How do I enable active geofence monitoring?

Clean Smarts allows you to set up active geofence monitoring. When enabled, and if employees grant the app access to "Always on" location sharing, this feature will automatically clock an employee out if they leave the work site. This helps employees who may forget to clock out. This also provides assurance to employers that employees are on site while on the clock.

Here's how it works: you first define a geofence, a circular area surrounding your work location. The distance of the geofence from the work location map pin is defined in either your Company Settings or on a location-by-location basis. After the user clocks in, if he or she leaves the geofence for more than five minutes, he or she will be clocked out automatically.

Please note that this feature only works with our newer mobile app versions and not the "Legacy" app.

What cleaners see and what they should do to enable active geofence monitoring

When employees clock in for the first time using active geofence, they will see a disclosure message about why Clean Smarts is requesting their location:

You are clocking into a location that uses a geofence. Clean Smarts collects location data to enable geofence monitoring when the app is in the background. The Clean Smarts app only uses your location when you are using the time clock and scan points. If you agree, please enable the "Precise" and "Allow all the time" or "Always" location sharing settings. Clean Smarts will also request permission to user your device's motion activity to help reduce battery use by only using your location when it detects significant movement. If you have any concerns, please read our privacy policy in the "More" menu or contact your employer.

The user should then do the following:

Tap on the green "I agree" button below the disclosure note.
Select "Precise", and "While using the app".
Select "Allow all the time" or "Always" so that you can use other apps and still get clocked out.
Select "Allow" when the app asks for access to your physical activity.

Please note the following:

The app requests access to the device physical activity information because it uses device motion to turn off location tracking when the phone is not moving, which reduces battery use.

We respect users' privacy. Location tracking turns on ONLY when cleaners are on the clock, and ONLY if it has been enabled.

If users have enabled permissions as described above and the app is still clocking users out, there may be additional settings that need to be changed. If you notice open check-in records or check-in records that have been closed via automatic clock out prematurely, this is an indication that some device process is preventing Clean Smarts from monitoring the user's geolocation in the background. Please have users modify these settings:

For iOS (under phone Settings):

Set Clean Smarts > Location to "Always".
Set Clean Smarts > Location > Precise Location to ON.
Set Clean Smarts > Motion & Fitness to ON. (The app saves battery by checking the location when movement is detected.)
Set Clean Smarts > Notifications to ON. (The app will show a notification when it detects the user has left the geofence and when the user has been automatically clocked out.)
Set Battery > Low Power Mode to OFF.

For Android (under phone Settings):

Set Clean Smarts > Notifications to ON. (The app will show a notification when it detects the user has left the geofence and when the user has been automatically clocked out.)
Set Clean Smarts > Permissions > Location to "Allow all the time".
Set Clean Smarts > Permissions > Location > Use precise location to ON.
Set Clean Smarts > Permissions > Physical activity to ON. (The app saves battery by checking the location when movement is detected.)
Set Clean Smarts > Pause app activity if unused to OFF.
Set Clean Smarts > Mobile data > Allow background data usage to ON.
Set Clean Smarts > Mobile data > Allow data usage while Data saver is on to ON.
Set Clean Smarts > Battery to "Unrestricted".

We understand that this is a lot of configuration to require for users. Phone manufacturers intentionally make it difficult for apps to monitor a user's location for obvious (and valid) privacy reasons. We recommend that supervisors assist cleaners with these settings. If Android users have established these settings and the active geofence feature is still clocking them out, there may be other manufacturer-specific settings that are stopping the background monitoring process. In these cases, we recommend switching the location geofence setting from an active geofence to geofence checking upon clock-in and clock-out.

Once cleaners have enabled location and activity sharing they are clocked in. If cleaners forget to clock out, when they leave the geofence, they will see see a notification letting them know. If they are still outside the geofence after five minutes, they are automatically clocked out.

This video provides a walkthrough of how this feature works on the mobile app.