The topic of access control and automation of employee timekeeping always resonates in the hearts of managers, and losing control over such a system is painful. We have a story about searching for the cause of errors in data exchange between 1C: Salary and HR Management and Timex ACS. Spoiler: as often happens, the reptilians are to blame for the errors. We found and correct the errors, but not the reptilians.
Briefly about the customer of the modification and software
The customer is Naberezhnye Chelny Pipe Plant (NChTZ), one of the largest manufacturers of equipment for completion (preparation for production after drilling operations) of oil and gas wells. The plant employs over 1,000 people. The standard solution 1C: Salary and HR Management is us for personnel records, payroll calculation, planning of labor costs, calculation of personal income tax and insurance premiums.
1C:ZUP is integrat with Timex, a universal software design to build access control and/or time tracking systems. The software has a modular structure, which allows for expanding functionality without modification.
Timex has an SDK — an auxiliary software module that
Expands its capabilities, including in the area of integration with 1C. The module implements data exchange via a web service using the SOAP standard and provides an API for developing plugins and reports. And it seems that not everything was foreseen in it.
Integration with 1C allows you to collect data on employees’ working hours for further accounting in 1C:ZUP. There are two possible configuration options:
- Lists of employees, their positions, departments are export from 1C to Timex, and here they are assign access levels, work areas and work schules.
- Employee lists are import from Timex and assignments are made in 1C. Timex then collects event data and transfers the information back to the accounting system.
On the one hand, the ability to directly enter employees into the Timex database gives it autonomy, on the other hand, it creates situations that we will now discuss.
How the problem manifest itself
When synchronizing 1C:ZUP–Timex, errors began to occur in certain cases:
Associat with duplication of employees and positions. That is, a person goes to work, and in Timex the clock is empty, as if he did not check in at the checkpoint. After analyzing the situation, it became clear that the error is caus by the fact that in 1C:ZUP the employee is link to an incorrect Timex employee due to the presence of duplicates in the latter. This is due to the ability to enter an employee directly in Timex. For example, an employee can be enter into the control system twice:
unloading from 1C in the position of “Chief Specialist” (correctly, in accordance with the staffing schule);
directly to the Timex database in the position of “Leading Specialist” (incorrect).
If an employee in 1C:ZUP is link to the “Leading Specialist” in Timex, then his timesheet in 1C will be empty. Timex has a standard option to refine the EmployeeLink–ID_Timex connection, but the scheme is complex and duplicates must be search for manually, i.e. wait until an error occurs in the timesheet and correct it immiately.
Relat to an incorrect code in the timesheet. The error occurr when an employee left maternity leave early (code OZ). When the document “Return from maternity leave” was issu in 1C:ZUP, Timex did not cancel the employee’s vacation status. As a result, timesheets with the designation “OZ” were upload to 1C:ZUP when the employee was not at work, for example, on weekends.
