Purpose and area of application
The following information is intended to assist the administrator in setting up COBI.time for the employees. It is intended to provide all the necessary information for using this software in the time recording management process.
The manual is divided into the following sections:
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General Settings
- Device configuration
- Language settings
- View
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Administrative Functions
- Working time models, public holiday and absence management
- User Administration
- Import of employees from SAP Business One
- Setting up individual employees
- User Groups
- User Rights
General Settings
Device Configuration
If you enter the domain name with /start you get the configuration mask of COBI.time.
Example: https://cobitime-url/start
Here you have the option of setting how you want to log in. Select the preferred configuration and click on Save. The administrator usually logs in with the user name and password.
Terminal mode is not relevant for the administrator.
During installation, the username "admin" and the password "admin" are automatically assigned to the administrator. When trying to log in for the first time, you will be asked to change the password accordingly.
Language Settings
You also have the option of selecting your preferred language to work with. You will find this function in the top right-hand corner. COBI.time is currently available in German and English.
View
COBI.time can be operated in both dark and light mode. The slider for changing the view can also be found in the top right-hand corner, to the left of the language selection.
Administrative Functions
How to set up COBI.time for employees to use?
Once all general settings have been selected, you can now log in to COBI.time as an administrator and you will see the following dashboard.
The administration module is located on the left-hand side, which you can expand by clicking the arrow on the right.
The dashboard is divided into 3 areas:
You start with the sub-module "Working time models" in which basic information must be created respectively entered.
The following view opens, which is divided into 3 areas:
- Working Time Models
- Daily Time Model
- Weekly Time Model
- Automatically Weekly Time Model
- Public Holiday Management
- Import of public holidays
- Absence Management
- Creation of various reasons for absence
Daily Time Model
The basis for a weekly working time model is a daily model, where an employee's target working time is defined for one day. The day of the week does not matter if, for example, the employee works 8 hours from Monday to Thursday and only 6 hours on Friday.
To do this, click on the "Add daily time model" button and the following screen appears.
The time model description should be clear so that it does not lead to confusion or ambiguity later on. Then enter the start (coming) and end (going) of the working time.
There are two options for the break regulation: you can define the length of the break, for example 1 hour, or you can enter fixed break times. This variant is often used for warehouse or production employees, i.e. these break times can be booked automatically in COBI.time, regardless of whether the break was taken or not. The prerequisite for this is that the "Automatically post break times" function is activated later in the weekly time model.
Once all the required and relevant information has been entered in the daily model, the planned working time is automatically calculated and automatically displayed in the top right-hand corner. This daily structure is saved using the "Add daily time model" button (bottom centre).
For non-working days, a day model is usually created with a start and end time of 00:00, resulting in a target working time of zero hours, i.e. COBI.time does not expect any time bookings on these days.
Below are two examples for an 8-hour day of office work and 8 hours in production.
Daily model example office:
Daily model example production:
Weekly Time Model
Once all the daily time models have been defined, you can now create the corresponding weekly time models. Again, click on the "Add weekly time model" button and you will see the following screen.
Again, you should make sure that the model name is clear and cannot lead to confusion. Once the model name has been assigned, click in the weekday column, e.g. Monday, to display the selection list of daytime models that you have created in the previous step. Now select the corresponding day model for each day of the week. Once this has been completed, the weekly working time is calculated automatically and displayed in the top right-hand corner.
You can also activate three additional options in the bottom section of the weekly time model:
If this function is activated, an employee's time account is automatically reset to zero hours at the beginning of the month. In practice, this is used for temporary employees, for example.
If this function is activated, the employee's time account is automatically reduced if the employee either logs in before or logs out after the agreed end of working hours. For example, if the employee has an agreed start time at 8.00 am and logs in at 7.30 am, half an hour is automatically deducted before the start of work.
The system is currently set that 30 minutes are deducted after 6 working hours and another 15 minutes after 9 hours of working time. These times can be customised for specific users.
(It is planned that the administrator will be able to set this himself in the future).
Below is an example of a weekly working time model for a classic 8-hour office day (40-hour week):
Automatic Weekly Time Model
You also have the option of adding an automatic weekly time model which could be relevant for trainees/students, for example.
After clicking the "Add automatic weekly model" button, you will see the following screen.
Firstly, you assign a clear description and secondly, the period for which the model should be valid. The following screen then opens:
In the first window, you have the option of excluding periods in which the trainee is required to come to the company, such as during school holidays.
