Field Evidence: Work-Order Proof, Count Scanning and Clock Hours

When a technician finishes a job, the work order is completed with a resolution, the condition of the asset afterwards and the labour, parts and other cost. The completion form, on the work order page on the web and on the work order screen in the AWRA app, also takes proof that the work was done: up to six photos of the finished job, JPEG or PNG and up to 4 MB each, and a signature drawn on the screen by whoever accepted the work, with their printed name. Both are optional. A routine filter change may need neither; a repair a contractor will invoice for usually deserves both.

Once the work order is completed, a Proof of work card appears on it. It shows the photos, the signature, the name of the person who signed and the time it was signed. The files are not public links: they are served only to people who can view asset maintenance, the same permission that lets someone open the work order. So a supervisor reviewing last month’s jobs, or an auditor sampling repair spend, sees the photo of the replaced belt and the signature of the site manager who accepted it, next to the cost that was booked.

In practice: a technician services the standby generator at an Eldoret depot. Before closing the work order he photographs the new filters and the cleaned engine bay, then hands his phone to the depot manager, who checks the generator runs and signs as accepting the work, typing her name under the signature. When the repair vendor’s invoice arrives a week later, the finance officer opens the work order, sees three photos and the depot manager’s signature with the time, and approves the bill without phoning anyone.

Maintenance work happens in plant rooms, on rooftops and at remote sites where the phone has no signal. In the AWRA app, completing a work order is the one maintenance action that works offline: the completion, with its photos and signature, is saved on the phone and sent when the connection returns. Until then the work order stays open on the server, and the app says so. Opening, starting and cancelling a work order need a connection, because they change the job against what the server currently holds.

Proof is kept-and-warned, never fatal. If a photo is too large or not an image, or the signature drawing cannot be stored, the work order still completes, and you are told what was not kept: a warning on the web, and a warning returned to the app. The reason is simple — a technician who has done the work should not lose the completion, the cost and the downtime record because of one bad file. The signature can be missing while the typed name and the rest of the completion are kept.

In practice: a technician completes a pump repair at a borehole forty kilometres from town. The app saves the completion with two photos and the farm manager’s signature and tells him it will be sent when he reconnects. That evening, back in signal, the queue sends it and the work order closes. The completion is timed when it reaches the server, not when he tapped Complete, so the evening drive shows in the downtime figure — worth knowing when you read downtime on remote jobs. If somebody else had already closed the job in the meantime, the offline queue shows that the completion could not be applied rather than silently dropping it.

A stock count can run to hundreds of lines, and scrolling to find the one for the box in your hand is where counts slow down and numbers end up on the wrong line. On a count’s detail screen in the AWRA app, the barcode button beside the search box opens the camera. Scan the item’s barcode and the scanned code becomes the search, which matches the item name and barcode on the count’s lines. When exactly one line matches, the cursor goes straight into that line’s counted-quantity field, so the next thing you type is the number.

When the code matches more than one line — the same item in two locations within the count’s scope, for example — the matching lines are listed and you pick the right one. Scanning only finds a line; it does not add an item to the count or change the expected quantity, and the counted number still goes through review, recount and the adjustment approval like any other. A blind count still hides the expected quantity after a scan.

In practice: a storekeeper counting the hardware aisle picks up a carton of 25 mm screws, taps the scan button and points the camera at its barcode. The count’s lines narrow to the screws and the cursor sits in the counted-quantity field; she types 38 and moves to the next carton. On a shelf where the same paint is held in two bins, the scan lists both lines, and she chooses the one for the bin in front of her.

An attendance site already decides where people may clock in: inside its radius, with their registered device and, if required, its QR code. Clock hours add when. Open Human Resources, Attendance Sites, edit the site and tick Only allow clocking in/out here during set hours. Then add one or more time ranges. Each range has the days of the week it applies on, a start and an end time, and applies to clock in and out, clock in only, or clock out only. Clock hours are off by default, so an existing site behaves as it did until you switch them on.

A range that ends earlier than it starts runs past midnight, for night shifts, and it belongs to the day it opens on: a Friday 22:00–06:00 range admits a clock-out at 05:30 on Saturday even if Saturday is not ticked. An action with no range of its own stays open at any time, so a site can limit clock-in to the morning and leave clock-out free. Switching clock hours off keeps the ranges for next time but enforces nothing. The sites list can be filtered by whether clock hours are on.

In practice: a packhouse in Naivasha has a day shift and a night shift. HR adds two ranges on the packhouse site: clock in only, Monday to Saturday 05:30–07:30, and clock in only, Monday to Saturday 17:30–19:30. Clock-out has no range, so people leave whenever their shift ends. A worker who arrives at 10:00 for a day shift is refused at the clock and files a correction explaining the late bus, which a supervisor approves.

Clock hours govern the employee’s own clocking: the web My Attendance page, the no-login time portal and the mobile app all go through the same check. Outside the site’s ranges the clock-in or clock-out is refused with a message naming the site, its hours and the time it is now, and pointing the employee to a correction request. The hours are also shown beside the clock button on all three, so nobody discovers them by being refused. The check is to the minute with no grace period: in a 07:00–09:30 range, 09:30 is allowed and 09:31 is not.

The shift’s grace period is a different thing and still applies: it decides whether an allowed clock-in counts as late. Clock hours decide whether the clock-in is accepted at all. HR’s manual register, CSV and biometric imports, and approved corrections are deliberately not limited by clock hours, so somebody who genuinely worked outside them is regularised through the correction flow rather than locked out of being paid. The refusal is checked after the location: the hours belong to the site the employee is standing at.

Two cases worth knowing. An employee assigned to several sites whose radii overlap is matched to the one whose hours are open now. And an employee with no assigned site — a driver, a field engineer — has no clock hours at all, because the hours belong to a site; their device check still applies. In practice: a security guard assigned to two neighbouring buildings clocks in at 18:05; one building’s hours closed at 18:00 but the other’s night range opened at 17:30, so his clock-in is accepted against the second building.