In rare situations, you or your employees may encounter a situation where the "GO" button is unresponsive with no indication as to why.  The issue is typically because ExakTime Mobile does not have permission to use Location Services to track the employee with GeoTrakker. 

What Is Happening

The user logged in to ExakTime Mobile has GeoTrakker enabled for their Security Role. As GeoTrakker is used to log the device's position as the employee moves throughout the day, ExakTime Mobile requires access to the device's Location Services at all times. If ExakTime Mobile has no permission or limited permission when ExakTime Mobile is open, it will not allow the employee to clock in, as it cannot track them with GeoTrakker properly. 

What typically happens is that the very first press of the "GO" button will prompt the user that ExakTime Mobile needs permission to Location Services, but they grant either no or limited permission to Location Services. When they try to press the "GO" button again, the prompt does not reappear, and the employee is unsure of the problem.

Resolution

You have two options to address this situation so the employee can clock in:

Grant Permission to Location Services at All Times

If you want to track your employee(s) with GeoTrakker, ExakTime Mobile must have additional permission to Location Services. This will allow ExakTime Mobile to log the device's position at all times while the employee is clocked in, even if ExakTime Mobile is open in the background. GeoTrakker will stop logging the device's position when the employee has clocked out.

We understand that employees/organizations may be concerned with why ExakTime Mobile requires constant access to location services, which is explained below and in the following article. We also offer an article that covers how ExakTime uses GPS data across the entire system here.

Granting an app "Always" permission to use Location Services does not always mean that an app is "always tracking" a user; it simply means that it will "always" have permission to receive location data without needing to prompt the user. How often an app requests location data varies between apps, with ExakTime Mobile needing it in certain situations or more often with GeoTrakker. The other permission levels, such as "Ask Every Time" and "Only When App Is Open," can be viable options for other apps and situations, but they can hinder the employee in cases such as ExakTime Mobile receiving location data when the employee is both clocked in and has GeoTrakker enabled for them.

Android

The following steps must be done on the affected phone/tablet. As Android devices have different menu layouts, the steps provided below are merely an outline of what to expect.

1. Open your App Drawer
2. Press Settings
3. Press Apps (May also be called Applications, App Manager, etc.)
4. Press ExakTime
5. Press Permissions
6. Press Locations
7. Select "Allow only while using the app."

iOS

The following steps must be done on the affected phone/tablet.

1. Open Settings
2. Go to Privacy & Security.
3. Go to Location Services.
4. Look for and tap ExakTime. 
5. Select the appropriate location services option for GeoTrakker. We recommend selecting "Always".
6. Enable the necessary permissions.

Disable GeoTrakker

If the affected employee(s) do not need to be tracked with GeoTrakker, then the following steps should be done in ExakTime Connect.

1. Go to Manage and click Security Roles.
2. ExakTime Mobile should be the initial menu shown.
3. Select the appropriate security role that the affected employee(s) belong to.
4. Uncheck "GeoTrakker" from the permissions list to the right.
5. Save your changes.
6. Your employees must sync their copies of ExakTime Mobile to receive the security role changes.