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Frequently asked questions of Attendance Recorders:
1. What is an attendance card? Each employee shall be given a PVC Screen-printed card or a laminated identity cum attendance card, either to be kept with him or on the racks in the Time Keeping Department. These cards are called employee cards. Each employee card is printed on both the sides. The front side of the card shall show the name of the company, address and logo. The rear side of the card shall show the name of the employee, his/her dept., the employee code, the date of joining, his/her signature. Each employee shall fill these details; the same may be filled by the Time Office and handed over to him, wherein an employee shall sign in the sign column. The cards serve dual purpose of an identity card as well as an employee attendance card.
2. How many types of employee cards are available? We offer a choice of four types of employee cards. They are:
3. How to use employee card to record attendance ? An
employee shall obtain the card if it is kept in the rack or may keep it
ready as he /she approaches the STAR. Employees shall simply drop the
card into the Card Reader Slot of STAR when their turn comes. Unlike many
similar systems, STAR does not require any particular direction or an
Arrow Mark for dropping the card. Since each card is uniquely coded, STAR
reads the code and displays it on the front digital panel on the first
row. In the second row, the time at which the card is sensed is continuously
displayed. At the end of this operation, a short audible beep can be heard.
The card
4. Where does the attendance get recorded?
Once the code has been displayed, the employee code, date, month, hours
and minutes are stored into the memory of STAR. App. 7500 such entries
may be stored into memory of STAR at any point of time. No information
is recorded or written on any employee cards. However, if a printer were
attached to STAR on printer port, it would print all the above details
simultaneously when a card is sensed. This serves as a hardcopy of the
attendance. No employee names shall get printed. STAR supports any Centronics
Type Printers like Godrej, L & T, Epson and many others. It also su
5. What happens if an employee drops his card into STAR immediately second time? This
time STAR shall not display employee code but shall display DPCT (Duplicate)
on the digital panel thereby indicating a duplicate record. STAR will
not store an entry into its memory if any card is sensed twice within
a period of 10 min. from its first entry again programmable to suit your
requirements. This unique feature prevents an employee from deliberately
filling the STAR memory with same codes again and again, and wasting time
of other employees
6. Can we restrict a particular employee from registering his/her attendance on STAR? Yes.
STAR has a feature by which this is possible. With the help of our supplied
software, you may transfer the restricted employee codes to STAR so that
when the employee code is found in that restricted zone of memory, STAR
would display REPO
7. What is the maximum code size that STAR can recognize and display? STAR
can recognize and display 999999 employee codes. This is so because looking
at the strength of employees in an organization, we feel it should be
reasonable. Some similar systems can display and store 8 or more digits
of employee code, where the storage capacity in terms of number of records
drastically goes down. We however suggest the customer to keep a cross
reference table in our Program to convert 6 digit codes to more than 6
digit codes. Under normal circumstances, the error in reading a card should
not occur. It may occur if the card is dirty or has been tampered with,
by either adding / blocking one or more holes. In such cases STAR shall
display Err on the front panel rather than the employee code and a long
audible beep can be heard along with ERROR indicator lit. In such ca
8. Can an employee punch a new hole or block a hole to get a new code on the same card? Never!
Each employee card has a unique employee code together with a security
pattern and holes in-built into the code. It would be extremely difficult
for an employee to determine these patterns. Also the distance at which
the holes are punched requires a great deal of accuracy. Taking into consideration
all these factors, it would be virtually an impossible t
9. How does one determine the IN/OUT status of an employee?
STAR does not give any access to an employee to record it’s IN/OUT status.
This is to avoid any mischief or error which ma
10. What happens when the memory of STAR cannot store any further records? As
soon as the memory capacity of STAR approaches the total capacity, the
BUFF. FULL is indicated on the front panel. This indicates the concerned
authority to capture the data onto a PC with the help of standard supplied
software. Once the data has been successfully captured, the memory in
STAR becomes free to store new records. This allows STAR to be used forever.
In case if the entire memory of STAR is full and a new card is inserted,
STAR shall not accept the record and overwrite the memory but shall display
BUFF FULL on the front digital panel, thereby protecting th
11. How much time does each employee require to record his / her entry into STAR? Typically each employee should take about 2.5secs. During its initial period of testing the installation after a week or so, it should take about 2 sec. per employee or about 20-25 records per minute. These figures may vary, depending on first-time users in a queue, sensing of damaged cards for employee(s) to display Errors etc.
12. How do we establish a relation of STAR storage to our employee strength? STAR
has a storage capacity of app. 7500 records at a time. Which means that
if an organization has total employee strength of 100 employees who are
supposed to punch card 4 times a day (In, Lunch Start, Lunch End, Out),
then the number of entries that shall be stored per day shall be maximum
400. Hence one STAR can store all records for about 15 days without capturing
them on a PC. Once the data has been captured successfully, the STAR can
again receive new dat
13. Can STAR operate without Mains Power Supply? Yes, It is provided with an in-built U.P.S. (Uninterrupted Power Supply). We supply a custom-built U.P.S. for STAR to keep STAR fully operational even when the Mains Power does not exist. The U.P.S. takes over from the mains instantaneously when the power fails without any human intervention and can keep the STAR functioning for 96 hours until its battery gets fully discharged. The U.P.S. is provided with a maintenance free lead acid battery of 6V, 4Ah.
