Kieran struggled to make the 8 am Newcastle-London fast train. Although he wouldn’t have done so had he not been tempted to stop at Greggs for a stottie sandwich and a large latte (it’s a long journey).
He was heading to London to set up an Attendance Rota clocking in/out system for London Railways railways. The brief was for a biometric device that would record when people came and left the building, check this data against their shift and hold the data securely, which fully complied with all relevant applications, including GDPR. And they wanted something which could be used without touching. Kieran had an Android tablet in his rucksack with Uptivity’s application installed and easily met all the requirements. Kieran had to go to their office, enrol all their staff and securely attach the device to the wall. Simple.
London Railways had asked Kieran to call them when standing next to the red post box in Marleybone station. He did just that. While waiting, he amused himself by thinking this would be how blind dates met in the 1970s. Although then, he would have had to distinguish himself further, maybe with a rose in his lapel and Newcastle Journal under his arm.
After a few minutes of waiting, he stepped away to get a water bottle, returning to see a confused-looking London Railways employee speaking to someone he had stood.
“Are you from London Railways…… I’m Kieran”, he said, holding his fist out for a bump to a relieved-looking woman.
“Follow me…sorry for the delay; I see you’ve been thirsty. Can I get you a coffee?”
“No, I’m fine. I’m keen just to get started”.
They walked straight into an open-plan office.
“Everyone in this office needs to be registered onto the system. Just start at one end and finish at the opposite side.”
Kieran started registering staff by taking their picture and entering their name. He nearly finished when a glitch occurred; one person had failed. He tried again. The result was the same, but now the error was new. The same person couldn’t be registered twice!
Keiran was sweating. It was a hot day, so he probably would have been sweating for some time, but now he was pouring. When things don’t work, especially on a customer site, it’s very stressful. The application had been extensively tested; how could this have happened? Kieran rang the developers in Uptivity’s offshore office.
What is Attendance Rota?
Attendance Rota is a touch-free biometric clocking-in system. It uses an Android tablet. You walk up to it and say “clock-in” or “clock-out” this wakes the tablet up. It scans your face, identifies you, takes an image in case of disputes, and clocks you in or out. Attendance Rota can cross-reference you against your shifts and record anomalies should you be in late or much too early. It can also take into account the time you need to change before starting your shift. Attendance Rota also has one-click rostering.
Kieran pondered. Why had other people registered without a hitch, but this one failed despite retrying multiple times. He decided to get on with his other things. He showed staff how to operate the Attendance Rota clocking-in system, but the unusual problem with registering this one person was at the back of his mind – as signalled by his increasing wet shirt—especially with the return train ticket already booked.
The phone rang. It was the software developer who had fixed the problem. The person having the issue had been registered, just incompletely. This is why subsequent attempts were thwarted by a “can’t be registered twice” message. The developer had simply deleted the incomplete account registration, and Kieran could continue successfully.
After finishing, Keiran decided to walk the 2 miles to Kings Cross. He didn’t often get down to The Big Smoke and was curious about the hustle-bustle seen in London streets. Also, the breeze would help his soaking-wet-in-places shirt to dry.
Kieran stopped at St Pancras for a Greggs sandwich and a Red Bull before boarding his train to Newcastle. It’s a long way back home.
Find out more about Attendance Rota here: https://uptivity.co.uk/attendance-rota/
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