WO2013182994A1

WO2013182994A1 - Assiduity calculation method

Info

Publication number: WO2013182994A1
Application number: PCT/IB2013/054603
Authority: WO
Inventors: Alexandre Manuel NOGUEIRA PEREIRA GOMES
Original assignee: Milénio 3 - Sistemas Electrónicos, S.A.
Priority date: 2012-06-04
Filing date: 2013-06-04
Publication date: 2013-12-12
Also published as: PT106361A

Abstract

In the present application it is disclosed an in memory assiduity calculation method that allows the input of registrations in conflict that are automatically solved, without the active intervention of the operator. This method, when applied to employee time & attendance calculation, allows the entrance of attendance and absence records in a system without overlap validation. The conflict management is done later, not requiring the need of an operator but with a set of rules and calculation whenever found necessary.

Description

DESCRIPTION

ASSIDUITY CALCULATION METHOD

Field of the Invention

This invention discloses a "m-memory computing" technique developed for the automatic processing of data conflicts in real-time, applied to employee time & attendance calculation systems.

This procedure allows the operator to input new data without having to be aware of context data that is usually interconnected, having this way, an easier and faster operation .

Summary

The present invention describes an assiduity calculation method that computerize on real-time a time schedule in memory incorporating a subdivision of time atomic segments; based on one previous defined work schedule, and the attendances and absences registered by some individual.

In one preferred embodiment, the assiduity calculation method computes the following steps:

creation in memory, of a connected list, according with one defined work schedule;

- subdividing the days in atomic time segments in such a way that the schedules conditions, absences and attendance are homogeneous;

- creation, in memory, of a connected list of segmented schedules with homogeneous aspects;

to the previous list, are added, the intervals of attendance of an employee for each day to be processed; - the existing segments are subdivided once again with the absence intervals;

processing of the previous data, evaluating the effective absences and attendances within the schedule, and accounting the used absence times;

- after the daily processing of every day of the period, the accumulated values are processed;

- with the values resulting from the previous stage, it is measured the absence with restrictions of usage and check if it was exceeded the limits parameterized in the system.

In another preferred embodiment, the connected list with the work schedule used on the assiduity calculation method is based on a scheduled plan of daily work, the schedule of periodical work with the sequence of a schedule of repeatable cycles and a specific schedule of an employee with associated holidays that create exceptions in the periodical work schedule.

In yet another preferred embodiment, the repeating schedule cycle of the assiduity calculation method is made weekly.

In one preferred embodiment, the connected list of segmented schedules with regular aspects of the assiduity calculation method is based on the interval outside the schedule, interval within the schedule with positive accounting of the balance, interval within the schedule with negative accounting of the balance, interval within the schedule with mandatory attendance.

In another preferred embodiment, on the step of adding the intervals of attendance of an employee for each day of the processing in the assiduity calculation method, the existing segments are subdivided every time it is necessary to maintain the uniformity of each one of them.

In yet another preferred embodiment, every time there is a segment subdivided in the assiduity calculation method, the dimension of intervals with attendance and intervals without attendance is added.

The present invention also describes a schedule data structure, to store assiduity information according to the method described above, in which each daily data structure may contain:

- intervals outside the schedule,

- intervals within the schedule with positive accounting of the balance,

- intervals within the schedule with negative accounting of the balance,

- intervals within the schedule with mandatory

attendance,

in which the above data intervals are linked as a list.

In a preferred embodiment, each interval used in the schedule data structure may contain the following subdivisions :

- intervals with attendance, and

- intervals without attendance

and each of the above subdivision may still contain these other subdivision:

- intervals with absence, and

intervals without absence,

in which the above data intervals are linked as a list. The present invention also describes a computer readable medium comprising the data structure, and one computer program with computer program code adapted to perform the method described above when said program is run on a data processing system.

Prior art

The systems which are known in the prior art make the validation of restrictions of competition at the time of data input made by the operator who, sometimes, doesn't have the context information regarding conflict data. This technique forces the cancellation of the inputting of data until one of the elements is amended. On previous art systems, the inputting of attendance or absence data somehow forces the system to accept that information and respective restrictions without being aware of other context information which may be relevant for the effective assiduity calculation.

Disclosure

The current invention refers to a "in-memory computing" technique developed for the automatic processing of data conflicts in real-time. With the present invention, attendance/absence input information may be gathered at some different points in time (from biometric systems, directly by certain users, etc.), which may concern to the same specific periods within the schedule. The eventual conflicts are not resolved at the time of data input, they are instead processed at the end of time segment interval (day for example) and then resolved, giving as output the actual effective attendance and absence periods of the employee. The advantages of this technique in comparison of the existing ones are:

1. Isolation of the operator's activities Seen that it's not mandatory that the operators have to process and know the competitors data and only the information in hand having, therefore, a total independence in the operations. Hence, a very simple procedure.

2. A faster procedure

Given that validations of competitor' s restrictions are not made at the time of data's input nor the cancellation of the inputting of the new data when conflict of information exists, the procedure is made more quickly than of the previous techniques.

3. Economic advantages

Since this is a faster procedure that does not require so many human resources when conflicts exist, the operational cost is lower. Besides that, using human resources that don't have to know all the operational procedures reduces the costs in staff training.

Description of the Figures

The following figures provide preferred embodiments for illustrating the description and should not be seen as limiting the scope of invention.

Figure 1 shows a preferred embodiment for the automatic data processing of the conflicts in real-time.

Detailed description of the preferred embodiment

The Figure 1 shows the automatic data processing of the conflicts in real-time and for which it will be presented a preferred embodiment, which should not be seen as limiting the scope of invention. On figure 1 it is considered for example that some previous absence information has already been added by some user to the database, manually for example, and that the attendance information, has been physically collected from the employee, by one biometric system for example.

