CrossChex Standard - Quick Tips - Download and Export Records Automatically

[Leonardo_Anviz]

Hi there,

This is a quick tip I would like to share for a very convenient proceed, to avoid downloading records manually every time you need to get an access control log or a time attendance report.

1 - After log in the software, access the “Basic Parameter Tab”

2 - At this tab, you will find the "Downloading Record settings " in red square, with the “Downloading Time” configuration in the blue square.

3 -At the blue square, you will be able to insert up to 5 different times per day for automatic download of your device´s records, avoiding extra manual proceeds.

4 - As an example, let´s suppose we need to see the all the access control records of who entered in our office every afternoon. In this case, I will program the software to download automatically the new records every 3:10pm , or 15:10:

(Don´t forget to save the modifications!)

5 - Now that the automatic download records is configured, whenever your desktop internal clock reaches 3:10pm (or 15:10), the software will automatically request to download new records:

The software will scan all your enrolled devices, and download the records one by one.

A very important detail is that the CrossChex Standard software must be running at your desktop,. Make sure when you leave the software, the CrossChex icon is still active in your second plan software tab.

That´s the tip for today, it can be very useful and save a lot of time by downloading devices records in a low flow period, for example, companies with several users and devices, it could be done after the employees off duty, so the next day reports could be much faster

Let us know if you already knew this function, and if you didn´t , we hope it can be useful to you!

Best Regards

Leonardo Ribeiro

[Tibor]

Hi Leonardo!

We know this feature and a lot of our customers are using this. I always recommend it to the users.
Plus, most of them are using the “Exported to text file after downloding” function also.
These companies have enterprise management systems (like SAP etc.).
In this case they have all the records in one file by day and in the desired directory on company’s LAN. From this place the management system automatically picks up the file for processing the results in the payroll mudule.
So, it’s a very useful feature!

[Leonardo_Anviz]

Thanks for the contribution @Tibor !

[Tibor]

And a remark: instead of “Space symbol” it would be better to use the word “Separator” or “Delimiter”.
The more so, because “Space” is also a type of separators in data files.

[Tibor]

I’d like to complete this tutorial explaining the export of the records.
As written in my post above this function is highly applicable when you want CrossChex Standard to automatically pass the records to a payroll system.

1 - First you need to set some automatic downloading time. In our example for a shift 7:30AM (7:30) - 4:30PM (16:30) we define the following download times:

8:00AM (8:00) - when all employee already had to clock-in
1:30PM (13:30) - after the lunch break
5:00PM (17:00) - when most of the employees already clocked-out
8:00PM (20:00) - when employees having overtime had to clock-out

2 - Set the automatic download option: click the checkbox of “Exported to text file after downloading”.

3 - Select the path/directory on the company’s LAN where the export file will be stored. The place of saving has to be the directory where the payroll system will pick-up the file from.
So, you can ask the system administrator of the payroll system about the directory.

4 - Define the data format of the exported text file. There’re 4 data fields:
User ID Length (mandatory field): select the length of the ID what you’re using for employees (e.g., if ID=001 then select 3)
Time Format (mandatory field): select the time format according to the regional/county settings
Status Length (optional field): select the length according to the used Status Setting (length=1 is enough if only some statuses are used e.g., IN, OUT, BREAK (status value: 0,1,2)
Terminal No. Length (optional field): the Device Number on which the clock-in/out was made.

5 - In text file it’s necessary to define a separator character which is inserted between the data fields to isolate them from each other.
You have to ask the system administrator of the payroll system about the required separator. Possible choices: , ; _ / - Tab Space.

6 - Click on “Apply” button to save the modifications.

After the first downloading time (8:00AM) a text file will be created with a name of the timestamp of the actual date: for example, 20220728.txt.

Let’s look into the text file:

01	2022-07-28 07:21:23	0	03
02	2022-07-28 07:28:46	0	03

We see that 2 employees (01, 02) checked-in (0) on a device (03) at the given date/time. The separator is the TAB character.

When the second download time arrives the CrossChex Standard software opens the same file (20220728.txt) and appends newly downloaded records to existing ones:

01	2022-07-28 07:21:23	0	03
02	2022-07-28 07:28:46	0	03
*01	2022-07-28 12:12:05	2	03*
*02	2022-07-28 12:25:18	2	03*
*01	2022-07-28 12:32:00	2	03*
*02	2022-07-28 12:58:30	2	03*

We see that 2 employees (01, 02) had a break in/out (2) on a device (03) at the given date/time.

Finally, after the third downloading time the text file looks like this:

01	2022-07-28 07:21:23	0	03
02	2022-07-28 07:28:46	0	03
01	2022-07-28 12:12:05	2	03
02	2022-07-28 12:25:18	2	03
01	2022-07-28 12:32:00	2	03
02	2022-07-28 12:58:30	2	03
*01	2022-07-28 16:32:00	1	03*
*02	2022-07-28 16:35:06	1	03*

The 2 employees (01, 02) checked-out (1) on device (03) at the given date/time.

