TP-BIO TotalPass Small Business Premium| Biometric Time Clock

The device glitched out on the first day of use. The IP for the device has changed multiple times, after just one week of use. It was difficult and timely to set up. And Now I can't access it on line. I'm not gonna pull it off the wall every week and plug it into my computer to read my employees hours. That's not what I bought it for. And I conveniently see that they sell future tech support. Thats a scam. It is purposefully built the way it is so you buy a subscription for service. Good business model for Icon systems. But bad for the consumer. I'm not ever going to try and send it back. It's going home with me and it's going to meet my Remington 870.....Just as soon as the weather warms up.

The system will likely take a little more setup time than other reviews of this and it's other family members might lead you to believe. However, setup is easy, the instructions are reasonably clear though I would have liked more description of some of the terminology used for setup selections. Very happy we chose this over some internet cloud subscription system that would still require dedicated hardware.The unit works well, and the employees like it (previously they were filling in time sheets). There's some things that don't work quite the way I'd have chosen, but overall the system is pretty sound and well thought through in its implementation. You're likely to ultimately have some questions for Icon in understanding some of the features and setup choices, but simple setup can be done quickly and easily without assistance.Weaknesses that hopefully Icon will plug over time include the lack of phone apps (remote web punches currently use a web browser which on the plus side means it works with any device, but e.g. on an iPhone, the user can choose to override providing the GPS location). Also, the hours reports present the desired information clearly and easily, but are not presented in a particularly professional looking format (that you might want if you need to supply the hours information to employees). I'd also like the users to be able to log in online and see their hours and maybe make correction requests. As it is they can only see basic totals hours and last punch time at the punch, but no details. Syncing to a net time server would seem a no-brainier (and as a developer knowing how easy that typically is to do I'm surprised it's a missing feature).We are a small company with a few employees, some work remotely some of the time, so this system seemed a little like overkill for what we needed, but frankly now we're using it, it's ideal.We also purchased some keyring RFID tags which turn out to be less useful than expected with this biometric unit. I had hoped the camera feature would be more flexible. While a fingerprint uniquely identifies the person clocking in, when and if fingerprints can't be identified employees need to log in with their pin or with the RFID keyring tag. Since a user only registers one finger, the tag means they don't have to remember a pin to identify themselves (in event of say a bandaged finger), but the system as we have configured still requires a fingerprint scan. After a configurable number of failed scans, it lets them punch-in as if the scan had been successful and takes their picture for verification (which a feature none of our employees yet appear to have realized yet). I would have liked the key fob scan to automatically take their picture so that a fingerprint is unnecessary (not everyone wants to touch the same glass scanner that everyone else touches). I bottle of sanitizer next to the unit comes in handy. Sanitizer on the finger also greatly improves fingerprint readability.While the keypad and punch-in and punch-out is simple, it's not totally idiot proof. For instance, a useful per user feature is being able to assign departments that the user can clock into. This can be used to track time on different jobs, or to track time in different locations. When the user scans in TotalPass requests them to select their department and shows the first choice in the list of departments e.g. "Going to... The Lab". Up/down arrows select the location and then the user must press enter. Failing to press enter will quickly time out the punch leaving the user registering as out when he thinks he's just punched in. I think a little more creativity with the UI and selection of a slightly different display could have made the system easier to use (and that's a potential advantage of a system running on e.g. an iPad). But this is a minor gripe, overall so far we are very happy with the system.The internet connectivity means I or a supervisor can quickly see who is in, what time they arrived, etc. The unit can email various alerts warning that specific users are approaching overtime, etc. A lot of these features are things I won't use.There are add-on features for tracking sick and vacation time, etc. I might be missing it, but without a more comprehensive UI (or phone app) I can't see that that's really too useful, we will keep using our payroll system for tracking that stuff.The system can be configured to take periodic backups which it can email.You're going to have to have two wires attached to the unit, the power connection (a typical wall wart) and network cable. It would be nice if the unit had WiFi or PoE so you only need one cable, but that's just wishful thinking (and no doubt a higher price). Attachment to the wall is very easy with the provided two screws (and a key locks the unit in place so it can't be removed without force. You'll need trunking or a skilled wiring job to make the wires look pretty, a simple two screw install taking two minutes leaves wires hanging off the wall.Overall, I would definitely choose this again over the other solutions we investigated. Icon will likely continue to make software improvements (which are freely available and simple to install). The system is sound. We've found one minor software bug where every few days the unit gets into a state where it won't even try to read a finger print. This means the user has to use their PIN or keyfob to identify and which point it immediately lights up the fingerprint scanner and they can scan in (and further employees have no problem). Icon immediately sent a replacement unit (which I suspect, having the same latest software, will likely have the same minor problem). They are helpful and supportive.Overall I give this an A-, which I hope will become an A+ over time as Icon make firmware and web feature improvements. Although not the cheapest initial outlay, employees are happy using it, it's simple to use, and saves a lot of time totaling hours on timesheets. Our online payroll system unfortunately doesn't have any means that we can use to easily or automatically import the employee hours so I'm still typing those in, but the clock supports a variety of other payroll systems that can eliminate that step. It's also good to know we can add more TotalPass slave clocks as needed.

