Q.  I’ve created my employee file and I see the employees in the USER.DBF file, but I don’t have any employees in the HandPunch terminals.                                                                           OR Q.  I keep sending templates to the HandPunch unit, but no one can punch. A.  Make sure that your are not using groups.  Check your user file to make sure that groups are not being sent to the USER.DBF file.  If you want to use groups, then set up the group code in the groups area.  To turn off or ignore groups completely, check the box in the Global Parameters labeled Disable Groups.  Also make sure that the Disable Distributing New Enrollments is not checked.  Disabling the distribution of new enrollments only sends the employee's template to their home clock (the clock they were enrolled on). Q.  When I open the USER.DBF file, I see a column called CONNECTED.  What does CONNECTED mean? A.  Connected tells the HandPunch software that the employee has been found in the T&A system.  If an employee is connected and later not found in the T&A exported employee file, the employee is considered to have been terminated and is removed from the HandPunch units. Q.  Why do the employee names inside the USER.DBF file say ‘Enrollment Pending?’ A.  Enrollment Pending tells the software that the employee has been enrolled into the HandPunch software, but no record of them has been found in the T&A system. Q.  How does the system know when to ‘dump’ the templates? A.  The system uses the file that you exported to determine which employees are valid.   Any employees not found in the file are deleted from the HandPunch units. Q.  Why does the program keep telling me it can’t find the employee file? A.  The program can’t find the employee file for a number of reasons.  The T&A Data Path in the Global Parameters is not pointing to the correct directory where the employee file is, the employee file has not been created, or the employee file was created with the wrong name. Q.  The program keeps telling me that there are too many employees missing from the file and do I want to Continue or Poll anyway. A.  The program has a ‘built-in’ safety feature to warn the user when more than 10% of the employees are missing from the employee export file.  This could happen during a big layoff or when the file was not created properly.  The ‘Poll Only’ will not delete any employees from the system and just poll and process the transactions.  The ‘Continue’ will delete the templates and carry-on as a normal polling process. Q.  Lately the program has been telling me that the templates are in an old format and that I should do a ‘Get Templates.’  What happened? A.  You have recently upgraded the software from a very early version of the software.  The templates were stored in a format that can no longer be supported.  Do the ‘Get Templates’ option to store the templates in the new format. Q.  I have set up all of the HandPunch units on an Ethernet network, but I only seem to be able to communicate with one or two units. A.  Ethernet units have individual addresses.  Therefore, they must have individual Site numbers.  The clock numbers for an Ethernet unit must always be a 1 in the software and a 0 at the unit.  Units that are attached to an Ethernet unit may have unit numbers from 2 – 32.  A unit attached to an Ethernet unit is still considered an Ethernet unit in the software (i.e. it has the parents’ address, but a number from 2 – 32). Q.  I only have one site and all my units have modems in them and are attached to the in-house phone system.  I can communicate with all the units 1 at a time, why can’t I communicate with all of them in one session? A.  Like the Ethernet clocks, modem units have a single address, the phone number.   Modem clocks must also be given individual site numbers.  In this case though, the modem units may have any clock number 1 – 32.  Other clocks connected to modem units are also considered modem units and will have the phone number of the parent unit but have a different clock number. Q.  I keep sending the schedules to the HandPunch units, but people can still punch at any time. A.  Make sure that the schedules being exported from the T&A system are current.  The software checks the file to make sure that the schedule includes yesterdays’ schedule and the next 6 days.  The program builds a master time zone block (up to 60) for all the employees.  It then assigns each employee to a time zone and sends the time zone blocks and employee assignments to the units.  In order to activate the time zones, the Restrictions must be turned on at the unit.  Since employees follow the Group rules, the schedules do also.  Restrictions are based on 6 minute increments.  Allowing an employee to punch in 15 minutes before the shift actually allows the employee to punch 18 minutes before the shift.  Currently time zones are based on first in punch of the shift and last out punch of the shift.  An employee may punch at any time during those 2 times. Q.  The system seems to only process a few transactions and before every polling session it says to ‘Validate’ the software. A.  The software is shipped as a complete evaluation system.  This means that you have complete functionality except that you may only process 10 transactions.  The system does not lose any transactions, as they are all stored on the hard disk.  It just processes the first 10.  To validate the software, call our office for a validation key. Q.  How can I get transactions from a previous polling session into my T&A system? A.  All transactions are stored in an xBase formatted file with the naming convention CCYYMMDD.DBF.  For example, a polling session that was done on Feb 12, 1999 would have a name of 19990212.DBF.  There is an option within the software to Reprocess Transactions.  When you select that option, a list of files will be displayed and you may select the file to reprocess.  Then just import into your T&A system as normal. Q.  I moved the HandPunch software and all of its files to another directory and now nothing seems to work. A.  The HandPunch software when first initialized creates a home directory area in the WIN.INI file.  This is the location of where the HandPunch software can expect to find its files.  You may shut down the software and open the WIN.INI file and change the directory manually, or click HELP|ABOUT and double-click the HandPunch directory area to select a new home directory. Q.  When I send the configuration record to the HandPunch units, I get an error message regarding the function key table. A.  Sometimes when the function key table is sent to the HandPunch units an error file is generated by the Function Key Parser.  Click the view button to view the errors.  If only warnings come up, then everything is fine, otherwise look at the errors to determine which function key is not programmed properly, return to the Function Key area, fix the error and send the configuration record again. Q.  When I poll, I see the message ‘Processing TTD file.’  What is the TTD file? A.  The TTD file is a message holding file.  This file holds all the messages that the units are sending to the software and the messages that are waiting to be sent to the units. Q.  When I add a new employee at the unit I see the software delete the employee and then add them.  Why is the software deleting new employees? A.  The software only processes templates for new employees.  An employee may be entered at any unit.  The software first retrieves the employees template, sends a message to the unit to delete the template and then searches the group file to determine which units the template should belong to.  After determining the units, the template is sent to only those units that an employee may use for punching. Q.  Occasionally I receive an Error 212.  What is an Error 212 and how do I fix it? A.  An Error 212 means that one of the index files has become corrupted or there is corrupted data in the key area of the data file.  Delete the *.MDX files and restart the software.  The software will re-index the files automatically.  If this does not fix the error, please call technical support.