Time tracking blog

So we have a bug that may affect you if you use SMS to track your time.  If you have been strictly tracking your time via SMS (text) messages from your cell phone, you may have noticed that on your reports, your clock in/out times may be off by an hour since Daylight Savings Time changes occurred.

Don’t worry, it doesn’t change the amount of time you’ve recorded, it just affects how it shows up when editing or reporting.  Read on for details of why this is, and for what to do to fix it.

WHAT THE BUG IS
When you clock in to TSheets, we automagically detect what time zone you are in and record it in your timesheet record.  The problem is, we don’t have a good way of detecting your time zone when you’re clocking in from an SMS text message.  So, we look at what your time zone was the last time you clocked in, and just use that one again for the new record.  The problem is, if you only use SMS text messages to clock in/out, then you’ll forever be stuck in the same time zone, since we always grab whatever your last timezone was and stick it in the new records.  This leads to the problem where Daylight Savings Time comes and goes and your timezone may shift an hour – but SMS clock-ins continue to use the ‘old’ timezone which existed in previous records.  So now reports look odd because everything could appear off by an hour.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO FIX IT
The fix is actually quite simple.  All you need to do is log on to TSheets.com from your computer, and clock-in, then clock-out.  When you do this from a computer, we’ll be able to correctly detect and record your timezone.  From that point on, any clock-ins via an SMS text message will use the newly recorded timezone and everything in the reports will be right again.

If you have questions or you don’t have the luxury of sitting down at a computer any time soon, call us. We will fix it for you and/or walk you through how to remedy the SMS bug from a desktop.

You can also call or Email us to let us know if you’d like your timesheet records since the DST change to be adjusted to reflect the correct timezone.  You’ll just need to let us know what your timezone is, so we’ll know what date DST occurred and can get your timesheets fixed up for you.

WHAT WE ARE DOING TO FIX IT
Programming like crazy!  It is a bigger issue than just a few tweaks to the program & “poof” problem solved. Because it is a complex problem, it’s going to require a complex solution – but rest assured that we’ll have it resolved before our next DST change, so you won’t be required to do anything next time.

SUGGESTIONS?
We are open to making this work for everyone, if you think you have a solution, let us know!
As soon as we have this resolved, we will post here so it is always available.

Thanks,
The TSheets Team