Latest Tensor.NET Update 4.5.0.12 Includes Payroll & Absence Planner Enhancements

Tensor.NET 4.5.0.12 Update

The latest Tensor.NET software update (version 4.5.0.12) cleans up various customer resolutions and system fixes. Included in this update is improved payroll exporting and fixes to the ‘Amend Clocking's’ display.

To see the full range of fixes, customer resolutions and enhancements to the Self-Service Module, please read on.

• The version now includes a number of enhancements to the Payroll Exporting feature, these are:
  • Two new options added to the Token Formats to allow Tensor.NET to export payroll data to ADP® iHCM2. ‘Employee Absence Date ID' and ‘Employee Date ID’ have been added as shown, these tokens will only appear when the ‘totals only’ is not checked.
  • Two new data tokens ‘PaybandValueCash’ and ‘PaybandValueHours’ have now been added to the list of tokens that can be added. These new tokens are only available when the "Separate Lines per Pay Bands/Absences" option is checked. These allow the display to show the Pay band values in one column if it's cash and another if it's hours and you are able to position those two columns in different places in the layout.
  • Project S-3553-355-355-PLExport has been implemented into this version. This project details the bespoke requirements of a new payroll export report that exports into a specific structure of an excel file for a Polish payroll package. A new document is available on request for more information.
• A new ‘Identity Number’ column has been added to the field chooser display dialogue page. When the identity number is enabled in the User Options, users can now add this filter to the employee screen viewing panel and can be searched and filtered the same as other options.
• A new ‘Default Absence Code’ option has been added into the Role security where Admin users can set a default code for managers to be used. This popular setting was previously used in the ‘Absence Planner’ for staff and has now been extended to their Supervisory planner as shown here.
• A new display option is available for the ‘Event Alerts’ that are configured in the User Options application. On previous versions, this was presented as one long list and finding the relevant alert proved difficult. This has now been grouped into categories as shown here for easier navigation as well as being able to select multiple categories to configure in one go.
• Changes have been made to the ‘Employee Returned to Work’ notification. On previous versions, you were only able to add an email of the recipient for the alert. Due to the nature of the Alert, it’s more likely that the recipient would be the employee’s line manager or supervisor. A change has been made so that email notifications can be sent to the employee linked as the employees ‘Authoriser’ within their record. An ‘Enable Authoriser Email’ option has been added as shown for this alert, which will send the email to any authorisers for Clocking and Absence requests.
• The employee report now includes extra options in the report setup. After adding the ‘Employee Pandemic’ table to the report, a new ‘Vaccine’ field is available, which allows users to report on the vaccines that employees have received.
• It was only recently noticed where the wording as DVR was being used in the ANPR or CCTV Modules of Tensor.NET. DVR (Digital Video Recorder) is an older tech term and the system has now been rightly changed to NVR (Networked Video Recorder) in this version onwards.

Fixes

• A fault was identified In the Hardware Device Manager when building the Scanner structure, when adding a new scanner and then after saving it, if then load the scanner properties, the Card Family defaults to RAW and not [Controller Default], this has now been resolved in this version.
• The dual security option of using a Face & card with pin was found to be not working on the FaceStation device. The fault was found to be that the Tensor.NET data was not synchronising correctly to the FaceStation unit and therefore was not validating the Employee PIN.
• A couple of changes and fixes to the Amend Clocking's displays:
  • Not a fix as such, but a change has been made to the display options in the amend clockings screen. On previous versions when adding Pay Bands for the first time, the clocking pairs always appear after the Pay band columns. These can easily be changed and moved however the preference is the clocking pairs appear before the Pay band columns, this will happen in this version moving forward.
  • A fault was found when trying to select multiple departments/sections to amend clocking's display. If you use CTRL key to select them, then only the last selected item is added and not all of them, this has now been resolved in this version.
  • A minor fault was found with the text display. When making a shift swap in the Shift Assignment screen, the text label in the Amend clocking screen did not display the name of the person with whom the shift swap was done with.
• A minor issue was found when trying to edit newly created Absence categories. The system incorrectly gave the message ‘Entity currently in use’ when it was not, which has been fixed in this version.
• A problem was found with an Alert when clocking in on a scheduled ‘Rest Day’. When configured to do so, Tensor.NET can email a list of recipients when an employee clocks in on one of their scheduled rest days.
• An issue was found when trying to export a schedule of shifts and then printing the report in excel, this was creating errors and generating a log file. This fault has now been resolved in this version and exports as expected.
• Upcoming Absence Email – A fault was found when disabling the ‘SSM Emailing’ option in User Options, this caused the Upcoming Absence email to stop sending. This was later found that the Upcoming Absence email used the QueueSSM email which caused the problem, this has now been changed to use the standard sending options.
• Emailing – The Appointment email was still showing the questionnaire link, even when the workflow setting was set to not require one.
• A fault was found with the Self-Service Module Approvers section, the fault occurred when you had 2 ‘Primary’ authorisers and then editing one to change to ‘Secondary’ and then saving, it changed back to ‘Primary’, this fault has now been resolved.
  
