GPS selfie attendance for field staff

Attendance is the oldest field problem

Long before smart meters, every utility supervisor knew the question: who was actually out today? Paper registers get signed in bulk. A phone call at 10 a.m. proves nothing. And on a rollout paid per meter, an absent crew shows up as a shortfall a week later, when it is too late to fix.

Field attendance in PIEBENCH is built to answer that question the same morning, without making supervisors into detectives.

How it works for a technician

1. Go on duty. At the start of the day, with signal (at the depot, for example), the technician taps on-duty in Scout. A selfie is required by default, and the app records their GPS location.
2. Work. Jobs are done as normal. While on duty, their location is visible to supervisors through On-Duty live tracking.
3. Go off duty. When the shift ends, they check out. A checkout selfie can be required too.

Tracking that feels like surveillance is a regular complaint in Reddit threads about workforce apps. That is why live location here is tied to being on duty. More on that in the best workforce management app, judged by Reddit pain points.

That is all the technician does. The rest is calculated.

The field dashboard: the on-duty switch, sync status and the day's progress in one place.

What supervisors get

Present by the deadline. You set a check-in deadline (09:00 by default). Staff must go on duty by then to be marked present.

Duty hours. Each shift's length is recorded. Shifts shorter than your minimum (six hours by default) are flagged as below threshold, and shifts longer than your overtime threshold (ten hours by default) are flagged as overtime.

Stationary agents. If a technician's total movement during a shift stays within a small radius (50 metres by default), they are flagged as stationary. A crew member who checked in and then never left the tea stall stands out without anyone having to watch a map.

Selfies on record. Each check-in selfie is stored with the attendance record, which deals with the classic problem of one phone checking in for three people.

All of these thresholds are settings, so you can match them to your shift pattern instead of the defaults.

Geofenced check-in for office staff

Office and depot staff work from a fixed place, so for them attendance can be tied to a location. Turn on geofenced check-in, set the centre point and a radius (200 metres by default), and they can only go on duty from inside it. Field staff are not limited this way, because their work moves.

Attendance next to output

Attendance on its own says who turned up. Next to the job data it says much more. In PIEBENCH, the same person's check-in, location and approved jobs sit side by side, so a technician who is on duty all day with no completed jobs, or who completes jobs while flagged stationary, is easy to spot. On the Pro plan, performance tracking and a leaderboard add points and GPS accuracy to the picture.

Fair, not just strict

Attendance data is also how you defend your crews. When an agency is accused of not working an area, check-in records, live tracking and timestamped job photos show exactly where they were. Good crews tend to like a system that makes their effort visible.

Which plan

Field and office attendance and On-Duty live tracking are included from Starter at $199/month. Performance tracking and the leaderboard come with Pro. See pricing.