I purchased TWO of these clocks early April 2018, one for each of my businesses. I began to experience problems the first week of use. Overall, these clocks are a great concept, but still need a lot of work.It is very obvious that their product testing team is not doing a good job, it almost seems like they don’t have a product testing team at all. Even though this machine has great features, it is such a shame that most of what makes this machine very cool is not reliable and/or does not work. For this reason, this machine only gets two stars. Once they fix all of the bugs, design errors and make this a reliable product, this can easily be a 5 star. Because of my experience after using this machine only for 2 weeks, I wouldn’t recommend this machine at all. At least at this time.Try another product, the money that you are paying for a subscription is a trade-off of the time that you are not spending hearing staff complaints, and working through the fixes in this clock.BEWARE OF KNOWN BUGSOlder machines restart after pressing a 4 or 5 on the PIN pad. This is a hardware design error, if you have this, you need to get your clock replaced. Also, DO NOT use any characters that are not alphanumeric on any of the text fields. Their software breaks with special characters (anything other than letter and number).SETUPThe setup complexity is moderate. The setup will definitely be complicated to someone who is not tech savvy, especially if you want to setup a multi-clock system and if you want Web access to the system outside of work. Since I am an engineer and do have a software and hardware background, setting up a multi-clock system was fairly easy and I understand how it works.The User Guide has most of the information you need, however it is missing a few things or is not very clear on how it works.FEAUTURESI must say that even though some of these are great features, they are currently NOT reliable. It has the option to use PIN AND/OR Biometric, and it has a camera as a backup (only turns on when required). I chose this system because it has a Web interface where I can see all of the time cards from anywhere as long as I have an internet connection. Compared to other clocks that require a monthly subscription for online access, this is a great option. The web interface allows you to run reports, export payroll reports, send timecards to employees and more. It is TOO BAD the timecards that the employees get by email is broken HTML, completely useless and very hard to read.EASE OF USEIt’s easy to use, especially when it’s working! lol I've used it for two weeks and I have not had one day where I didn’t get any errors or failures (system restart, fingerprint)CURRENT STATUSI contacted the company, after a lot of time spent testing / fixing, they finally agreed to send me two new clocks. I had problems with the PIN pad, the fingerprint reader, and the email reports. We will see how the new clocks turn out and if I get any of the same errors, I will ask for a refund.UPDATE 4/27/2018Two clocks got shipped and arrived two days after the day I was told. I received two "new" clocks, both clocks did not work. One of them needed a flash chip reset the other had broken software. Like I've said before, they either have a product testing team that is NOT doing their job or they do not have one at all. For them to ship two useless products.... AGAIN? I was told I would get another set of clocks next week and they will look into getting me some type of refund for the inconveniences.I will update the status after I receive the new clocks. again.

Would like the option to enter different job numbers during the day fro the field.