Set Up Work Locations & GPS Geofencing

A location in Clokio represents any physical workplace where your employees report for duty. This could be a corporate office, a retail store, a warehouse, a construction site, a client's premises, or even a co-working space. Each location has its own name, street address, GPS coordinates, and geofence radius.

Before employees can clock in, you need to add at least one location to your organization. Think of locations as the "where" of attendance -- they tell Clokio exactly which physical places count as valid workplaces for your team.

Step-by-Step: Add a New Location

1. 1 Open the Admin Dashboard and navigate to Locations from the sidebar menu.
2. 2 Click the "Add Location" button in the top-right corner of the page.
3. 3 Enter a Location Name that your team will recognize, such as "Main Office," "Downtown Store," or "Warehouse B."
4. 4 Type the full street address of the workplace. Clokio will automatically look up the GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude) from the address you provide.
5. 5 Review the GPS coordinates that were auto-detected. You can adjust them manually if the pin on the map does not match the exact building entrance or parking area you want.
6. 6 Set the geofence radius (the virtual boundary around this location). We will cover this in detail in the next section.
7. 7 Optionally, configure working days for this location (for example, Sunday through Thursday, or Monday through Friday).
8. 8 Click "Save" to create the location. It is now ready for employee assignments.

Common Location Types

A geofence is an invisible, virtual boundary drawn around a physical location on a map. Think of it as a digital perimeter or "fence" around your workplace. When an employee tries to clock in using the Clokio mobile app, the system checks whether their phone's GPS position falls inside this boundary. If they are within the fence, the clock-in is accepted. If they are outside of it, the system blocks the attempt or flags it as an anomaly.

Geofencing is one of Clokio's most powerful features because it eliminates the possibility of employees clocking in from home, from the parking lot of a nearby coffee shop, or from any other unauthorized place. It ensures that attendance records reflect genuine physical presence at the workplace.

How the Radius Works

Every geofence in Clokio is a circle defined by a center point (the GPS coordinates of your location) and a radius (the distance from the center to the edge of the circle). The radius can be set anywhere from 50 meters to 5 kilometers, giving you full flexibility regardless of the size of your workplace.

How GPS Verification Works on Clock-In

1. 1 The employee opens the Clokio mobile app and taps "Clock In."
2. 2 The app requests the phone's current GPS position from the device's location services.
3. 3 Clokio calculates the distance between the employee's GPS position and the center of each assigned location's geofence.
4. 4 If the distance is less than or equal to the radius, the employee is inside the geofence and the clock-in proceeds.
5. 5 If the distance exceeds the radius, the app displays an error message telling the employee they are outside the allowed area.

GPS Accuracy Considerations

GPS accuracy on smartphones typically ranges from 3 to 15 meters in open outdoor areas. However, accuracy can be reduced in certain environments:

• check_circle Indoor environments: Thick walls, multi-story buildings, and underground areas can reduce GPS accuracy to 20-50 meters. Consider a slightly larger radius for indoor workplaces.
• check_circle Urban canyons: Tall buildings on narrow streets can cause GPS signals to bounce, reducing accuracy. Add an extra 20-30 meters to your radius in dense urban areas.
• check_circle Weather conditions: Heavy cloud cover or storms can marginally affect GPS precision, but modern phones handle this well in most cases.

Once your locations are set up, you need to tell Clokio which employees work at which locations. An employee can only clock in from a location they have been assigned to. This prevents unauthorized clock-ins at locations where the employee does not work.

Employees can be assigned to one location (the most common scenario for fixed office workers) or to multiple locations (ideal for field workers, managers overseeing several branches, or cleaning crews that visit different sites throughout the week).

How to Assign Employees to a Location

1. 1 Go to the Locations page in your admin dashboard and click on the location you want to manage.
2. 2 In the location detail view, find the "Assigned Employees" section.
3. 3 Click "Add Employees" and search for the employees you want to assign by name or employee ID.
4. 4 Select one or more employees from the list and confirm the assignment. These employees can now clock in from this location.

You can also assign locations from the employee profile side. When editing an employee's details, you will find a "Locations" field where you can select which locations this employee is authorized to clock in from.

Default Location vs. Multiple Locations

Every employee has a default location -- this is their primary workplace. When the employee opens the Clokio app, this location is pre-selected for clock-in. If an employee is assigned to multiple locations, they can choose which location to clock in from using a dropdown in the app. The system will verify their GPS position against the selected location's geofence.

If your business operates from more than one physical site, Clokio makes it easy to manage all of them from a single dashboard. Whether you run a chain of retail stores, oversee multiple construction projects, or manage cleaning services across different buildings, the multi-location features give you centralized visibility and control over attendance at every site.

Attendance by Location

The admin dashboard provides a per-location breakdown of attendance data. At a glance, you can see how many employees are currently clocked in at each location, who is absent, and who is running late. This is particularly valuable for businesses where staffing levels at each site directly affect operations.

Filtering Reports by Location

All attendance reports in Clokio can be filtered by location. When generating daily, weekly, or monthly reports, simply select the location(s) you want to include. This is useful for:

• check_circle Comparing attendance rates across different branches or sites
• check_circle Sending location-specific reports to branch managers or site supervisors
• check_circle Identifying locations with chronic lateness or absenteeism issues
• check_circle Exporting data for payroll processing on a per-location basis

Different Working Hours Per Location

Each location can have its own set of working days and shifts. For example, your main office might operate Sunday through Thursday from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, while your retail store operates Monday through Saturday from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM. You configure these independently for each location, and Clokio uses the correct schedule when evaluating attendance for employees at that site.

Who Benefits Most from Multi-Location?