Troubleshooting Print Recognition When Finger/Hand Won't Read

This article contains details of different types of issues employees can have when clocking in and out with a z34 fingerprint clock or Hand Punch clock. These clocks work smoothly for the vast majority of people, but some employees can have trouble with enrollment, placement, or just poor fingerprint quality.

 

Problem: Fingerprint reader works with some employees, but not others.

If some employees aren't reading very well, try re-enrolling their prints. Make sure their fingers are clean and the reader does not have any dirt or debris on it. You can clean the glass with a soft toothbrush and light soap (do not use anything harsh or rough on the glass).

After re-enrolling their print, you can also choose to redownload all prints from the server by selecting option 5 from the Manager menu on the clock. This will delete and re-download all print records.

Finally, before considering more advanced troubleshooting, keep in mind that some employees "protest" the installation of fingerprint readers by intentionally causing poor reads, or damaging the readers with keys, etc.

Problem: Finger enrolled but is not recognized (red light)

Usually, the clock will display a "Try Again" message when attempting to clock in when prints are not recognized. If that's the case, first encourage the employee to do just that--try again. If that doesn't work after 5+ times, considering the following:

1. Is employee using the same finger as enrolled? (Different fingers won’t work.)
2. Is the placement correct? (Center peak of fingerprint needs to be touching center of sensor.)
3. Is finger injured, dirty, or wet?
4. Is fingerprint sensor clean and not damaged?
5. Has enrollment been deleted? (Deletions can occur on other clocks, and pass from clock to clock, if you have more than one.)
6. Has the same number been enrolled by somebody else? (This can also happen if enrolled on another clock.)
7. Is the finger possibly not enrolled? (Use the Finger Test mode, option 7 in the Manager menu, as an easy way to find out.)

If none of these options help, first try deleting and re-enrolling the finger. When you initially enrolled the employee, the reader may not have gotten a good quality image.

The employee can also try entering their Personal Identification Number (PIN) before touching sensor (this tells the clock which finger to expect, and so it can perform a stricter match on just that one fingerprint template, instead of looking at the entire database).

Problem: System allows punches without finger verification

A common technical support complaint is that the clock seems to be accepting punches without requiring any fingerprint verification at all. This is normal if an employee PIN is entered that has never had a fingerprint enrolled. This is intentional so that new hires can immediately begin using the clock with minimal inconvenience. Once a fingerprint is associated with that PIN, the clock will always require fingerprint verification in order to accept that PIN in the future.

It is true that employees can simply make up non-existent PIN and clock them in and out without verification; however, this provides them no benefit. Since they cannot be matched to any employee’s time card, the timekeeping website shows them as “unprocessed punches”, where they can be viewed by a manager and then either posted to a time card manually (if considered valid) or simply deleted.

Problem: Misidentification

Misidentification is rare but possible—particularly since the clock is calibrated by default to err on the side of convenience rather than rejection. You can adjust the sensitivity from the menu.

Any time the fingerprint reader mistakenly identifies one person as a second person, it virtually always means that the second person’s original enrollment was poor quality. In most misidentification scenarios, the same one or two employees are involved every time.

When you enroll a finger, the system tries to capture between ten and fifteen minutiae for use in recognizing the employee. If for one employee the image quality is poor enough that the system can only manage to capture a few (such as three or four), there is a risk that the simplistic pattern may be found on other employee’s fingers, resulting in a false recognition. The enrollment system tries to eliminate as many of these as possible by rejecting them during the verification step.

In case of misidentification, it is important to delete both the employee being misidentified and the employee whose PIN is appearing on the screen. It is most likely that the problematic template file belongs not to the person touching the sensor, but the person whose time card is getting the punches.

You can eliminate the risk of misidentification by having employee type their PIN before touching the sensor. After a PIN is entered, only the correct fingerprint enrolled for that PIN can be considered a match.

Additionally, you can change the Sensitivity setting on the fingerprint menu (option 6) to tighten the matching tolerance. Doing this unnecessarily can make the fingerprint reader difficult to use. You should only do this if you are having problems.

 

Trusted PIN if an employee's fingerprint cannot be read

On occasion, some people's finger prints just don't work - particularly if they are heavily worn down by job duties, as is sometimes seen in maintenance, housekeepers, dish washers, etc. You may also want to try to enroll a different finger, or a different part of the finger. Try to avoid the finger tips and focus more on the region close to the top knuckle where the finger bends. If you do enroll the employee with a non dominant finger or a different part of the finger, they will need to remember to use that finger every time. If this does not work, you can enroll the employee with a Trusted PIN.

The Trusted PIN feature will allow only certain employees to use a PIN on a biometric time clock. This feature provides the supervisor with the ability to have someone opt out of biometrics especially when the client has a person with difficulty of getting a good read on their finger. This should only be done as a last resort for employees who absolutely need the option. Before using this option, you should first try enrolling the employees finger again, and try using a finger on their non-dominant hand.

Follow the instructions below to assign a trusted PIN on a biometric clock:

1. Access the Manager's Fingerprint Menu (Press 3, enter password)
2. Press ALPHA (it will Sometimes be labeled ABC or F3, but will almost always be the key above OK.)
3. Press 1
4. Type the employee's PIN 
5. Press OK and then exit to the time and date screen

The steps to removing a PIN are exactly the same as above.

You can also view the PIN that are currently in the clock by pressing 2 once in the Trusted Pin menu.

Once a PIN is on the clock's trusted list, that employee will just need to press 1 or 2 on the clock and then enter their PIN, to make a punch.