This two, eventually colliding information, may have been collected in two different time periods, though they are processed in the same time processing segment, on the same day for example.

The first stage (1) consists in the creation, in memory, of a connected list with the work schedule (2) . For each calendar day of the interval of the processing dates, it's determined a theoretical schedule based on:

• a scheduled plan of daily work,

• the schedule of periodical work with the sequence of a schedule of repeatable cycles, usually weekly, and

• a specific schedule of an employee with associated holidays that, normally, create exceptions in the periodical work schedule.

The work schedule in memory (2) allows the access, in a dynamic way, to the estimated schedule of an employee in any day of the processing. For that, subdividing the days in atomic schedules segments is required so that the schedules conditions, absences and attendance are homogeneous (3) .

Therefore, based on a daily schedule for a everyday processing, it's created, also in memory, a connected list of segmented schedules with regular aspects (4) : • interval outside the schedule,

• interval within the schedule with positive accounting of the balance,

• interval within the schedule with negative accounting of the balance,

• interval within the schedule with mandatory attendance .

To the previous list, are added, the intervals of attendance of an employee for each day of the processing (5) . The existing segments are subdivided every time it is necessary to maintain the uniformity of each one of them, now with one more dimension to add to the intervals of the schedule :

• intervals with attendance, and

• intervals without attendance.

We can now have eight kinds of regular intervals: four of schedule X and two of attendance (6) .

In the next stage (7) the existing segments are subdivided once again with the absence intervals. Now, on this third dimension we have:

• intervals with absence, and

• intervals without absence.

Now we can have sixteen different types of regular intervals: four of schedule X, two of attendance X and two of absence (8 and 9) .

After the achievement of these regular segments with schedule data, attendance and absence, the effective evaluation of each absence is easier, given that the segments within them can be classified as taken into account or not taken into account.

The segments not taken into account might result from attendance or absence collisions. In figure 1, Absence 1 (on segment C, D and E) collides with one confirmed attendance (from 8:50 till 12:15) . Absence 1 collides also with other Absence, this one being Absence 2 which is in the segment F between 13h and 15h (9) . Absence 1 still collides with requested time outside the schedule, on this case in segment E. Only the segments taken into account are collected for the effective accounting of the used absence times (10).

The collision between absences is managed dynamically with simple rules of priorities without using persistent data manipulation. Everything is processed in the memory so that if later the conditions of collision are changed, the values used are updated without manual intervention.

In the database only the requested absences are maintained and all the actual used values are computed in real-time. After the daily processing of every day of the period, processing the accumulated values is required (11) regarding the absence requests for more than one day. In these cases, it is possible that the number of days actually used in an absence is lower than the number of requested days.

With the values resulting from the previous stage, it is now possible to measure in a global perspective whether if the absence with restrictions of usage exceeds the limits (12) parameterized in the system. If that's the case the system' s automatic response is done according to the parameter: take the absence into account and notify the exceeding limit or disregard the absence.

This procedure allows the entry in an absence system in conflict seeing that the effective values used are computerized in-memory without the modification of the requested data that are persisted with the original values.

The invention is of course not in any way restricted to the embodiments described herein and a person of ordinary skill in the area can provide many possibilities to modifications thereof as defined in the claims.

The preferred embodiments described above are obviously combinable. The following dependent claims define further preferred embodiments of the present invention.

Claims

1. Assiduity calculation method characterized by computerize on real-time a time schedule in memory incorporating a subdivision of time atomic segments; based on one previous defined work schedule, and the attendances and absences registered by some individual.

2. Assiduity calculation method, according to claim 1, characterized by computing the following steps:

to the previous list, are added, the intervals of attendance of an employee for each day to be processed;

- the existing segments are subdivided once again with the absence intervals;

3. Assiduity calculation method according to claim 2, wherein the connected list with the work schedule is based on a scheduled plan of daily work, the schedule of periodical work with the sequence of a schedule of repeatable cycles and a specific schedule of an employee with associated holidays that create exceptions in the periodical work schedule.

4. Assiduity calculation method according to the previous claim, wherein the repeating schedule cycle is made weekly.

5. Assiduity calculation method according to claim 2, wherein the connected list of segmented schedules with regular aspects is based on the interval outside the schedule, interval within the schedule with positive accounting of the balance, interval within the schedule with negative accounting of the balance, interval within the schedule with mandatory attendance.

6. Assiduity calculation method according to claim 2, wherein on the step of adding the intervals of attendance of an employee for each day of the processing, the existing segments are subdivided every time it is necessary to maintain the uniformity of each one of them.

7. Assiduity calculation method according to the previous claim, wherein every time there is a segment subdivided, the dimension of intervals with attendance and intervals without attendance is added.

8. A schedule data structure, to store assiduity information according to method described in claims 1 and 2, in which each daily data structure may contain:

- intervals outside the schedule,

- intervals within the schedule with positive accounting of the balance, - intervals within the schedule with negative accounting of the balance,

- intervals within the schedule with mandatory

attendance,

in which the above data intervals are linked as a list.

9. A schedule data structure, according to the previous claim, in which each interval may contain the following subdivisions :

- intervals with attendance, and

- intervals without attendance

and each of the above subdivision may still contain these other subdivision:

- intervals with absence, and

intervals without absence,

in which the above data intervals are linked as a list.

10. Computer readable medium comprising the data structure of claims 8 and 9, and one computer program with computer program code adapted to perform the method of any of the claims 1 - 7 when said program is run on a data processing system.