Every day a new file is generated having the actual date in the filename.

[Leonardo_Anviz]

Excelent contribution @Tibor !

I have renamed the topic for "
CrossChex Standard - Quick Tips - Download and Export Records Automatically

Thanks a lot.

[santi.rahayu]

Hi Anviz Team,

Currently we are using 8 unit VF30 machine in our office.
4 machine record the employee attendance. And 4 machine we use for another visitor data.
There is 3 shift in our working hour.

The question is :

1. For the attendance data, we need auto email the report related to the total employee that still in office / check in. Is it possible?
2. If we apply automatic report, it seems the machine sent the last data, starting from the last download time stamp. Is there any way to customize the report duration time stamp that would be downloaded automatically (the duration data not depend on the last download time stamp)?
3. It seems the CrossChex Standard only have 1 automatic report configuration and it will pull data from all machine at the same time. Is there any way to have several automatic report configuration, with configurable machine selection and configurable time selection?
4. Is there any portable attendance reader like barcode scanner?

Thanks.

[Tibor]

Hi @santi.rahayu,

Here’re the answers for your questions:

1. It isn’t possible. The email sending feature doesn’t implemented yet in CrossChex Standard.
2. No. The automatic report always downloads the current daily entries as shown above in this topic.
3. No, only one automatic download configuration is available even if you have more client worstations.
4. Yes, there’s a unit called M-Bio. It’s a portable T&A device with fingerprint and RFID reading capabilities.

[ced]

Hi Anviz Team,
we use this function on daily basis and is critical for our actual ERP. Unfortunately after upgrading to v. 5.0.1.0 it isn’t reliable. It simply stops working and never reconnects, even for days. I’ve tried to make Crosschex the frontmost window, closing it and reopening but nothing changes. The only way to make it work again is changing the downloading time, applying then works for another 2 or three times. I hope you’ll soon fix this feature, thanks.

[Leonardo_Anviz]

@Felix_Anviz could you please review according to @ced description?

Thank!

[Felix_Anviz]

@ced

OK we will check the issues and feedback to you ASAP.

[ced]

Maybe it’s correlated to another problem we recently had. Crosschex made hundreds of txt log file so that we had to disable the log generation using the file art.ini and set Enablelog to 0. My guess is that there’s something going on with our VF30 that shomehow disables the downloading function.

[ced]

Just to update the findings. Today I noticed it missed the yesterday downloads at 20:00, 20:30 and 09:30 of tomorrow. I changed the first download timer to 09:40 to see if it could process the old tickets. It started but the log says it couldn’t connect to the devices. Ok, so I went to the “Device” tab, clicked the little “i” in the bottom right, clicked the “retrive” button. So I got back to the “Settings” → “Basic” changed the time to download and then It worked. So it seems that sometimes yesterday after 17:00 for the Crosschex software the devices went both offline and never recovered the connection. It considered them offline until I’ve “refreshed” the connection that way. I hope this could help you. Thanks

[ced]

One more update, just checked the situation and I found that crosschex marked offline boh vf30-n. I tried to ping both and they responded. So again I went to “Device” tab, double clicked the “i” on bottom right and it first said “Cannot connet to device”. Double clicked again and it showed the information, so it marked online again. I have 2 VF30-N and their firmware are: 06.62.F1 and 05.96.F1. Thanks

[Tibor]

Hi @ced,

We’ve tested the function with a VF-30 but didn’t experienced any problems for 2 days using the above firmware and neither with an old one v03.31.F1.
We think it could be a network/firewall problem.
Which communication mode is selected for your devices: server or client?

[ced]

Hi, where can I check this comm mode? They have fixed ip in our lan, and before upgrading to ChessChex v.5 we didn’t have this problem.

[Tibor]

Hi @ced,

You can check/modify the comm mode:

• on device: enter the menu and go to ‘Settings’->‘System’->‘Network’->‘Mode’,
  or
• using CrossChex: on ‘Device’ tab select one of the devices then right click on it and from the pop-up menu chose ‘Set the IP configuration’. Check the field ‘Work mode’.

Anyway, did you check the firewall rules of the newly installed CrossChex V5?

[ced]

Ok, they are both in “server” mode, thanks. Yes, I’ve checked the firewall rules and logs for possible packet filtering.

[Tibor]

OK, the comm mode is fine because the PC with CrossChex and the devices are on the same LAN.
Actually, I don’t have more idea. Maybe you can test what happens if you:

• set the client comm mode for both devices (don’t forget to add the server IP: it’s the IP address of the PC where the CrossChex runs)
  or
• change the communication port to a higher value (over 30000)

[ced]

Just as a feedback. Since I’ve modified the comm mode and the port number for both devices, all is working fine. Thank you