Mjobtime

Custom Time Clock Software: Mobile Solutions for the Construction Industry

Gain Added Efficiency By Customizing Your Mobile Time Clock Software

Tailoring mJobTime’s Custom Time Clock Software To Meet The Special Needs of Your Business

At mJobTime, we have focused on giving our customers a large number of configuration options to make our application as flexible as possible. However, software programs are designed to accommodate the maximum number of companies possible. We realize that there are going to be situations where mJobTime may not address certain facets of your business processes, but we ultimately strive to provide employee time clock solutions that will be unique to every business.

We look upon these situations as opportunities. This is because we love to get input from our customers about our time clocks for construction as well as our other software. Many times, this input can lead to a new feature or functionality that becomes a standard part of the program. Oftentimes, when the amount of work and time involved is not significant, we will do the work at no charge. Even in those situations where there is a substantial amount of resources required to do the work, if we feel it will improve the product, we often will share the cost of the modification with the customer. In those situations where the customization is very unique to a customer, we will provide a quote for the work and allow the customer to make their own decision.

Whatever the case, our development team has earned quite a reputation for doing outstanding work in a reasonable time period. They will work with you to get a detailed understanding of your needs, propose a solution, develop and test the solution, and follow-up to insure that our employee time clock solutions are working as intended once released. Our customers constantly rave about the amount of time we have saved them with our modifications. Usually, the ROI on our customizations is very short.

Whether it’s a special report or a very specific way to calculate travel or per diem pay, our crackerjack development staff is always ready to meet your custom modification challenges. They thrive on being able to make mJobTime (and our time clocks for construction) meet even your most stringent and unique requirements.

mJobTime Mobile Time Clock Software Customization Examples

  • Allow customer to clock in crews with equipment attached, but only post the equipment to one employee’s time card (not the entire crew).
  • Allow Supervisor user to transfer individual existing time records to a different company, verifying that all (pronoun) time record fields are valid in the “transfer-to” company, and disabling transfers for “Approved” and
    “Exported” records.
  • Add a new labor report for commercial drivers with the following columns:
    • Last Name
    • First Name
    • Position
    • Last Day Off
    • Next Mandated Day Off
    • Total Hours since Last Day Off
    • Hours Remaining (in the cycle)
  • Create a delimited file of time and material for our customer to send to their customer, and as a second customization, generate an invoice in their customer’s format.
  • Modify our Weekly Time Entry screen to allow for daily distribution of time by sub-job.
  • Create new functions to facilitate entry, tracking, and calculation of per diem and travel pay for employees on jobs:
    • Allow users to enter per diem and travel rates per job
    • Allow users to enter per diem and travel transactions
    • Allow administrative users to export per diem and travel transactions to “Bank File” and “Timberline Export”.
  • Customize the mJobTime Crew feature to track:
    • Day or night shift per crew
    • Craft code per employee
    • Alternate employee ID per employee
    • Per diem code per employee
    • Travel code per employee
  • Modify the export to accounting to create a text file export and add special calculations described below:
    • Specifications
    • A maximum of 40 hours per week will be exported for salaried employees
      • Salaried employees will be identified by a field in the employee table.
      • Time records beyond the 40 hour limit will remain in mJobTime and will be flagged as “exported”.
    • For time records that include task codes beginning with “41” populate the “GL Exp Acct” field as follows:
      • The second segment of the task code
      • Followed by the employee’s department number (two-digit-zero-filled)
      • The employee’s dept number will be pulled from a field in the employee table Examples: “500503”, “500603”
  • Develop a custom version of the “Daily Time Sheet Entry by Employee” screen:
    • To include a five-row header,
    • Make the Job Number column header span all columns for the same job.
    • As new columns are added, insert them into the grid sorted in ascending order by Job Number, then by the last five digits of the Cost Code, then by Extra.
    • Remove color shading of alternate rows in grid and add a solid line between rows
    • Shade “REG”, “OVT”, and “DBL” columns in White/Lt Blue/Dark Blue
    • Increase allowable distribution columns to 30
    • Divide the “Total” column into “REG”, “OVT”, and “DBL” sub-columns and display the appropriate totals for each row broken down into the three Pay IDs.
  • Replace the “Save” button acknowledgement dialog with the following custom dialog:
    • “Entries will be recorded with the following Date: ##/##/####”
    • Allow user to click “OK” or “Cancel”
  • Allow users to save selected distribution columns for multiple jobs and have them default whenever a job is selected for time entry.
  • Add Edit, Review, and Approve functions to the Daily Time Entry screen.

