A clocking policy can let somebody’s phone clock them in as it reaches a workplace and out as it leaves, or ask them first. Two switches have to be on: you arm the workplace, and the person arms their own phone. Until both are, nothing is recorded by itself.
It is part of the Pro plan. On another plan the arrival and departure controls sit there
inert, behind Upgrade to Pro.
Arm the workplace
1
Open the policy
Go to Policies → Clocking, open the policy covering the people you want, then open its
Location tab. We are switching automatic clocking on workspace by workspace, so the
Automatic clocking section appears only once it is enabled for yours. Where it does appear
it is always there, whatever the policy does about capturing location: the boundary it watches
is its own, not the one a GPS punch is judged against.
2
Switch Automatic clocking on
The control is three-way, like the rest of the clocking settings. Switch on arms these
people, Switch off keeps them clocking by hand whatever a broader policy says, and leaving
it alone lets other policies decide.
3
Say what arriving and leaving do
When they arrive and When they leave each take Clock in or Clock out, Ask,
or Nothing. Ask sends a notification carrying one button and records nothing until the
person presses it.
4
Say how far out the boundary sits
Watched radius is how far from a workplace counts as being there, in metres. A policy that
already sets an allowed radius for GPS opens on that number, so arming an existing policy asks
you for nothing you have said once.
5
Set the two waits
Wait after arriving is how long somebody must stay before arriving counts, and Wait after
leaving how long they must be away before leaving counts. These are what stop a walk past the
depot opening an entry and a step outside closing one.
6
Decide about unscheduled arrivals
With Clock in even when no shift is scheduled off, an arrival counts only when a shift at
that workplace starts within Earliest clock-in before a shift minutes, or is already
running.
The phone is theirs to arm
Arming a workplace does not arm a phone, but it does tell the people it reaches: each eligible person who has not yet been asked gets one notification in their inbox and on their phone, telling them to turn it on in the Begin app. Tapping it on the phone opens the opt-in invitation; nothing turns on until they continue. Only the person carrying it can let the app watch where they are: in the app, or later under Settings → Preferences as Automatic clocking at work. Clocking in and out is the page your team reads to do it. The switch is per workspace. Their phone watches every workspace where it is on, whichever is open in the app, and turning it off in yours affects only yours. Their record under People shows where they stand: Automatic clocking reads Off, On since a date, or Paused where their phone’s location access is not set to Always. You cannot switch it on for them. Or ask Begin AI (Cmd / Ctrl + J):Is automatic clocking switched on for Kadri Tamm?
Turn on automatic clocking in ask mode
An armed workplace that never clocks anybody in usually means nobody there has switched it on yet.
Check the people under People before you go back to the policy.
Reading an automatic punch
The entry carries Automatic as its source and says which edge it was, arrived or left. Its activity trail spells the same thing out: “clocked in automatically on arriving at Tallinn office”. It is never set to Needs review for being outside the allowed area. An arrival is inside the workplace by definition and a departure is outside it, so that flag would land on every automatic punch. An arrival your clocking policy would otherwise block is refused instead, and no entry is created at all. Where the entry shows its location, an automatic punch reads Automatically clocked in or Automatically clocked out, with no distance and never Outside expected area. A clock-out somebody confirms from the Ask notification reads Left the workplace with how far away it was made. A workflow’s Location distance check on the clock-out never counts either kind of clock-out as outside or missing.Next
Clocking in and out
What your team sees on their phone, and how they switch it on.
Settings and policies
The rest of the clocking policy, and the other rules that change an entry.
Still need help?
Contact support
Email the Begin team and we’ll get back to you.
Ask Begin AI
Open the AI assistant and get instant answers based on these docs.