Clock In & Clock Out
Clock-in status is BayWise’s live presence signal. A technician’s availability settings tell the scheduler which days and hours they are normally rostered on. Clock-in status tells it whether they have actually arrived and are ready to work today.
Until a technician is clocked in, they are treated as absent by the scheduling engine. Advisors who attempt to assign a job to an unchecked-in technician will see a warning. The AI scheduling engine will not include an unchecked-in technician in its suggestions, regardless of their availability settings.
This distinction matters in practice. A technician might be rostered Tuesday to Saturday but call in sick on a Wednesday. Their availability settings are unchanged, but clocking them in confirms they showed up. The system’s day-view capacity is calculated from who is actually present — not from the theoretical roster.
Who can clock technicians in and out: Member, Location Manager, Org Admin, Account Owner.
Clock in a technician (manual method)
Open the Tech Roster
From the Dashboard, locate the Tech Roster panel on the right-hand side of the screen.
The roster shows all active technicians for the current location. Technicians who have not yet clocked in appear at the top of the list, flagged with a “Not Clocked In” status. Technicians who are already present appear below, with their current status — Available, On a Job, or On Break.
Find the technician
Scan the top section of the roster for the technician’s name. The roster sorts unchecked-in technicians first, so at the start of a shift the top of the list is effectively your clock-in queue.
For a large roster — for example, at a multi-bay facility like Vantage Automotive in Cape Town with 18 technicians across two shifts — use the search field at the top of the roster to locate a specific technician by name.
Click Clock In
Click the technician’s name or the Clock In button to the right of their name.
BayWise records the clock-in timestamp and the technician’s status changes from Not Clocked In to Available. They are now included in bay capacity calculations and will appear as candidates in AI scheduling suggestions.
Clock out a technician (manual method)
Open the Tech Roster
From the Dashboard, locate the Tech Roster panel.
Find the technician
Locate the technician in the roster. Clocked-in technicians are listed with their current status — Available, On a Job, or On Break.
Click Clock Out
Click Clock Out next to the technician’s name.
BayWise records the clock-out timestamp and the technician’s status changes to Not Clocked In. They will no longer appear as candidates for new job assignments or AI suggestions.
Their existing job assignments are not affected. Any jobs currently assigned to the technician remain assigned. Those jobs will continue to show on the calendar and in the job list — they will simply not receive new assignments. If a job was in progress when the technician clocked out, it stays in progress and must be handled manually — completed, paused, or reassigned as appropriate.
Handling clock-in at shift start
When multiple technicians arrive together at the start of a shift, work through the roster systematically rather than clocking in only the technicians who are immediately needed.
The Tech Roster sorts unchecked-in technicians to the top. Scroll through from top to bottom, clocking in each technician as they arrive. Technicians who have not yet arrived remain at the top of the list — a visual reminder to check them in when they do arrive or to investigate if they are late.
There is no bulk clock-in button. Each technician must be clocked in individually by clicking their name in the roster. This is intentional: bulk clock-in would risk marking technicians as present who have not actually arrived, which would corrupt capacity calculations and AI suggestions for the day. Individual clock-in is not a burden for teams of up to 20 technicians.
What happens when a technician is not clocked in
When a technician is not clocked in, the following applies across the system:
Job assignment (manual): If an advisor opens a job and selects an unchecked-in technician from the assignment dropdown, BayWise displays a warning: “This technician is not currently clocked in. They will not be available for active work.” The advisor can proceed past the warning and assign the job regardless — this covers situations like pre-booking tomorrow’s jobs — but the warning is always shown.
AI scheduling suggestions: The AI engine excludes all unchecked-in technicians from its candidate pool. Even if Luca Ferretti is the highest-skill-matched technician for a job, he will not appear in the AI suggestion if he has not clocked in. This prevents the common mistake of assigning work to a technician who is absent.
Capacity display: The daily capacity overview reflects only clocked-in technicians. If six of your eight technicians are present, the system models capacity based on six technicians — not eight. This keeps the scheduling view honest.
Technician visibility in the roster: Unchecked-in technicians remain visible in the Tech Roster — they are not hidden. They simply appear with the “Not Clocked In” flag and are sorted to the top of the list. This ensures workshop controllers can always see who is missing and follow up.
Retroactive clock-out (end of day correction)
If a technician finishes their shift and leaves without being clocked out — a common occurrence in busy workshops — their status will persist as “Available” or “On a Job” overnight. This does not affect the Day Close process, but it does mean their status will appear incorrect until it is corrected.
Identify the technician
At end of day, scan the Tech Roster for any technicians showing as still clocked in. In a normal day close, all technicians should reach “Not Clocked In” before the Day Close workflow is run.
Clock out retroactively
Click Clock Out next to the technician’s name. BayWise records the clock-out at the current time.
If you need the clock-out to reflect the technician’s actual departure time for payroll or reporting purposes, a location manager or admin can edit the clock-out timestamp from the technician’s profile. Standard clock-out from the roster records the system time at the moment of the action.
If your workshop uses the Day Close workflow, BayWise will prompt you to clock out any remaining clocked-in technicians as part of the close sequence. You do not need to handle this manually if your team runs Day Close consistently. See Close the Day.
Clock-in rules (mandatory clock-in setting)
BayWise can be configured to enforce clock-in as a hard requirement before any job assignment is accepted. When mandatory clock-in is enabled:
- Advisors cannot assign a job to an unchecked-in technician at all. The warning becomes a block.
- The AI scheduler treats unchecked-in technicians as completely unavailable — they do not appear in suggestions and are excluded from capacity calculations entirely.
Mandatory clock-in is a location-level setting. To enable or change it, go to Settings → Operations → Clock-In Rules. See Configure Clock-In Rules for the full walkthrough.
Most workshops start with the default behaviour (warning, not block) and move to mandatory clock-in after their team has built a habit of clocking in consistently.
Common questions
A technician is on the roster but is not showing the Clock In button. Check whether the technician’s record is active and whether their availability settings include today’s day of the week. If a technician’s availability has Monday–Friday set and today is Saturday, the Clock In button will not appear. To clock in outside their normal availability — for example, for an overtime Saturday shift — a location manager can temporarily adjust the technician’s availability or override the restriction from the technician’s profile.
Can technicians clock themselves in? Yes, if the technician has a BayWise user account and the appropriate role. From the technician’s own dashboard view, they can click their own name in the roster to clock in. This is common in workshops where technicians carry a tablet or use a shared kiosk at the workshop entrance. It does not remove the workshop controller’s ability to clock them in centrally.
Can I see a log of clock-in and clock-out times? Yes. Clock-in and clock-out timestamps are recorded for every technician and are visible in the Technician Reports section under Analytics. You can filter by date range and export the log for payroll or compliance purposes. See Read Technician Reports.
We have two shifts. How do we manage clock-in across both? Clock-in is independent per shift. Clock out the first shift as those technicians leave, then clock in the second shift as they arrive. The roster reflects whoever is currently present at any given moment. If a technician from the first shift has not been clocked out before the second shift arrives, their status will show “Available” even though they have left — which is why consistent clock-out discipline matters as much as clock-in.