Let us provide you with a personalized demo today. As you can see, a custom time clock from mJobTime can supply your business with many helpful resources.

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The 5 Biggest Barriers To Implementing a Mobile Time Tracking System

As discussed in an earlier post, many construction companies are by default, risk averse to purchasing new software. In that post, we discussed the different types of risks these entities can be subject to. But in addition to risk, there are also other significant barriers that stand in the way of contractors looking to purchase a mobile time tracking system.

Getting Started

Just getting started and establishing a process is a huge challenge in and of itself. A critical business need must be identified so that support from management can be built. Typically, the needs are identified by those suffering the most pain from the current mobile time collection processes, or put another way, by those who stand to benefit the most by upgrading these practices. As explained in this recent post, the driving factors often vary by the size of the company.  In small entities, it is often the business owner, since he is intimately involved in most aspects of the business, and often aware of the inadequacies and inefficiencies of paper-based or spreadsheet-based processes. For larger contractors, the pain may be felt by payroll or financial administrators bogged down with a cumbersome process, or it may come from field management having to deal with too much paperwork. The push can also come from forward-looking IT managers or company executives understanding the significant benefits to be realized from implementing a mobile time collection system. Whatever the reason, the main thing is to get the project started and to build momentum for it within the company.

Low Technology Skill Level

One of the main barriers to acquiring mobile technology is a low technology skill level, especially for field workers in construction. Historically, construction workers have been guys interested in using their hands. The skills that they have acquired have generally been craft-based. Today’s construction environment is forcing technology on the field staff. By delivering tremendous improvements in efficiency and production, mobile applications are having a huge impact on construction. And the best ones are very easy to use.  They offer intuitive interfaces that allow even the technology challenged to operate them with ease.               

Employee Resistance

The lack of sufficient technology skills also aids in forming another barrier to implementing a mobile time clock solution – employee resistance. Human beings are, by nature, resistant to change. The further we venture from our comfort zone, the more resistance we offer. For construction workers in the field, using mobile software is getting way out there! To keep employee resistance down, we suggest you try these things:  1) involve as many field employees as possible from the start of your mobile time tracking project, 2) utilize “champions” of the software to help those who might be struggling, and 3) make sure access to technical support staff is readily available, especially in the early going of your project.

Finding the Right Solution

Another barrier is the amount of time and effort involved in finding the right solution, both of which can be substantial. You will aid the process tremendously, by first knowing what your most pressing issues are, and also what features and functionality you’ll need to solve those issues.

Cost

Finally, there is always the financial cost of purchasing a construction time clock system. The total cost of putting together a system is dependent on a number of factors. Are you going to provide company devices for use in the field or will you use a BYOD policy? If you go the BYOD route, are you going to subsidize the employees for using their personal devices for business? How are you going to sync your time records to the office? In most cases, this comes down to a choice between a data plan from your cell phone provider or utilizing some kind of Wi-Fi connection. If you choose to utilize Wi-Fi, you will either have to have your own wireless network, or go to an establishment with public Wi-Fi like McDonalds or Starbucks. Having a data plan with your cell phone provider, while more expensive allows you to sync your records at any time you’re in the cellular network. The last component of the financial cost of a mobile time tracking system is the mobile time tracking software itself. Not all programs are created equal, and not all programs cost the same. Your goal should be to find the application that delivers that highest return on investment. You should be looking for the solution that provides the maximum savings to your company by increasing efficiency and productivity. In effect, that is the true purpose of software – to make you more efficient and productive. Our professional sales associates will be happy to assist you in overcoming any barriers you might be facing. We want to help you find the right solution for your company, even if it’s not mJobTime. We want truly happy customers. Please don’t hesitate to contact us by phone at 1-866-922-TIME (8463), by email at info@mjobtime.com “In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the backCharlie Brown