• A fault was found when manually adding Job Clocking Data in the Amend clocking screen - If you click on a field without entering any info, it leaves 00:00 on each square you click. The only way to remove is Right clicking the Row to delete, which has now been corrected.

Customer Resolutions

• Further improvements have been made where a new field to the bulk amendment has been added. Users can now select ‘Entitlement Start Month’ as an option to bulk amend and has options of ‘Absence Category’ and ‘Start Month’. In addition to this the Standard Entitlement option has also been changed and now has a [Maintain Current Value] item in the month drop down. As this screen is used on the employee screen this option is only visible in the bulk amendment. When selecting this option, this will not change the start month.

Tensor.NET Self-Service Module Updates in Version 4.5.0.12

New Features & Enhancements

• Project S-137515-355-355-SSMCompanyAndSiteSchedule has been implemented into this version. This project details the changes made to Tensor.NET to add functionality to the Self-Service Module that allows two additional Reports that can be generated, namely ‘Site Schedule’ and ‘Company Schedule’. These reports will provide real-time information of Employee schedules (Assigned Shifts) between any date range, filtered and selected by Site, Department and Section. A separate document is available that details the changes.
• A new ‘Reason’ column has been added to the systems ‘Mimic Panel’ which displays the absence code if an employee has an absence on that day. This already appears in the main application and has proved to be a useful tool, so has now been added to the SSM too. Clicking on the ‘Column Visibility’ option displays the full list of options.

• The Clocking Widget has now been changed to add some colour when clocking IN/OUT, The widget will display green for IN and red for out to give a more visual feel for the status.
  • A new ‘Door Actions’ widget has been added to the SSM in this version. This new Widget enhances a user’s ability to control doors through their SSM screen. The widget allows you to select a Site, which will then load the Doors for that Site. You can then select a Door and the door's current status will be shown. You can select 1 of 4 actions (Lock, Unlock, Reset & Release) in a dropdown list and press the submit button to perform that action. In addition these separate actions can also be restricted from the user’s role.
  • The Tasks/Requests Widget has received a new enhancement. This has been updated so that the number is more prominent and easier to see what request type is next to it.
  • Actionable requests will have a red badge, where your own requests will have a grey badge as shown here.
  • The ‘Line Manager Tasks’ options have also been enhanced in the same manner to make things more obvious to the user.
• The SSM login screen has received a couple of changes to stop end users looking for help on Tensor’s Website chat. Users have been clicking hyperlinks and then requesting help when they need to contact their own IT teams. The ‘Tensor plc’ hyperlink on the welcome page has been removed along with the ‘Welcome to the Tensor Support Site’ logo. A message change has been made on the failed login page to read "if the issue persists please contact your internal IT department".
• A Green, Orange and Red colour tag has been added in the licences section. These colours will provide a visual as well as a number count on the amount of licences available for the SSM accounts, for the application, the USB logins, Mobile SSM and the FRC devices. As licences are used a < 5% will show as a red tag, 5 - 10% is an orange tag and 10% + is a green tag.
• New Language Packs - Polish & Spanish have been added and are now supported in this version. Users can change their Language in their Culture Preferences held in the ‘My Account’ section of the SSM. Changing these options will convert the SSM application into the chosen languages.
• The ‘Customise Font Size’ has been modified in this version so that when changed, all text in the SSM will change to the specified format.
• A new feature has been added so that when cancelling previously authorised Absence, you can request to cancel a segment of it. On previous versions, if you requested a full day annual leave and then decided you only wanted half, you had to cancel the whole day and then request the half separately. The new option (shown here) allows you to cancel either the 1st or 2nd half of the day.

