, don’t worry! There is a simple and fast fix that can have you back up to speed in no time.  From Internet Explorer, find your “Tools” menu, and click on it.  From there, find your “Internet Options”, go to “Browsing History”, then “Settings” and look for “Temporary Internet Files” .  The setting you need is “Check For Newer Versions of Stored Pages”, and it should be set to “Automatically”.   The actual process may vary depending on what version of Internet Explorer you’re using.

This is also a great time to remind users that we always encourage our customers (and friends and family!) to upgrade to the latest version of their Internet Browser.  This is important not only from a Chronotek standpoint, but for the general usability and security of your browsing experience.

What Features Does Chronotek Provide For Large Companies?

Here at the Chronoblog we have spent a lot of time talking about how our system scales perfectly for small businesses.  We always feel that one of the best things our product helps customers accomplish is to keep fixed costs low, by providing a system that grows as your company grows- there are no big leaps in cost or barriers to expansion.

With this focus on our ability to fit the growth needs of our customers, sometimes its easy to miss some of the excellent features we provide for large customers from the moment you register.  In fact, some of our happiest customers are large, multi state companies who first joined Chronotek because of the wide range of customization options we offer.  Lets review a few of these “big picture” features:

Cross-Country Timekeeping Made Easy: Chronotek makes it easy to manage clock-ins across multiple time zones.  The web interface makes it easy to assign different jobs to particular time zones, and our Licensed Caller-ID ensures that employees clock in for those jobs at the correct locations.  It has never been easier to manage your timekeeping needs- from coast to coast.

Easy User/Role Administration: Chronotek provides simple tools to manage access for various users.  Large companies who need to allow various managers to access the Chronotek account can easily do so.  At the same time, it is easy to place limits on what these additional users can view and change.  Many companies use these tools to allow regional managers access and control over their areas, while still maintaining a central monitoring account to easily keep tabs on the entire company.  For more information on setting up these features, our Support team will be happy to assist you.

Integration With Other Business Tools: We recognize that today’s businesses often employ a variety of software tools to automate their payroll processes.  Thats why Chronotek is an industry leader in our ability to integrate with other tools.  We integrate with ADP, Paychex, Compupay, and support automated FTP exports as well. We are always adding support for new products- if your payroll tool isn’t listed, talk to our Support team!

Scalable Pricing Options: Perhaps our most compelling opportunity for larger customers is our excellent scaled pricing system.  Chronotek helps large companies save even more money on their timekeeping expenses by giving lower per-call prices for higher volume accounts.  Our Pricing Calculator makes it easy to see how much you can save.

These are just the beginning of the rich features we offer for our large customers.  As always, our excellent support staff is ready to assist you with any questions you may have- call, email, or simply comment on this post for more information.

“Beyond Price”-How Does Chronotek Deliver the Best Value?

One of the aspects of the Chronotek system that our customers love most is our simple and innovative pricing plan. Figuring out the cost of using Chronotek is as simple as determining how many employees you have on the system, and how many times those employees clock in and out each month. Its so simple and transparent that we provide a pricing calculator right on our website! We have found that the vast majority of our customers save so much money by ditching their old, inefficient timekeeping system that Chronotek quickly pays for itself- and then some. Just take a look at some of our testimonials to see the dramatic savings many clients experience.

Our pricing is so simple that sometimes its easy to lose sight of the tremendous value Chronotek provides, in addition to pure cost. You see, our system includes many features in the base price that other companies either charge extra for, or simply don’t provide. Some examples of this include:

-Mobile Chronotek. Our fully functional and easy to use mobile monitoring system sets the industry standard in mobile employee management. You can get alerts, check employee status, and more- all from any web enabled mobile device. Many companies charge for access to similar mobile versions, but Mobile Chronotek is included in your account, free of charge.

-Integrated Voicemail. Chronotek is one of the only timekeeping programs that integrates the ability to communicate with your employees every time they clock in. Again, this is a feature that many companies charge extra for- but here, its part of the total Chronotek experience.

-No Show Alerts. This is one of our most popular features, and a big part of why customers love using Chronotek. Our completely customizable alerts let you decide when and how you receive alerts about late or absent employees. Supervisors can receive text or email alerts with important information about who is late and what job is being left un-covered. These real time alerts allow you to act fast in solving potentially damaging absentee situations. As always, this critical service is one that we provide free of charge.

Simply put, we provide an industry leading system, with a rich and compelling feature set, all with an affordable and easy to understand pricing system- Thats the Chronotek Advantage.

New Chronotek Video Tutorial

Today we are very excited to announce the first installment in our new video tutorial series.  Over the past several months we had made the decision that our customers could benefit from a series of short videos introducing them to the basic (and eventually, more advanced) features of Chronotek.  We hope that this series will work very well in conjunction with our already excellent personal customer service, to provide new users a high level of confidence in the Chronotek System.

This first segment tells you everything you need to know to get started with Chronotek.  From signing up for our free 30-day trial, to having your employees start using the system, all of your most basic info is covered here.  take a look and let us know what you think in the comments.

Also, you can view the video on Youtube here

Can Chronotek Work With Payphones?

Every so often, we get questions about customers using payphones to clock into the Chronotek system.  Some industries only have access to payphones at their jobsites, and ask us about using them with Chronotek.  While we are always looking to help our customers make Chronotek as efficient and convenient to use as possible, unfortunately a relic of telecommunications legislation makes using payphones extremely difficult.

In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act.  Part of this law allowed payphone providers to charge 1-800 numbers a “market rate” for calls made from their payphones.  What this means is that anytime Chronotek received a call from a payphone, the phone company charged us $0.62.  Because we only charge $0.12 a call from our customers, these phone company charges meant that we would lose $0.50 everytime someone calls to clock in using a payphone.