Each
employee shall be given a PVC Screen-printed card or a laminated identity
cum attendance card, either to be kept with him or on the racks in the
Time Keeping Department. These cards are called employee cards. Each employee
card is printed on both the sides. The front side of the card shall show
the name of the company, address and logo. The rear side of the card shall
show the name of the employee, his/her dept., the employee code, the date
of joining, his/her signature. Each employee shall fill these details;
the same may be filled by the Time Office and handed over to him, wherein
an employee shall sign in the sign column. The cards serve dual purpose
of an identity card as well a
15. How to use employee card to record attendance? An employee shall obtain the card if it is kept in the rack or may keep it ready as he /she approaches the STAR. Employees shall simply drop the card into the Card Reader Slot of STAR when their turn comes. Unlike many similar systems, STAR does not require any particular direction or an Arrow Mark for dropping the card. Since each card is uniquely coded, STAR reads the code and displays it on the front digital panel on the first row. In the second row, the time at which the card is sensed is continuously displayed. At the end of this operation, a short audible beep can be heard. The card should be picked up from the collection pocket and the employee may proceed.
16. Where does the attendance get recorded? Once
the code has been displayed, the employee code, date, month, hours and
minutes are stored into the memory of STAR. App. 7500 such entries may
be stored into memory of STAR at any point of time. No information is
recorded or written on any employee cards. However, if a printer were
attached to STAR on printer port, it would print all the above details
simultaneously when a card is sensed. This serves as a hardcopy of the
attendance. No employee names shall get printed. STAR supports any Centronics
Type Printers like Godrej, L & T, Epson and many others. It also supports
18 c
17. Can we restrict a particular employee from registering his/her attendance on STAR? Yes. STAR has a feature by which this is possible. With the help of our supplied software, you may transfer the restricted employee codes to STAR so that when the employee code is found in that restricted zone of memory, STAR would display REPORT on the digital panel and shall not record this entry.
18. What is the maximum code size that STAR can recognize and display? STAR
can recognize and display 999999 employee codes. This is so because looking
at the strength of employees in an organization, we feel it should be
reasonable. Some similar systems can display and store 8 or more digits
of employee code, where the storage capacity in terms of number of records
drastically goes down. We however suggest the customer to keep a cross
reference table in our Program to convert 6 digit codes to more than 6
digit codes.
19. What happens in case if an error occurs while reading the card? Under normal circumstances, the error in reading a card should not occur. It may occur if the card is dirty or has been tampered with, by either adding / blocking one or more holes. In such cases STAR shall display Err on the front panel rather than the employee code and a long audible beep can be heard along with ERROR indicator lit. In such cases no entry shall be stored. An employee may reinsert the card or ask for assistance from the time office.
20. Can an employee punch a new hole or block a hole to get a new code on the same card? Never!
Each employee card has a unique employee code together with a security
pattern and holes in-built into the code. It would be extremely difficult
for an employee to determine these patterns. Also the distance at which
the holes are punched requires a great deal of accuracy. Taking into consideration
all these factors, it would be virtually an impossible ta
21. How do we establish a relation of STAR storage to our employee strength ? STAR
has a storage capacity of app. 7500 records at a time. Which means that
if an organization has total employee strength of 100 employees who are
supposed to punch card 4 times a day (In, Lunch Start, Lunch End, Out),
then the number of entries that shall be stored per day shall be maximum
400. Hence one STAR can store all records for about 15 days without capturing
them
22. Can STAR operate without Mains Power Supply? Yes,
It is provided with an in-built U.P.S. (Uninterrupted Power Supply). We
supply a custom-built U.P.S. for STAR to keep STAR fully operational even
when the Mains Power does not exist. The U.P.S. takes over from the mains
instantaneously when the power fails without any human intervention and
can keep the STAR functioning for 96 hours unti l its battery gets fully
discharged. The U.P.S. is provided with a maintenance free lead acid battery
of 6V, 4Ah.
23. What will happen to time & data that are stored into the memory and the power fails, or the unit is switched off? STAR has an inbuilt data retention battery to preserve the time and data when the unit is switched off or Mains supply does not exist. This means that if you switch off STAR and switch it on again it will display the current time and date and not the time at which the unit was powered off. The average life of this Ni-Cd battery is 5 years.
24. Should the Data Retention Battery go weak, the front panel Indicator shall lit to warn the concerned authority to call for a service or take immediate action.Is a PC must for STAR?
