Why is my employee getting an out-of-bounds error when he or she is actually on-site?

Clean Smarts has an optional feature that prevents users from clocking in or out if they are too far away from the site they are supposed to be working at. An account administrator sets this distance in the Company Settings page of the web portal. If an employee's GPS reading is further away from the location than the distance setting, they will get an error saying that they cannot check in or out because they are not on site.

Solution

There are several potential causes for this problem. The most common issue is that the mobile phone's location sharing is not set to "Precise". The second is that the distance that has been set is too short, since GPS readings from devices can sometimes give inaccurate readings. The third common cause is that the position of the facility in the system is incorrect (perhaps due to a misspelled address).

Double check that location sharing in your phone settings for Clean Smarts has been set to "Precise":

Since October 2021, mobile phone operating systems have given users have the option of sharing either approximate or precise location information with the Clean Smarts app. When you first clock in, Clean Smarts will ask for permission to share your location. Be sure to select the "Precise" option if it is available.

If you might have selected "Approximate" location sharing, you should check your phone settings to confirm that your location sharing is set to share your precise location.

On iOS go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Clean Smarts.

On Android go to Settings > Apps > Clean Smarts > Location

Try turning Location Sharing off and then back on

We have found that sometimes Android devices may get "stuck" in a particular position and will not provide the updated position to the Clean Smarts app when the app requests the user's position. Turning location sharing off and then back on again seems to resolve this issue in some cases.

Verify that there is not an issue with your GPS hardware

If you continue to see that your location being reported in Clean Smarts does not match your physical location, you should try downloading a GPS diagnostic app to see if there are any errors or problems with your GPS hardware. Here are a couple of apps that may help. Please note that these are not endorsed by Clean Smarts, nor do we make any guarantees about their claims of performance:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gps-status-infinity/id1254805862
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chartcross.gpstest&hl=en_US&gl=US

How to change the out-of-bounds distance:

1. As an administrator, log into the web portal.
2. Go to Admin > Company Settings.
3. Under Timekeeping > "Prevent Employees from Checking In Out-of-bounds (Enter acceptable distance in miles.)", make sure the value is at least .25 miles. If not, change the value and click "Submit Changes".

The company-wide setting can be overridden location-by-location. This is helpful when you find this clock-in problem keeps happening at the same site or with the same personnel:

1. Go to Admin > Manage Locations
2. Click the pencil icon to open the location details
3. Under "Geofence", change the settings to override the company default, and set the out-of-bounds distance to something a bit longer. If you have an employee on-site while you are making this change, have him or her try to clock in as you progressively set the location distance longer and longer (saving the settings each time) until they can clock in.

How to check the location position:

1. As an administrator, log into the web portal.
2. Go to Admin > Manage Locations.
3. Click on the pencil icon for the location that you want to check.
4. Check the red pin on the map. If it is incorrect, you can click and drag the pin to the correct location.
5. Save the location settings.

Note: If you change the location's address, Clean Smarts will update the pin based on an address lookup and override the manual change you made by dragging the location's pin.