Arcoro is excited to announce the October 2022 release for our customers and partners. This release provides new features and enhancements to existing functionality for Arcoro ExakTime. This article will describe the software updates and provide details to help you get started with these enhancements.
Enhancements
Meal Breaks
Arcoro now supports meal breaks within ExakTime! This new feature allows Administrators to set up meal break rules for different policy groups, which also includes configuring push notifications to employees to remind them of an upcoming meal break and meal break ending. Employees who are in a policy group with meal break rules can start/end a meal break with a simple button click from their ExakTime Mobile app.
Configuration
The new meal break policy can be found by navigating to Manage > Policies > Breaks > Meal Breaks > Manual Meal Break. Enabling a manual meal break while leaving the ‘Specify meal break duration’ toggle set to NO will provide users a new Meal Break button on the mobile Go/Stop screen. A mobile user will be able to take their meal break at any time they are clocked in and for any length of time.
Enabling the ‘Specify meal break duration’ toggle to YES will allow the Admin to set up some additional rules around the number and duration of meal breaks. The Admin can also determine how ExakTime Mobile should handle employees that would like to clock in early from their meal break. Some states require employees to take a meal break for a certain length of time. In these cases, setting the ‘Prevent employee’ option will restrict an employee from ending their meal break prior to the specified meal break duration. The ‘Warn employee' option will present a warning message to an employee who tries to end their meal break prior to the specified meal break duration, but will allow them to end their meal break early.
Within the configuration screen, the Admin can also enable push notifications to remind mobile users that they have an upcoming break, as well as notify them when their break is close to ending.
ExakTime Mobile Clock In Screen
For those employees who are in a meal break policy, they will now see a new Meal Break button on the Clock In screen. To start a meal break, the user will simply tap on the Meal Break button (see far left image below). The button will be updated to ‘End Meal Break’ employee’s status will be updated to ‘Break’. To end a meal break, user will tap the ‘End Meal Break’ button. User will be clocked back into the same location and cost code that they started their break. If the ‘Prevent employee’ option is enabled, the End Meal Break button will be disabled until the minimum meal break duration has been met (see center image below). If the ‘Warn employee’ option is enabled, the End Meal Break button will always be enabled, and employee will receive a warning message when ending their meal break early (see far right image below).
NOTE: Starting/stopping a meal break from the Clock For screen will not be included in the initial release
Push Notifications
An Admin may also configure notifications to be sent to employees reminding them of an upcoming meal break as well as a meal break ending. Employees must have accepted the notification permission on their app and be logged in and clocked in (or on a meal break) to receive the notifications.
Time Cards
Timecards have been updated to reflect meal break time records. Similar updates can also been seen on mobile timecards.
- New Break column will show meal break totals
- New indicator to designate if a user missed a meal break for a particular day
- New indicator to designate if a user punched in early from a meal break (will not apply if the prevent option is enabled)
- New icon to easily designate a meal break time record
- New Add Meal Break button
Meal Break Audit Report
The Meal Break Report provides a quick view of employees who have either missed a meal break or clocked in early from a meal break. The Meal Break Report can be found in the Audit section of the ExakTime reports.
Mobile App Requirements
Meal breaks feature is available on both iOS and Android platforms for phones and tablets. Users will need to be running an iOS/Android operating system version that is supported by ExakTime Mobile and be on ExakTime Mobile version 2.82 or higher to get the updates.
If you are not familiar with checking/updating app versions, you can refer to the following dedicated article.