Fixes

• A reporting fault was found with the standard SSM Clockcard Report, after selecting the date range and then generating, the results creating an error in the event log, this has now been cleared and the report generates as expected.
• Some Display and text faults have been rectified in this version, they are:
  • A display fault was found with the ‘Add Clocking’ dialogue, where it was not shown on smaller screen sizes or when the screen was not wide enough. The user interface has received some changes so this shows as expected on all screen sizes.
  • A display fault was also found when using a ‘Firefox’ browser. When using the ‘View Timesheet’ option, the clocking’s minutes button was losing part of the side when viewed in full screen.
  • A space has been added between the employee name and employee number on the ‘Supervisory Bradford Factor’ widget.
• A conflict has been found when restricting absence codes to ‘Timed’ only through the SSM Role management page and requesting full days in the calendar. When doing so, the controls for Timed were not showing prior to the update.
• A fault was found when changing the configuration of the Absence Planner display for users. When using the "Code to Display in Absence Planner" to "Description", this made no difference, however, this update sees this issue resolved.
• When allocating Shifts to Roles in the SSM Role Management section, a fault was found in the display that was showing shifts that had been marked as ‘Inactive’ in the main application but were still showing as available shifts to be used, this has now been updated so these shifts do not show.
• A fault was found when deleting clockings on the ‘View Timesheet’ option. Deleting clockings here should also delete any jobs and any hours assigned to the clocking pair, this has now been resolved in this version.
• Company Schedule Report – A couple of faults were found on this new report, both are now corrected, they were:
  • Ticking the ‘Show Blank for Absence’ option was found to be not working and was displaying the expected shift.
  • Ticking ‘Show Shift Core times rather than Shift Code’ in the Role management was not displaying core times in schedule as expected.
• Job Start/Stop Widget – A couple of issues were found with the Job Costing widget option, they were:
  • Jobs were not being listed as default, Users needed to enter a filter to get the jobs to list, changes have been made so the Jobs show on the initial load.
  • A similar issue was found where the current Job being worked on was also not populated in the drop down menu.
  • Users were not able to start with displayed jobs when the user was clocked OUT, although the button did enable when the Job was changed. This was found to be a refresh problem with the Widget and has now been resolved.
• Absence Planner – A fault was found when trying to cancel Absences by a date range. When cancelling absences that extended the current set holiday year, the date option would allow you to choose into the previous holiday year but only the absences for the current holiday year would show. This has now been resolved in this version. An additional ‘Back’ button has also been added into this area, this is because on previous versions after displaying selected absences to cancel, the user could not go back to change dates, they would have had to close the window and then re-select them.
• Adding ‘Cash’ Adjustments – A problem was found when trying to add a cash Adjustment through the timesheet screen. The problem occurs when trying to add a value with more than 2 decimal places. This has now been resolved in this version.
• Roles & Security – A fault was found with the ‘Closed Day’ button option. Authorisers that have the 'Show Day closure option for Line Managers' setting were not showing correctly. Changes have now been made to this option so that SSM users are now required to have the role option enabled and be a clocking supervisor in order to see the close day’s button.
• Welfare Checks – A fault was found when trying to add Welfare Checks for contractors through the SSM pages. After adding the required details and saving it was found when opening the appointment from the ‘My Appointments’ option, the details were not saved.
• Minimum Age checks – Employees can request to add their correct date of birth in their personal details section, when doing so, a minimum age checker is used to ensure dates entered does not make the employee younger than 16 years of age. An issue was found where it was only checking by the year and not by the day and month as it should.