For Administrators or Managers only
This page explains in detail the differences between the concepts of "Employee" (data reporter) and "User" (data viewer), and their access levels. Although it is always good to know the tools in detail, it is not necessary to read and fully understand this section if you are not an HR director, IT director, or the Account Administrator.
To fully understand how the product works, it is important to know the terminology that WorkMeter uses to identify each of the roles and/or identities of the people involved in the product, and the basic procedures related to these identities.
WorkMeter mainly handles two identities:
- Employee: person who reports data in the application. The employee does not always have access to the platform to consult their data. Employees are usually identified either by the LOGIN of the device from which they report, or by their email used to access the reporting app (for example, MyApp to report from a smartphone)
- User: person who has an "access account" to view data on the platform. Depending on this user's "access level," they will be able to see more or less data. Some examples of "access levels" could be:
- Employee access account: can access and view their own data
- Group manager access account: can access and view data of groups of people
- Administrator account: has access to view all data on the platform.
Therefore, in many cases an Employee is also a User, so the platform internally maintains a list of links between Users and Employees, but depending on how the User is created (that is, how the "access account" is created), this link is created differently.
How employee accounts are created
Employees can report data from various devices; PC, smartphone, tablet, ...etc For employees reporting from the PC, it is NOT necessary to create an employee account for them, since when installing the application on the PC, their LOGIN will be created automatically. For employees reporting from other devices, see the following section.
How access accounts (users) are created
As mentioned above, to access the platform, it is necessary to have a "user access account" associated with an "access level." Access accounts are created from different parts of the application depending on the user's profile:
- Group Manager: the creation and modification of access accounts for group managers is done from the "Manager and Roles" section within the settings (see more information in Managers and Roles ). It is important to highlight that when an "access account" is created from this section, it can no longer be created as an employee (see below procedure to create access accounts with multiple roles).
- Employee who reports manually: to create an employee who does NOT have a PC, and therefore will always report activity manually, you can create their "employee account" and "access account" from the "create employee without PC" option found in Settings->Organigram->Employees. This procedure internally creates both the "Employee" and the "access account," so users created with this procedure cannot be created later by another procedure.
- Employee who reports automatically from a PC: in most cases, employees will report from the PC, and their employee account is automatically created as soon as the PC starts. However, their "access account" is not created automatically, as there is no password yet to access their data. To create the "access account" for these employees, it must be done from the icon on each PC, which creates the "access account" and links that "User" with that "Employee," which is explained in more detail in the following point.
Note: "Access accounts" always consist of a login (email), and password and this "login" should not be confused with the PC login that identifies the employee, which is usually not an email account but an identifier like APEREZ for example, which we will use later in this document)
Link between Employee and User
WorkMeter solutions are characterized by having, in addition to traditional systems, an automated reporting system that works simply by installing the software on a PC. This small piece of software identifies the employee once they log into their device, detecting the start, end of the workday, and relevant breaks, completely automatically and without employee intervention. This represents an important advantage, as it does not require each employee to manually register in the system to start reporting activity. But this does not guarantee that the employee has access to view their data or perform actions on the platform, such as requesting vacation or using the manual activity editor. To do this, the employee must become a User and obtain an "access account." This is achieved by clicking on the icon on their PC and selecting the "access your account" option from the menu (you can see more information in point 2 of the getting started guide ). The first time the employee performs this action, the user will be created, that is, the "access account" so the employee can view their data. The system will internally create a link between the employee account and the newly created user account.
As explained in previous points, the system maintains a list of links between Employees and the Users related to those employees. You can know if an employee has created their "access account" (user identity) through the Settings->Organigram->Employees panel, or even delete that "access account." Employees who report without a PC have the same identity for "Employee" and "User," so it is not possible to delete the "access account" of an Employee of this type.
Dual reporting: PC and Manual
Sometimes, there are employees who need to report automatically from a PC and from the smartphone app. This causes confusion, because if a manual user is created, the employee can no longer use that email address from their PC to link their Employee (operating system login, APEREZ) with their "access account."
For these situations, the procedure to follow is:
- Use the "Access your account" option from the icon: this step will ask for an email address and a password, and will internally do two things: create the "access account" for that User, and link the User to the Employee. That way, when the User logs in (both from the icon and from the web) with that email and password, they will have access to the data reported by the Employee (the same one).
Access Accounts with Multiple Roles (Managers who report)
Another very common situation is that an Employee needs to have an "employee access account" to view their data, and another as Group Manager to manage a group of employees. The product supports this type of profile, but it is necessary to create it in the correct order so that the system interprets that it is an employee with access and a manager at the same time (dual role). The correct order is:
- Go to Settings->Managers and Roles, and create the "access account" for Group Manager using the same email that was used in step 1.
If the "access account" is created from the "Managers and Roles" settings section before the Employee has installed the product on their PC and logged into their account, it will not be possible to create the "access account" for the employee. To resolve this situation, delete the "access account" from "Managers and Roles," and follow the procedure described here.
Special case: Creation of employees who are on leave
During the rollout in a company, it is sometimes necessary to register employees who will NOT report initially because they are on leave or vacation at that time, and their equipment is not on the company premises. This is a situation that requires special treatment, as WorkMeter is designed for employees to report. As explained in the previous points, WorkMeter solutions allow creating two types of employees; 1) those who will report manually or 2) those who will report on the PC (and optionally, manually). It is not possible to create a user who has to report automatically from a PC without installing the software on a PC and logging in with their employee identity (APEREZ).
For these situations, the following alternatives exist:
- Create a manual reporting user: if the employee is expected to be on leave for a long time, a "PC-less Employee" can be created to set their calendar, but this procedure will require a manual transfer of leave days when the employee returns, as at that time, the following procedure must be carried out:
- Delete the "PC-less Employee."
Note: in these situations, we recommend maintaining an overlap period after the implementation of the WorkMeter product and the procedure previously used by the company.