Employee Tracking System

• US 20090177688A1
• Filed: 01/07/2009
• Published: 07/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Evolution Software AS (Edvin Austbø)
• Original Assignee: Evolutions Software As
• Inventors: Ronningen, Baard Frode, Karlsen, Geir Christian
• Granted Patent: US 8,271,531 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

An employee tracking system is disclosed, in which processing, accessing or both within the system is determined according to the hierarchical structure of the underlying organization. Each employee is associated with a node in the organization, and access to employee-related data is based upon the node associated with the requester and the node of the employee being checked, as well as the type of data being requested. Employees may clock into and out of work using mobile devices that interface with the employee tracking system host computer.

Claims

1. An employee tracking system comprising:

at least a central processing unit; and

memory in communications with the central processing unit, the memory comprising program code executable by the central processing unit to perform the following steps;

for each of a plurality of employees, storing corresponding employee-related data in an employee statistics database stored in the memory;

associating each of the employees with at least a node in a hierarchical tree representing an organizational structure, the hierarchical tree comprising a plurality of hierarchically arranged nodes;

utilizing the hierarchical tree to access the corresponding employee-related data of one or more employees;

comparing the corresponding employee-related data of the one or more employees against performance management rules stored in the memory; and

generating a report comprising information of employees not in conformance with the performance management rules.

2. The employee tracking system of claim 1 wherein the step of utilizing the hierarchical tree to access the corresponding employee-related data of the one or more employees comprises:

determining a hierarchical position in the hierarchical tree of a node corresponding to a requesting user;

utilizing the hierarchical position of the node corresponding to the requesting user to determine access rights to employee-related data of at least a portion of the employees; and

selecting as the one or more employees those for which the access rights to the corresponding employee-related data is permitted.

3. The employee tracking system of claim 1 wherein the step of comparing the corresponding employee-related data of the one or more employees against the performance management rules comprises utilizing corresponding performance management rules associated with a corresponding node of the one or more employees.

4. The employee tracking system of claim 1 further comprising a mobile device in communications with the central processing unit, the mobile device comprising:

input/output circuitry;

a clock-in circuit for generating a clock-in signal according to data received from the input/output circuitry;

a clock-out circuit for generating a clock-out signal according to data received from the input/output circuitry; and

a radio frequency circuit for transmitting data related to the clock-in signal and the clock-out signal to the central processing unit via a wireless network.

5. A mobile device for permitting a user to interface with an employee monitoring system, the mobile device comprising:

input/output circuitry;

a clock-in circuit for generating a clock-in signal according to data received from the input/output circuitry;

a clock-out circuit for generating a clock-out signal according to data received from the input/output circuitry; and

a radio frequency circuit for transmitting data related to the clock-in signal and the clock-out signal over a to wireless network to a server of the employee monitoring system.

6. The mobile device of claim 5 further comprising:

non-volatile memory for storing data related to the clock-in signal and the clock-out signal; and

a synchronization circuit for transmitting to the radio frequency circuit data stored in the non-volatile memory related to a clock-in signal or a clock-out signal.

7. A system for managing a relational database comprising hierarchical information, the system comprising:

a central processing unit; and

memory in communications with the central processing unit, the memory comprising;

a database storing hierarchical information in a plurality of records, each record comprising at least a first field and a second field; and

program code to fill the first field and the second field, the program code causing the central processing unit to perform at least the following steps;

(a) selecting as a processing record a record in the database corresponding to a root node of the hierarchical information;

(b) setting the first field in the processing record to a value corresponding to a sequence variable and then adding a predetermined value to the sequence variable;

(c) determining if a node in the hierarchical information corresponding to the processing record has any children nodes, and if so, selecting as the processing record a record in the database corresponding to one of the children nodes and performing step (b);

(d) setting the second field of the processing record to a value corresponding to the sequence variable and then adding the predetermined value to the sequence variable;

(e) determining if a node in the hierarchical information corresponding to the processing record has any unprocessed sibling nodes, and if so, selecting as the processing record a record in the database corresponding to one of the unprocessed sibling nodes and performing step (b); and

(f) determining if a node in the hierarchical information corresponding to the processing record has a parent node, and if so, selecting as the processing record a record in the database corresponding to the parent node and performing step (d).

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the predetermined value is one.