You can now start to edit the individual weekdays according to the school days, the school time entered is declared as working time. In the second column, you can use the drop-down menu to set the frequency in which the trainee is in school on these days. If school lessons only take place on one day every second week, the first booking date must be entered.
The following is an example of a trainee who has school on Tuesdays every week and on Wednesdays every other week from 8:00 to 14:00. This means that 6 hours are credited to the trainee's time account at 14:00 on the respective school day.
It is important to know that an automatic weekly time model can only be activated together with a weekly time model from the previous module. This means, for example, that the trainee has a 40-hour week and is required to attend school on two days. According to the previous example, however, only 6 hours (instead of 
are credited to the time account for the school days.
It is now at the decision of the company on how this compensation is to be made. For example, the trainees could come into the company after school hours or make up for the missing hours by collecting overtime.
General remarks on the working time models
As soon as a daily time model is assigned to a weekly time model and this is already in use for time bookings, it is no longer possible to change these models.
If an employee changes their planned working time, a new time model must be created and reassigned to the employee in the user administration. The old time account must be closed, see chapter User administration.
An automatic weekly model only works in conjunction with a "normal" weekly model. As soon as there is no booking for a certain day according to the planned working time, COBI.time uses the automatic weekly time model as a basis and the time (e.g. school time) is booked automatically.
The automatic weekly time model is suitable for all employees who are away from the office on regular days, e.g. trainees, dual students, etc.
Public Holiday Management
The management of public holidays is another option in COBI.time. Public holidays should be imported at the beginning of the year. Furthermore, you should make sure that no user is online when you want to carry out the process, as all time accounts are updated during the import.
To do this, click on the "Import public holidays" button and the following window will open:
Once the federal state has been selected, the list with the corresponding public holidays appears. These must then be confirmed again by ticking the box at the top left of the "Name" field. If you do not want to import all of them, you must tick the boxes individually.
Public holidays for other countries can of course be added on request.
Then click on the "Import" button, COBI.time asks whether you really want to save this change.
After confirmation, the imported public holidays appear in the dashboard in the Public Holiday Management module.
If a company has locations in different federal states, you have the option of importing public holidays from several federal states. To do this, select another federal state and click on the "Import public holidays" button once again.
These can then be assigned to individual employees based on location in the user administration (see chapter User administration).
The same applies to every other country with different federal states.
Absence Management
5 absence reasons are already predefined in the absence management module; these can be deactivated at any time.
Please see the yellow box in the "Requestable" column. You also have the option of defining any number of new absence reasons. To do this, click on the "Plus button" in the top right-hand corner, define a reason for absence (no longer than 20 characters), assign a colour code and click on the "Save absence" button.
User Administration
Import of Users from SAP Business One
Once you have made these basic settings or created all working time models, you can start setting up the employees.
To do this, please go to the next module, User administration.
First of all, the employees must be imported from SAP Business One. Employees who are to use COBI.time must be marked as "active" in SAP Business One, see the following screenshot of employee master data in SAP. The employees do not have to be licensed SAP Business One users. It is not possible to create employees directly in COBI.time.
To import the employees from SAP, click on the "SAP Import" button in the bottom right-hand corner.
A list of employees is displayed from which you can select which employees are to be imported from SAP Business One. To do this, tick the box to the left of the name. Then assign a one-time start password and click on the "Import user" button located in the centre at the bottom.
Important: If an employee does not have an SAP user code, you should add one manually in the "SAP user code" column, otherwise employees cannot be imported.
Once the employees have been successfully imported, they appear listed in the user administration module and can be edited or set up accordingly.
Setting up Individual Employees
The following view is displayed for each employee:
The following explanations according to the subdivisions 1 to 4 in the view above.
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The SAP user code is used as the username when logging in.
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The assigned teams and managers are initially imported from SAP Business One and displayed accordingly in the overview. However, you have the option of changing the manager via the selection list.
ATTENTION: If the manager is changed in COBI.time, this is not imported back into SAP Business One. This function has been designed to be flexible as the manager in SAP is not necessarily the person who authorises absence requests. You also have the option of assigning a deputy here.
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Federal state - Here you have the option of assigning the employee the federal state for the respective work location if a company operates across several locations.
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Actions
This is where the actual employee set-up begins. The following functions are available:
Reset Password
Here you can reset the employee's password if it has been forgotten. Click on the symbol to open the employee list, select the relevant employee and the following screen appears.
