TrackSmart Employee Attendance Tracking Blog

Since releasing the Employee Time Off Request feature in December, we’ve gotten a number of requests to allow employees to choose their own password. I’m happy to announce that it’s on the way! Within the next couple of weeks, your employees will be able to log on to the Employee website and change their password. So say goodbye to hard-to-remember system generated passwords and say hello to “piratequeen123.”

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About 11 months ago we received the first of many questions that sounded something like this:  “Can employees request time off?”

Our answer at the time was “not right now.”  The weeks passed quickly and more and more TrackSmartians let us know they thought this was a really great idea. We did our research, spoke with our member advisory team, and decided to embark on the grand journey of making the employee time off request feature a reality.

Now, when Premium Plan members ask if their employees can request time off through TrackSmart, we say “heck ya!”  And we hope you’re as excited about it as we are.

Take a look at the tutorial video to see how it works  and let us know what you think about our hard work.

Happy Tracking!

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This is going to be short and sweet and to the point, because Anjanette will be giving you the full run-down in a bit.

Last night, we released the much anticipated online employee time-off request and approval feature that we’ve been talking about for months.  A little after my regularly scheduled bedtime, the feature became available for our Premium Plan members.

We’re very excited to be able to deliver on a much-requested functionality and think it’s really cool…and well worth the upgrade for those who were holding off until this came out.

We put together a quick video to show you how it works so you can get started right away.  Check it out now!

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Hello Happy Trackers! I hope you all have a healthy and happy Thanksgiving Day with all of your favorite foods. You’ll be very happy to know that we are officially in the testing phases of the new employee time off request feature. I am happy to say that we look like we’re on “track” to meet our December release date. If you haven’t done so already, remember to add your employee email addresses to prepare to take advantage of this exciting feature!

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Some of us are, and that’s ok.  We get it – that’s why we’ve been working on a snazzy new way for you to try both a free calendar and premium version, without signing up.  The only thing we’ll ask for is your email address so we can send you a link to your demo calendar, but otherwise, no registration is required. You’ll be able to see and feel what the free forever basic calendar offers and what the paid premium plans expand on.

Each demo account will allow you to play with sample data including:

• Employees
• Absence and Event codes
• Summaries and Reports

Even though the demo accounts are prepopulated with data, you’ll also be able to add and edit everything you see so you can get a good feel of how the TrackSmart calendar works.

Once you’ve decided that TrackSmart is the best thing since peanut butter, choose whether a Free or Premium Plan is right for you and get started in a few simple steps!  The sample data will be gone and you’ll have a fresh new calendar. It’s like a blank canvas ready for you to begin your master piece of attendance tracking design! 

Look for the demos to go live in early October.

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Hi there happy Trackers!

As you know we’ve been hard at work building our new feature that will allow employees to request time off through TrackSmart.com. In this latest release, we’re preparing for that future functionality and added the following:

• Email address validation for the employee profile to make sure the email address of each employee is unique (this will be required for employees to log in, just like you need an unique email address to log in to your account)
• More helpful tips on setting up your employees in the “How Do I” tab located under the Employee list on the Employee Profile screen
• Even easier ways to add a code to the calendar. Now you can single-click a code to add an absence or event to the calendar. You can still double-click a code or use the drag and drop method, as well
• Fixes to correct the way the employee name displays on the Calendar Report

Stay tuned…we’re very close to releasing the new time-off request feature.  I can’t wait!

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It’s been over a month since we posted to let you know we’re working on the Vacation Request & Approval feature.  The latest update is…we’re still working on it.

This is going to big!  We’re talking a red carpet event with Armani gown, Manolo Blahnik strappy sandals and Harry Winston diamonds.

A girl can dream, right?

Anyway, we’re really excited about this new functionality. It’ll be the first opportunity for members to share TrackSmart with their employees…and hand over some of the work. 

While setting up employees in the calendar, make sure there’s a unique email address. That’ll be where employees receive their “Welcome to TrackSmart” email with login details.  

Now members won’t have to remember to add absence codes on TrackSmart when someone’s out…or whether the sticky note or email requesting time off was ever approved.  When an employee submits a request time-off request through TrackSmart, the member will get an email letting them know there’s a request waiting for approval.  Those “pending” requests appear on the calendar for the member to approve or decline.

Once the pending request is approved, that absence code is added to the calendar.  Then the employee gets an email letting them know which way it went and everybody is happy (unless the request was declined, I suppose).

How cool is that!  Any questions?

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That’s the number one question we hear from our members.

Unfortunately, up until now our answer has been “no.”  But since we hate saying no to our magnificent member community, we decided to do something about it…and now we can say “not yet, but soon!”

We’re working really hard here in TrackSmart-land to offer members a new “Vacation Request and Approval” feature (which actually will apply to all types of time-off requests, not just vacations).

Employees will be able to log into a simple web page and submit a request for time off.  The TrackSmart member can approve or decline the request and very simply add the respective attendance code to the calendar. Also, employees will be able to view hours used and available in their time-off banks.

We’ve just finished meeting with the development team and now they’re working on how best to create the functionality that we (you) have asked for.  Although we don’t have a definite release date, we can say that we’d like to launch this by late summer. Stay tuned!

What can YOU do?
To start preparing for the new Vacation Request and Approval feature, add your employees’ email address to their profiles.  An email address will be required for you to provide employees with login access to request time-off, and also how they’ll receive confirmations that their request has been submitted and approved or declined.

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