User – any person in your All Hours account, whether an employee, a manager or an administrator.

Department – an organisational unit of your company. You use departments to filter views and reports and to limit managers’ access to data. More: Departments.

Authorization role – a set of permissions that defines what a user can see and edit in the application. Your account includes three predefined roles – Administrator, Manager and Employee – which you can adjust or use as a basis for new roles. More: Authorization roles.

Approval workflow – defines who approves employees’ requests, such as vacation or a missed clocking, and in what order. More: Approval workflows.

Identifier – a card, key fob or chip that an employee uses to clock in on a time clock.

Event – any entry on an employee’s timeline. There are three types of events: clockings, absences and adjustments. In addition to the predefined (system) events, you can create an unlimited number of your own (user) events.

Clocking – an event with which an employee marks the start or end of work or another category, such as an arrival, a departure or a lunch break. Employees clock in the web application, in the mobile app or on a time clock.

Absence – an event for a full-day or partial absence, such as vacation or sick leave. An administrator or manager enters the absence, or the employee submits it as a request for approval. More: Creating a new type of absence.

Adjustment – a one-off correction of calculation data, such as entering a vacation quota, correcting the hour balance or adding a paid-time exception.

Category – a type of time counted by events, such as Physical presence, Lunch break, Work from home, Sick leave or Business trip. System categories are predefined, and you can add an unlimited number of your own (user) categories.

Timeline – a view of an employee’s day that shows all events and calculated hours on a time line.

Arrival – starts counting a category. For example, the Arrival clocking starts the Physical presence category and the Start work from home clocking starts the Work from home category. An Arrival-type clocking must be followed by a Departure or Paid exit clocking – two Arrival-type clockings in a row are not possible.

Departure – ends the category in progress, for example at the end of the working day or of work from home. You therefore do not need a separate clocking to end work from home; Departure is enough.

Paid exit – ends the current category and starts a new one, such as Lunch break or Business departure. It can be followed by an Arrival, Paid exit or Departure clocking. For this type you can set the category to end automatically according to the time policy settings.

Return from paid exit – used mainly for a business arrival. The category can be counted backwards automatically according to the time policy settings.

Global time rules – the default calculation rules that apply to all employees who have no other rules assigned. More: Calculation rules overview.

Time policy – exceptions to the global time rules for a group of employees, such as a different planned time or shift start. Settings you do not change in a time policy are taken over from the global time rules.

Work plan – consists of one or more time policies and defines which policy applies to an employee on a given day. More: Creating a time policy and work plan.

Plan – the number of hours an employee is expected to work on a given day.

Balance – the difference between the hours worked and the plan. The daily balance applies to a single day, while the running balance adds up over a longer period.

Counter – a sum of selected data, such as the hour balance, the vacation balance or work-from-home hours. Counters are shown on timelines and in reports and are exported for payroll. More: How to add a new counter.

Calendar group – defines holidays, workdays, the time zone and date limits such as vacation transfer and payday. More: Creating a new calendar.

Calculation lock – prevents changes to data before a selected date, for example once payroll for a period has been calculated. More: Locking a user’s calculations.

Clocking point – a way of clocking or of restricting clocking: time clock (terminal), geolocation, Beacon or IP address. You set up clocking points in the application settings. More: Clocking points overview.

Geofencing – restricts clocking in the mobile app to approved locations. An employee can only clock in once the mobile app detects that they are at an approved location, such as the company address or near a Beacon. You control this in the user’s permissions. More: Geofencing or require location before clocking.

Audit log – a chronological record of who viewed, created, exported, edited or deleted data in your account, and when. It is required for GDPR-compliant processing of employee attendance data and helps you demonstrate correct use of data during inspections.