How to Set Up & Use Geofencing for Employee Location Monitoring in VeriClock

Learn how to set up geofences to create boundaries around job sites. This feature can help employers monitor when employees clock in/out, ensuring they are at the correct location. It also enables automatic clock-out when an employee leaves the geofence.

Geofencing Configuration

See Location Tracking Settings in VeriClock for information on enabling GPS tracking in your account.

Once location tracking and continuous tracking are enabled, geofences can be created to set a boundary around job locations. On the third row of tabs, click Geofences>Add Geofence + to create a geofence.

Note: If you do not have Continuous Tracking enabled, Geofencing will not work.

We have two types of geofences that can be created:

• Dynamic Geofences: Automatically created when a user clocks in, and destroyed when they clock out. Perfect for users who will be clocking in and out at unpredictable locations, but once clocked in, will stay at the location for the length of an entire job.
• Static Geofences: Assigned by moving the map under the pin displayed until the pin and accuracy circle aligns with the desired geofence location. Good for when employees clock in and out at regular, identifiable job sites.

 Quick notes about geofencing:

• Geofencing and GPS-tagging are features exposed by telephone hardware, and all apps receive the same information from a phone. Location accuracy in our app will be the same as available at the time to all other apps (this even includes built-in apps like Google Maps).
• Due to various hardware limitations, there will be times the position the phone reports to the app will vary wildly from point to point. Those circumstances can include:
  • Being inside buildings where GPS signal is degraded, or there is a lack of WiFi access points, or both (like other apps, we can use the location of known WiFi SSID’s to assist in GPS positioning)
  • Employees actively disabling GPS or WiFi hardware
  • Phone hardware failure
  • Employees closing the app or clocking in before the phone has provided an accurate and updated location (we do not actively query phone hardware for location information until an employee has opened the app and is prepared to clocked in, or is already clocked in)

• Geofencing is a best-effort tool. Because of the inaccuracies that can occur in location reporting, it should be used to assist employee management, but not as a tool for employee punishment
• Geofences should be granted additional buffer wherever possible. Reported locations may vary up to 100m or more for employees that have only moved a few meters (this often occurs when location accuracy reported by the phone suddenly decreases). Geofences of restricted size, placed side by side, or placed overlapping will often generate errors as a result.

Creating a Dynamic Geofence

1. On the New Geofence page, start by providing a name for the Geofence. A good suggestion for geofence names is to pick something that will clearly identify the geofence location and purpose.

2. Ensure the drop-down says “the user’s location at time of clock-in” and set the geofence radius to the size area your employees are likely to remain within. 250m is the default; that’s about the size of an average city block’s longest direction. If your employees work in an area with tall buildings or poor GPS coverage, you may want to increase this radius to 500m or more. While this may provide more opportunities for them to leave the job site undetected, it will reduce false-positives. Adjust this value as your experience with the feature develops; you can slowly make geofences more accurate until false-positives start increasing.

3. Select the job(s) you want to apply the geofence to. Jobs can only have one geofence, but geofences can be applied to multiple jobs. If you want a geofence to apply to all jobs, select “All Jobs” from the jobs drop-down list

4. Choose what to do at each of the three clock-states we monitor:

When Clocking In: Applies when the employee has the app open and active but is attempting to clock in. The choices are to “Do Nothing”, “Warn”, or “Block”.

• If you choose “Do Nothing”, no action will be taken when clocking in if the employee is outside the geofence for the specified job(s)
• If you choose “Warn”, a notification will be displayed on the user’s phone if they are outside the geofence when clocking into the applied job(s), but they will still be allowed to clock in.
• If you choose “Block”, your employees will not be able to clock in until the phone detects they have entered the geofence for the related job(s).

While Clocked In: Applies while the app is running (but not necessarily open on the screen), AND the employee is clocked in. The choices are to “Do Nothing”, “Warn”, or “Automatically Clock Out”. 
“Do Nothing” and “Warn” perform the same actions as at Clock In; “Automatically Clock Out” will:

• Proactively clock an employee out of their active job if they exit the associated geofence
• Present an alert on the employee’s phone, warning them they have been clocked out because they have exited the geofence; and
• Leave them clocked out until they clock themselves back in again
  Note: If an employee tries to clock in to a job that will auto clock out when a geofence is exited, they will be immediately clocked out if they are still outside the related geofence at clock in

When Clocking Out: Applies when the employee has the app open and active, is clocked into a job associated with the geofence, and attempts to clock out. The choices are to “Do Nothing”, “Warn”, or “Block”. The actions are identical to those When Clocking In

5. Click save to apply the geofence to the selected jobs

Creating a Static Geofence

1. Identical to Step 1 in “Creating a Dynamic Geofence”

2. Ensure the drop-down says “a specific location shown below” and set the geofence radius to the size area your employees are likely to remain within.

• Search for an address or move the map under the pin until the pin is positioned over the location on the map you want the geofence to contain.
  NOTE: The address search feature will not always accurately place the geofence centering pin. Please verify the pin is in the correct location before saving the geofence

3. Follow steps 3 to 5 from “Creating a Dynamic Geofence” to complete the Static Geofence creation process.

See Also:

Setting up Geo Fences (Video)

Using Continuous Tracking

Geofence Troubleshooting

GPS Location Tracking Options