The Telecommunications Act did allow the operators of 1-800 numbers to block all calls from payphones, to protect themselves from these $0.62 charges.  This means that we pay a small monthly fee to prevent all incoming payphone calls.

As you can imagine, this has been the source of some frustration for us.  We have confirmed an alternative method for customers who only have access to payphones at their jobsites.  If you think this might describe your company, please contact us and our Support Team will be happy to assist you with your specific needs.

5 Things You Didn’t Know Chronotek Could Do

In keeping with our “Feature Focus” of the last few posts, today we want to highlight 5 things that many people don’t know Chronotek can do.  These are 5 items that are easy to use in Chronotek, and can save your company time and money.

1. Calculating Overtime: This is one of the best ways that Chronotek can help you save money on your payroll expenses.  Our system allows you to track hours in real time, letting you prevent expensive overtime surprises at the end of a pay period.

2. Track Different Activities: By using different activity and job codes, Chronotek makes it easier to manage employees who may do several different jobs over the course of a pay period.  This makes managing projects and unique jobs more efficient.

3. Voice Verification: By requiring employees to record a message at every clock in, you can verify that the correct employee is clocking in.  This eliminates situations where employees try to clock in for a late coworker.  This feature, when combined with Chronotek’s location based Caller-ID, allows supervisors to ensure that the right employee is at the right jobsite.

4. Record Messages for Employees: This feature allows you to guarantee that employees are receiving important information.  Simply record a voice message by calling into the system, and employees can be required to listen to this message on every clock in or out.  This feature can be customized to streamline your employee communications, allowing you to provide a higher level of service to all your customers.

5. Mobile Chronotek: We are very proud of our industry leading mobile version, which allows supervisors to monitor crucial employee information, from anywhere.  In the field, the office, at home, or even on vacation-Mobile Chronotek keeps you informed of the most important aspects of your business: your employees.

Have another favorite feature of Chronotek that we left off the list?  feel free to tell us about it in the comments!

New “Any Employee” Schedule

Today we are thrilled to announce a new feature that has been at the top of our “wish list” for some time now.  Many customers had asked us about how best to handle jobs where they didn’t care what employee clocked in, just as long as somebody did.  For many of our customers who manage many different locations, simply ensuring that at least one employee had arrived at a jobsite was critical information.  One example of this type of job might be a pool management company that needs to be sure someone has shown up to open a neighborhood pool for the day, or a security firm that needs to be sure a specific location is covered by a certain time.

We started rolling this feature out on Tuesday, and already we are thrilled with the response from our customers, and the innovative ways they are planning to use it.  Our programming team put in lots of hard work perfecting how this new type of schedule would work with our alert system, so that supervisors can receive up to the minute information regarding which jobsites are covered.  Our team also designed the schedules to interface perfectly with our Mobile Chronotek system, allowing supervisors to view this information from any web enabled mobile device.

All in all we are very proud to be able to offer this new feature to our customers.  Our support staff created an excellent email tutorial on using “Any Employee” schedules, and current Chronotek customers should check their inboxes for this information.  As always, any questions or feedback may be left in the comments section below- we’d love to hear how you plan to use this new feature!

Changes To The “New Features” Section

Just wanted to quickly highlight a few small changes to the blog setup.  We noticed a few days ago that one of the most popular pages within the blog was the “New Features” section.  We saw that our readers were using this section to get additional information about some of the specific features offered by the Chronotek system.

With that in mind, we decided to make some updates and changes to the section.  We added more information about some of our best features, and we will be continually updating the section and rotating new information in and out.

We love that so many of our existing customers, as well as many people that are interested in the Chronotek system are using this blog to get the latest information about Chronotek.  We hope that this can continue to be an excellent resource, and as always feel free to comment on any post with questions or feedback.

The Chronotek Advantage

The other day I stumbled across this little webcomic:

These days we hear so much about “Social Media”- the “Word of Mouth” in the comic.  And while all these things are great, sometimes they aren’t enough to consistently close sales.  Customers in highly competitive industries want tangible evidence that they are choosing the right company or vendor to provide critical services.  All too often it can be difficult to differentiate your company from the competition.

But what if you had just such a tangible asset to use in your pitch to potential customers?  Chronotek can be such an asset, with something we call the “Chronotek Advantage”.  Potential customers want to know that the services they are paying for are being delivered in the most efficient manner possible- and Chronotek allows you to give that assurance.  In service industries where time worked is a huge part of the cost, Chronotek demonstrates that you are dedicated to tracking this expense down to the second.

Having positive word of mouth and “social” marketing is important- But with the “Chronotek Advantage”, you can give those potential customers tangible proof of your commitment to details and quality.

Location Tracking: Chronotek Gives You More than Caller-ID

Chronotek is a licensed provider of Caller-ID, so how does that relate to location tracking on timecards?

First let’s clarify what Caller-ID means.  Caller-ID is simply the phone number from which the call is made.  However, Chronotek goes one step farther and contracts with three companies to get the representative data for that phone- who is registered to the phone number, the address of the phone number, and the longitude and latitude of land line phones.   We have the Google Map feature on Chronotek so that you can see exactly where that land line call originated.  This information is available so that you can link phones to the job- to ensure that your employees call from site phones.

If the call originates from a cell phone we usually get the person registered to that phone, but sometimes get the cell provider (i.e. Verizon Wireless) and an address. Realize that the location of cell phone calls is not determined from Caller-ID. (For more about Chronotek and Cell Phones, take a look at this recent post)

Location tracking through Caller-ID: Thats the Chronotek Advantage.