Status codes and return times

Only Administrators can add, edit, or delete status codes. Select Settings in the side menu, then User Status Codes.

When you set up a new account, there are five default status codes:

• In—an In-type code, green.
• Lunch—an Out-type code, cadet blue.
• Out—an Out-type code, dark red.
• Vacation—a PTO-type code, purple.
• Out Sick—a PTO-type code, olive.

None of them start with a return time or with Return Time Required turned on. You can keep the codes, edit them, and add as many more as you need. We recommend not adding too many codes, as it makes it harder for users to sort through.

1. Select Settings in the side menu, then select User Status Codes.
2. Select Add User Status Code.
3. Enter a Status Code Name. This is required, can be up to 50 characters, and no two of your codes can share a name.
4. Choose a Status Type—In, Out, or PTO. This is required, and it decides how the time is counted.
5. Choose a Color, and set Return Time Required to Yes or No.
6. Fill in Fixed Return Time or Offset By if you want this code to suggest a return time. Both are optional.
7. Select Save.

Saving returns you to the User Status Codes list, where the new code appears with its type, a color swatch, and whether a return time is required. It is available to everyone right away.

1. Select Settings in the side menu, then select User Status Codes.
2. Select the code's name in the list. In a long list, narrow it first with Name, Type or Return Time Required above it and select Search; Clear shows every code again.
3. Change whatever you need—name, type, color, Return Time Required, or the return-time fields.
4. Select Save.

Renaming a code renames it everywhere, including on status history already recorded against it. Changing a code's Status Type does the same to your reports: they read the type the code has now, so moving a code from Out to PTO re-classifies time that was already recorded under it. Worth thinking about before you change the type of a code that has been in use.

Every status code is one of three types. The two settings do different jobs: the name you give a code describes the activity—Lunch, In a Meeting, Jury Duty—while the type tells InOutBoard how to group the time recorded under that code. The application describes PTO as Personal Time Off, which could be vacation, sick time, workers' comp, and so on.

What each type does to the recorded time:

• In—time under these codes is included in the Time Card and My Time Card totals.
• Out—time under these codes is grouped as Out, and left out of those totals.
• PTO—time under these codes is grouped separately as PTO, and also left out of those totals.

The other reports use the same three groups. The history reports list every entry with its type and total them separately as Total IN, Total OUT, and Total PTO, and Time by Status Code and Time by Status Type break the same time down by the individual code or by the three types.

The type matters outside reporting too. A Company Status Event that sets everyone to an Out-type status code at the end of the day moves only the people currently in an In-type code, and never touches anyone on PTO—see Status Board for how to set up a Company Status Event.

Pick one from the Color list on the code's edit page. Each option is shown in the color it applies, and the list holds No Color plus a long list of named colors. Text color is paired with the background automatically, so you don't set it separately.

The color is what people see on the status board, as the block behind each person's status. Leave a code on No Color and it shows in the default gray.

You can preview your choices without leaving Settings: the User Status Codes list has a Display Color column showing the word “Example” in each code's colors.

Both fill in a suggested return time for the person the moment they pick the code, so they don't have to work it out. They are optional, and they are not alternatives—a code can use one, the other, or both.

• Fixed Return Time sets the clock time: choose an Hour, a Minute (in five-minute steps), and AM or PM. A Lunch code with a fixed time of 1:00 PM suggests 1:00 PM today.
• Offset By counts forward from right now: choose Days, Hours, and Minutes. A Lunch code with an offset of 30 minutes suggests half an hour from whenever the person picks it.

Set both and the fixed time is applied first, then the offset is added to it. That is how you get “back at 8:00 in the morning, a week from today”: a Fixed Return Time of 8:00 AM with an Offset By of 7 days.

Two details worth knowing. A fixed time always starts from today's date, so a code fixed at 1:00 PM that someone picks at 3:00 PM suggests 1:00 PM today, a time already past—add an offset if you want it to roll forward. And if a code has neither setting, the Return Date and Return Time boxes are simply left empty for the person to fill in or ignore.

Whatever the code suggests, the person can change it before saving. These settings pick the starting value; they don't lock it.

Set it to Yes and users who select that status must put in a Return Date and a Return Time. There will be an asterisk next to both. The message is “Return Date and Time is required and must be a future value.”

Set it to No—the default for a new code—and a return time is optional.

The User Status Codes list has a Return Time Required column so you can see which status codes have the return time required.

No. A status code carries a name, a type, a color, and its return-time settings—there is no comment field on it, and nothing is pre-filled into a person's comment when they pick a code.

Comments are typed by the person changing the status, in the Comments box on the status page, and they stay until someone changes them. Three things can clear comments: the Always clear comments when I change my status option on your own status page, a company status event with Clear User Comments set to Yes, and clicking the Clear Comments link on the change status page.

1. Select Settings in the side menu, then select User Status Codes.
2. Check the Users now column beside the code: it shows how many active users are in that status right now, and they will be moved to the replacement.
3. Select the code's name, then select Delete.
4. Choose a code from Replace existing data with. Only codes of the same type are offered.
5. Type DELETE in the confirmation box.
6. Select Delete Status Code.

Your history is not deleted. Everything that pointed at the old code is moved to the replacement first: recorded status history, anyone currently set to that status, calendar events that start or end with it, company status events that switch people to it, and saved status board filters. Then the old code is removed from the list.

Because the replacement must be the same type, the time keeps counting the same way in your reports—an Out-type code can only be replaced by another Out-type code. What does change is the label: entries that used to read the old name now read the replacement's name, and there is no record that they once said something else.

One consequence of that rule: a type's last remaining code cannot be deleted, because there is nothing to replace it with. Add another code of the same type first.

Renaming a code does not prevent people from selecting it. There is no hide or deactivate option. To remove it from the available choices, use the deletion process above and select a replacement of the same type.