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Question

Time Card Ideas - Input Wanted!

asked on August 22, 2014

I have been tasked with coming up with an alternative to our current time card system and would like some input from those in the community.

 

Current System

Currently, our Payroll department prints out "time card sheets" from our HR/Finance software. It includes an employees information such as name, work calendar the employee is on, building, job description, month and year, and GL code.

 

The other thing it does is creates a table for each position so the employee can enter different hours for each position. The table has a column for each day of the week and a row for each week of the month. It also puts an X in days where there we are closed so the employee cannot enter anything by mistake on those days. (see attached time card)

 

Questions to Recreate

To recreate this, pulling the employee's information from the HR/Finance system is easy enough. So filling in the employee's name, building, calendar, position, building, etc. is not a problem.

 

The thing I cannot figure out is the best way to accomplish the table to record the hours. I can make the table, add column headers, and total rows and columns. But what would the best way to add a row for each week and putting an X in a day where we do not work?

 

Along with that, you will notice on the attached time sheet that an employee could have more than one position. A table needs to be created for each position.

 

Thank you in advance for your input.

TimeCard.pdf (384.49 KB)
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Replies

replied on August 22, 2014

https://answers.laserfiche.com/questions/55591/Populating-a-table-with-a-sql-lookup-values-via-dropdown-options-without-user-interaction

 

Use the link above to add rows to the table based on what you need. 

 

In terms of providing an X, you may instead want to disable that field in that row/column for that date. It will definite involve some javascript, but maybe not as bad as you think. 

 

I recommend you try doing like in the linked answer, and filling 7 dropdown fields with the dates depending on the month. Then have javascript figure out which has the most values, and use that to figure out how many rows to add. Then you have a CSS class assigned to each column, so you can iterate through the individual fields in that column in one swoop, and disable whichever ones need to be. You can add something to the results of the dropdown wording to indicate this, then parse it out when applying the numbered value of that field. maybe -X at the end.

 

I would have workflow configure the database automatically, maybe use a Form for adding in days the office is closed.

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replied on August 22, 2014

If you're looking for a way to allow them to see a table multiple times (one for each job they need to enter hours for), you can add a dropdown field that allows them to identify a "secondary job".  This dropdown field will be tied to a field rule that hides the secondary table when the "secondary job" field is blank.  

 

I'm not sure how you'd go about defaulting the value X in the cells of the table, but as Ken mentioned, it may be available using Javascript or CSS.

 

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replied on August 22, 2014

Rob, I think you are missing the point of the X. It is there only as a function to block off that date and not allow anyone to provide information. It is not actually a matter of putting an X there, but just disabling them from marking down time for that date we need to restrict.

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replied on August 22, 2014

I understand, Ken.  Whether defaulting an X or marking the field as read only, the end result should be the same.  End users will know to not enter information in that cell.  The piece I was unsure about was regarding the automatic identification of the appropriate cells.

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replied on August 22, 2014

Ah, that would be where my idea about parsing out the values returned comes in. Was that not clear? It's a very complex implementation to do, but it'll be something to be proud of once completed. 

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replied on August 22, 2014

Thank you both for your input. As for adding additional tables, it would need to be done dynamically when the initial database lookup is performed. We do not want the end user having to select whether or not they have a second position. It should be pulling that information from the HR/Finance software.

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replied on August 22, 2014

still, that's something you can use javascript to do with careful planning. Let us know if you need any more guidance on this task

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replied on September 3, 2014

So hows this project going?>

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replied on September 3, 2014

We will be waiting until Forms 9.2 comes out to see what new features it has that may help with this.

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replied on September 3, 2014

Interesting. Since you can use a lookup to fill hidden fields, you could just use whatever indicator it was that you wanted to pull from the DB as a way to have the extra tables appear. You would simply need to do this in Javascript instead of in field rules. Are you sure waiting for Forms 9.2 is absolutely necessary?

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