Not quite. The only use of PC is to capture the data to process them to
generate various reports. Even in a small organization STAR can be used
to maintain employee attendance without a PC. STAR gives you a unique
feature of viewing records on its digital display which can be either
printed on a printer if you have attached one, or can be taken down
25.Which Computer should be used to capture and process employee data from STAR? Any IBM-compatible machine can be used to capture and process the data. The vendors are HCL, Wipro, etc. We however do not insist on a particular brand of Computer for this task. We do not offer a PC with our system.
26. What is the distance at which STAR can be placed from a computer?
STAR has 2 communication standards inbuilt into its system. These are
RS-232 and RS-485. In RS-232 standard of communication STAR communicates
directly to any serial port commonly available on a PC without any additional
card or modifications to the existing PC. Here the recommended distance
between a PC and STAR should be about 15 Mts. / 50 ft. Using RS-232, only
one STAR can be attached to a PC at a time. In RS-485 standard of communication,
STAR communicates to a special serial port on an add-on card to be attached
to a PC. We can supply these cards. Using this, 32 STARs can be attached
to a PC simultaneously and the maximum distance between the farthest STAR
and PC can be about 2 kms. Upon a special request, we can also upgrade
STAR's communication standard to RS-485, which is same as RS-422, by which
max. 32 STARs can be attached to One Comm. Port on a PC. A PC can have
4 such
27. How much time does it take to process the data and generate reports? For an organization of 100 employees, it takes about 10 - 15 minutes on a 386 machine to complete the task of generating and printing Daily Reports and MIS reports. This time is inclusive of capturing Daily Data from a STAR to PC, which is about 2-3 min. For 500 employees, on the same system, it should take about 20-30 min. for the entire above-mentioned task. The total time would depend mainly on the System speed, Printer speed, Operator Skills, number of abnormal instances in a day’s records etc.
28. Does it mean that with a flip of a button on a computer, all the reports shall be processed and printed?
Not at all! No computer and the program can think and take decisions like
a human being. Hence the maximum level of automation that can be attained
using STAR or any similar systems can be around 90% only. For instance,
a human decision should be fed to the computer for an employee who has
not punched his/her card while going out at the end of the day before
the program calculates the work-hours, overtime etc. for that employee.
Similarly, when an employee applies for a particular leave for a particular
period, those entries should be fed into the computer once, before taking
out Daily Reports for those dates. These are a few instances to show you
the human intervention in a computer before the program can blindly do
some funny and wrong computations and interpretations/conclusions.
29. What type of Reports are available using supplied Standard Management Information Software? These are classified as:
The software can also be modified to suit your requirements and additional reports can be generated as per your specifications.
30. How do you take care of Power Fluctuations in Remote/ Rural areas? The
power supply is a Switch Mode Power Supply commonly used in Computers
to take care of wide voltage fluctuation
31. Does STAR require Air-Conditioned and Dust-Free atmosphere? Not
necessary at all! Although the system is microprocessor based system,
the design has been tested to work perfectly up to a temperature of 45-50
C. A dust free atmosphere also is not necessary as there are no moving
parts
32. What makes STAR, a popular system? Since Since STAR offers a unique feature of dropping the card in any direction, the employee shall not have any trouble of first locating the direction of insertion of the card and then dropping it. Another unique feature of STAR is the sensing electronic system. This system requires the card simply to be dropped in any direction for sensing. With this the overall time required to complete the task of recording attendance will reduce considerably. This system since it does not involve any mechanics for sensing the card, reduces the probability of breakdowns and subsequent maintenance of the system.
33. What type of precautions should generally be taken to keep the system running? Nothing much in particular except a periodical cleaning of STAR from outside, cleaning the infra-red sensors with the supplied velvet strips, and blowing air by ordinary vacuum cleaner should serve the purpose.
34. Does STAR require any special maintenance? No. Because there is a maintenance free battery in U.P.S. and dry data retention battery, no particular maintenance is required.
35. Where else can STAR be used? Controlling and blowing Siren; Controlling and restricting unauthorized entries by connecting electrical locks; Monitoring the machine start time and end time; Inventory Management; Job and Batch Costing etc.
36. How much Warranty is offered on each STAR and accessories?
STAR comes with One-Year Warranty from date of Installation or 15 months
from date of dispatch, whichever is earlier. Other accessories like Microprinter,
Comm. Card (RS-485), Siren controller etc. comes with 90 days warranty.
37. What about Annual Maintenance Contract after the expiry of Warranty? At the end of Warranty period a Customer can enter into A.M.C. on reasonable terms.
38. Why does STAR use infra-red decoding system rather than Magnetic Stripes or Bar Coding? Although Magnetic and bar-Code Systems are claimed to be the latest and State-of-the-art technology, our experience of designing STAR shows that infra-red decoding system is still as good as rest of the systems This is based on the following grounds:
39. Should a PC be always ON when STAR is functioning? No!
STAR has its own memory to record employee code, time, date and month
for app. 7500 records. The PC is needed to capture data from STAR. Hence
only during the transfer of data from STAR to a PC and subsequently process
them to generate reports, the PC should be ON. |
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