Accu-Time Systems, a United States-based biometric and non-biometric workforce management product company, has brought out its Universal Series of terminals. These workforce management and time and attendance terminals feature touchscreen displays, faster processors and rugged keypads as well as offering card and biometric reader options. According to the US makers their products will deliver efficiency improvements in diverse employee self-service and standard time and attendance applications.
According to David Hembery, a director of Accu-Time Systems: “These innovative devices meet the growing needs of our software development partners and end user customers providing high levels of flexibility, expandability and compatibility with different IT environments. They will streamline workforce management processes and deliver significant savings in a wide range of market sectors.”
There are three terminals in the new series: FLEXpoint, PEOPLEpoint and SMARTpoint. With 10-inch or seven-inch widescreen touch displays, they provide reading of employee schedules, training or message videos and other information. The terminals also offer Braille and backlit keypads, area LED lighting, speakers, microphone and a built-in camera that provides facial recognition options should additional identity verification be required.
The terminals enable timecard authorisation to be adopted to minimise disputes concerning incorrect payslips. They also allow workforce planning processes such as managing changes to working schedules and booking holidays to be streamlined. Links to mobile phone-based workforce management and employee self-service applications enable work schedules to be downloaded direct to smartphones.
Patented multispectral imaging is used to provide the biometric, regardless it is claimed of the environment or the user’s skin condition. Multiple wavelengths of light are used to capture surface information as well as data from capillaries situated about 1mm below the skin surface. As the pattern of these structures is identical to the surface print, this provides more reliable and accurate reads even when the surface print is obscured by dirt or water or is damaged, the makers say. Capacitive or e-Field biometric finger readers are also available as are magnetic, RFID, proximity, mag stripe and barcode card readers.
The Universal Series will operate in SaaS or on-premise environments with Wi-Fi, Ethernet or cellular connectivity. The terminals are compatible with application languages such as Java, Python and Android running on Windows Embedded, Linux and Android operating systems giving greater flexibility in the development process. They are available in standard colours including white, blue, black and silver or can be specified with any custom colour to meet corporate branding guidelines.
