How to create a stopwatch to record time spent on a report.

[TwoBit]

Hello Bytes,

I am very new at using Microsoft Access and have just recently implicated it in recording productivity on outbound calls for my team.

My team is in charge of making outbound calls to agents to verify insurance on people's loans. We make a first call, and if it is not solved we will make a second call.

At the end of the day, we are required to send our totals in to workforce management to calculate the amount of calls we make per hour on certain reports, and an average of hour many calls per hour on that day. Basically to make sure everyone is working at all times as well.

What we are using currently, is one table, and one form on Microsoft Access 2003 on a server. Everyone can enter the info at the same time on a client computer running Windows XP.

The table has fields that record the date the record was entered, the representative's name, the date of the report, type of report, account, time worked, 1st calls and 2nd calls.

In the form, it shows the primary key, the day (as a default value), the representative's name (with a combo box connected to a table for names), the report date (with an input mask of 99/99/00;;_), the report types (with a combo box connected to a table of types), the account (with a combo box connected to a table for accounts), the time, the first calls and second calls.

(Sorry for explaining everything with too much detail)

The problem is, that the representative can accidentally enter any info in over another representative's record, and can falsify the calls per hour they make easily. Anyone can say that they worked on a report for one hour and made 15 calls in that time (which is very difficult).

So I have been trying to implement a timer of some sort, to record the time started on a report and the time finished on a report.

I have learned somewhat (from this site) how to make a stopwatch that resets, but I would like the reset button to save the time to a table with everything else and then reset (like a save button).

I cannot figure out how to implement this on a server for every representative to use at the same time though, with out creating a page for each one of them. I am getting so over my head though, that I feel like I'm just going to have to take a course in order to learn all of Microsoft Access and Visual Basic (which I cannot take off time to do).

At the very least, could you help me get in the right direction on making a page with a start and stop timer that the representative can keep open on the screen? A page will ensure they can each use their own timer at once. Then when they are finished, they click the reset/save button to add it to a new record in a table (kind of like punching in and out).

I do appreciate your time, and understand if this would be too much to reply on in detail. I just need a direction on how to organize all of this.

Thank you.

[Megalog]

At first I thought maybe using a timer would be a good solution, but having a Timer run on the form that is open can cause visual quirks from what i've seen. So maybe the solution can be simpler such as having a variable on the form that resets every time you move to a new record, and then recording those times to a new table for this purpose only. So "Bob" opens up the record, and dteStartTime gets set to Now() (using either the onCurrent event, or a 'Start' button). When Bob hits Save on the form, a new record is created in the time table, tied to that customer's record. This new table should record the Start Time, Saved Time, (or just the difference in minutes), Bob's name or user ID, as well as the row ID for the table he was working on. This can be done with a simple Append query. This new table can be tied to the orginal form using a subform, queried seperately, however you wish.

[TwoBit]

@Megalog
Hello Megalog,

Thank you for responding.

That sounds like a good Idea, but would there be a way to emphasize the stopwatch in a page so that the representative's would not be able to go into the actual database?

My first thought was to have a table, showing Date (default value), Time (with Time() as default value), Name, Report, 1st calls, 2nd calls and Finished (check box). Then a page listing only Name (with combo box), Report (with combo box), 1st calls and 2nd calls and Finished (check box). Then have fun with the query's later. Once the representative clicks the save button (on the record navigation), the record is put into the table with the time it was entered. So start times and end times are listed.

The thing was that while taking a break, I would would have to click Finished, then make a new record and finish that one. For one report, there would sometimes be 6 records (depending on how long the report).

The reason for the page and stopwatch, is so I can lock the database (not just the tables) so that once they hit stop and then reset/save, they would not be able to alter any of their times. Only administrators like myself would be able to go into the database to run query's and pull the times.

Lets say that I get a report. I click start, then start working. I take a break, hit stop. I come back from break, hit start again and when finished, hit stop, then reset/save and there would be no way of changing how long I was working on that report. The amount of time would automatically be in there with no query's.

Right now, the metrics are working on how many calls per hour you can make. If you make 13 calls an hour or more, you are a top performer. The problem is that not only are people rushing through the reports, and making several mistakes while doing so (quantity, not quality) they are also able to falsify what they put in to make them look better.

What I would like to propose to "the powers that be" is that as long as the representative's are making at least 10 calls an hour (which is easy) and working the full 7.5 hours (two 15 minute breaks and 1 hour lunch), then they will be graded a top performer.

In other words, graded on scheduled adherence, not quantity. That way there will be less "gaps" in the time.

[Jim Doherty]

@TwoBit
Just a design thought for you to consider....you mentioned playing with queries later, May I suggest to you start playing with them now my logic being this. If your database is on the Windows server and you are accessing it from a client machine then your user will have logged on to the network thus exposing their network login credentials ie their network login username.

So... whichever machine the user logs in from, it does does not matter, they are still identifiable via their network login.

a) Set any default for identifying who pumped records into the backend database by reference to the network logon and if you like the machine name logged into.

c) Insert and retrieve data via a query ONLY those records that pertain to them.(ie: have restrictive criteria in your SQL query WHERE clause that interacts with the network user login credentials. This eradicates any suggestion of overwriting someone elses records or even viewing someone elses records (provided you do the usual hiding of various elements of the database to the non savvy user for instance prefixing a table name with 'Usys' which automatically gives it hidden attributes).

Any forms would be based on a query essentially restricting returnable datasets to only those that pertain to the network user (irrespective of which machine they might log onto)

I realise you are new to Access and may well not know certain strategies that are common and that simplify to a degree, certain design approaches when using on a network

[ADezii]

In my opinion, the best mechanism by far for creating a Stop Watch or Elapsed Time Calculator is by using the timeGetTime() API Function. I won't go into details, the Link says it all.
http://bytes.com/topic/access/insigh...ttime-vs-timer