You assign a new password for the employee and they are requested to change the password again when they log in, provided that you have ticked the box "Reset password on login".
RFID Chip Login
This function can be used to activate RFID chips with a corresponding RFID chip reader. This is used, for example, in production or warehouses where employees log in and out on a tablet with COBI.time in terminal mode.
Deactivation of Users
This function can be used to deactivate employees, for example when they leave the company. When the icon is clicked, a window pops up asking whether the user should really be deactivated.
Deactivated users can be displayed at any time using the slider at the top right of the search field.
Editing
Clicking on the "Edit" icon opens a view for the employee, which is divided into 3 tabs.
- User right
- Time model
- Vacation account
In general, the user PIN is displayed under the employee name, which can be passed on to the employee accordingly. Note: The PIN cannot be changed by the employee when logging in.
You also have the option to jump to the "Reset password" function in this view.
Tab User Rights
Authorisation and viewing rights are assigned to the employee in the User rights section. A detailed explanation appears when you click on the question mark behind the description.
The following authorisations can be assigned:
Tab Time Model
By clicking on the "Time model" tab, you get the following view:
You can assign the corresponding time model to the employee here by clicking in the "Time model" field; a list opens with all the time models that have been created. Once the appropriate model has been selected, enter the start value in hours. This start value usually comes from a previous time recording system. Otherwise it is also possible to enter the start value as zero.
Note: Here you must pay attention to the format, for example 3:00 hours.
Finally, select the date from which the employee should start to use COBI.time and save the "Time model" tab using the "Save" button.
Please note: Time accounts must be closed when an employee leaves or changes of the weekly time model takes place. To do this, call up the relevant employee in the user administration, select "Edit" and click on the red cross to the right of the weekly time model designation, see image below.
You can now select and save the closing date when the employee leaves. If you want to change the weekly model, click on "Create new time account" and select the new time model from the drop-down list, assign an hourly start value and the start date and save.
Automatic Time Model
Once you have assigned a time model to an employee, you can now add an automatic weekly time model in the same way, e.g. for trainees. After assigning the regular weekly working time model, a second option for the automatic time model appears. The selection list of previously created models is displayed when you click in the "Automatic time model" field.
The rest of the procedure is the same as above.
Tab Vacation Account
The employee's holiday account is created in this tab. The annual leave days are entered in the start screen. The start value is calculated pro rata for the respective month, depending on when COBI.time becomes operational or when the employee joins the company during the current year.
After the annual leave days have been saved, you can now also enter the remaining leave from the previous year and thus receive the employee's total leave entitlement shown in the last field as remaining leave. The new starting holiday is calculated automatically at the end of the year.
If you then move the mouse pointer in this column, a window is displayed with information on how this remaining leave is made up, see example below.
User Groups
In the third sub-module, User groups, you will find an overview of all employees and the user rights that have been assigned so that you can check again whether these have been assigned correctly. Rights can be activated or deactivated by simply clicking in the boxes.
If changes are made in this view, they must be finally saved by clicking on "Save" at the bottom right below the table view.
You will also find the legend for the user rights in the top right-hand corner, where you can take another look at the associated functions.
System Settings
In the bottom right-hand corner, you can access the general settings of COBI.time. The following window opens after clicking on "Settings".
IMPORTANT: All settings made here apply to all employees. The exception is the authorisation to book projects, which is activated for the entire company in this setting and then assigned to individual employees with the "Project times" user right in the user administration.
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Section A.
- Here you can replace the COBI.time logo with your company logo. To do this, go to the "Browse" button and select the corresponding file.
- You can set the language (German or English) for notifications.
- You can select a default setting for a federal state, which is then automatically assigned to a newly imported user.
- Time accounts can be recalculated for all employees in the event of discrepancies.
Section B.
- Here you can make general settings relating to project management in accordance with SAP Business One and activate or deactivate corrections. Note: The authorisation system function will be activated in one of the next releases.
Section C.
- Option to select a cost centre if time is posted manually.
Section D.
- Hide the comment field for a time correction. However, it is advisable to leave this function activated so that all manual corrections are provided with a comment so that they can be tracked accordingly.
Section E.
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Here you can set whether you want the business trip button to be displayed in general. This is then located next to the "Arrive" button in the digital time clock.
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Show business trip button only on the day on which an authorised business trip exists
The current COBI.time version is displayed in the bottom left-hand corner.
