The Start and Stop Labor Tracking feature allows organizations to more accurately track the time of their laborers. More accurate time can be useful for a variety of reasons but the most common ones we see are for:
- Organizations with a lot of staff, especially if some are seasonal
- Organizations that bill their time
- Organizations that frequently outsource their work
Follow the instructions below to see how this feature works.
Please note that this is a paid feature. If you would like to purchase this feature, please contact your account manager and they will assist you with this.
How to Enable Labor Tracking
Once you have purchased this feature, you will be able to enable it through your Module settings. Navigate to your General Admin Settings and click the module header to access the settings for the modules you'd like it to be enabled for. (Maintenance, Planned Maintenance, Planning, Technology) Check the Track work box and click Save.
*Most sites will NOT want worker time to be required. If worker time is required, users will be prompted to record worker time hours when resolving and executing.
Next, edit your user type permissions according to the desired set up by going to Admin Settings, clicking the "User Types" tab towards the top of the screen, and clicking "Edit" for any user type.
Can work on multiple requests at once: This permission is in the top User Type section, and allows the user to work on multiple requests at once, either within the same module or from different modules. (i.e. users can work on Maintenance and Technology requests at the same time.)
Can view work: This is located in the Maintenance Request Access section, and is the gatekeeper permission for the rest of the permissions related to this feature. This allows a User Type to view worker time:
Once "Can view work" has been selected, a few other settings will appear. See below for descriptions of each.
Start and stop own work: This permission allows you to start and stop your own work. The majority of users will only have this permission along with can view work.
Edit own work: This permission allows you to edit your own work but not others' work.
Delete own work: This permission allows you to delete your own work.
Start and stop others' work: This permission allows you to start and stop the work of other users. This likely will only be utilized by supervisors or admins.
Edit/Delete others' work: This permission allows you to edit and delete the work of other users.
Can set work times and duration: This permission allows you to indicate/edit worker time that has been previously logged or that was missed for an event that has passed. This is likely also to only be utilized by supervisors or admins.
Setting User Labor Rates
For the user type that should have a set labor rate, navigate to their user type and under 'User Type' within their settings, ensure that 'Has labor rate' is checked.
Then, go to the users profile, select 'Administer', and enter the desired labor rate into the field.
Setting Up Email Notifications for Labor Tracking
You can also indicate the ability to receive email notifications regarding worker time. Navigate to the Module Notifications header below the Module Access header to view and adjust these settings. Whatever is selected here will reflect what's available for an individual users' email notification options.
If "Someone starts or stops work" is indicated here, you'll have "has work started" and "has work stopped" email Preferences that you can indicate in each individual users' profile for either My requests or All requests within each work request module.
To set up these email notifications for a user, you'll want to start in Users & Contacts, find the user, and click "Administer" to edit their profile. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll find the Email Preferences section. Simply choose these from the dropdown list if you'd like for that user to receive emails regarding worker time, and click save to confirm.
Thus, you will be notified if you or another user starts work on all maintenance requests:
Please note that although work can be started on requests that are pending details, you will not receive a notification that work has been started until the details are added.
How to use this feature
Starting and stopping own work (most users)
Navigate to a request and select the "Start Work" icon from the list of actions at the top of the screen:
If you have the "Set work times and duration" option enabled and you are starting work, you will be able to select your start date and time. (It defaults to "Today" and "Now.") and click the "Start Work" button at the bottom of the screen to confirm.
FMX will then show a timestamp on the request of when you started work:
FMX will display a Work In Progress banner at the top of the screen displaying what request you're currently working on:
When the user has completed their work for this period of time, they will navigate back to the top of the request and select the "Stop work" button:
After stopping work, FMX will calculate the duration of that work and apply it to the labor hours associated with that request:
The worker can repeat this process as often as necessary to complete the work on the request.
Editing own work
If you have the permission to edit, as well as the permission to set times and duration, then you can change start and stop times if needed by clicking "Edit" on work time listed in the request.
Deleting own work
If you have the User Type permission indicated, you can also delete work.
*Deleting a stop will restart the counter for that work. Deleting a start will make it as if the work never occurred.
Starting and stopping work for others
If managers want to start and stop work for their technicians, this is done similarly to starting and stopping work for yourself. The only difference is that you'll have the option to choose the worker from a dropdown menu.
Viewing requests and tasks in progress
It can be advantageous for supervisors to be able to view what requests are currently being worked on. You can do this by applying an "Open work" column from the settings menu in the top right corner of the Users & Contacts module grid view:
Planned Maintenance
Starting and stopping work on Planned Maintenance (PM) occurrences is very similar to starting and stopping work on work requests. However, if a user has started work on a PM occurrence, then executes it, and saves it rather than executing, work is NOT stopped, and this occurrence will still show as open in the Users & Contacts grid view.