Troubleshooting and FAQ

Symptoms

"Invalid login details", "Too many failed sign-in attempts", or nothing happens.

Possible causes

• Wrong tab: staff use User Login, employees use Employee Self.
• Wrong password, or Caps Lock on.
• Too many failed attempts: the name is blocked for a short time (by default 5 failures within 15 minutes).
• Staff: the user is not active (Staff Status). Employees: Employee Login Block is ticked in Company Setting, or the person has resigned.
• The Terms of Service box on the User Login tab is unticked.

Check and fix

1. Check the tab and the username (employees use their personnel number).
2. Show the password with the eye button and retype it.
3. If blocked, wait 15 minutes.
4. Employees: use Forget Password?. Staff: ask an administrator to set a new password on System › User.

Verify

You reach the Dashboard (staff) or Manual Punch (employees).

Escalate

If the page does not load at all, or shows an error for everyone, contact IT: the site or database may be down.

Possible causes

• No e-mail address on the employee record (Personnel Details › Email).
• E-mail is not set up or notifications are switched off.
• The message is in the spam folder.
• The link expired (30 minutes) or was already used.

Fix

Check the employee's e-mail address; ask the administrator to check the E-mail channel (send a test message) and Background Jobs for a failed message. Request a new link. HR can set a new password instead.

Possible causes

• The employee was never sent to the device.
• The employee's area is not the device's area.
• The employee is on the device's Block List.
• The device is offline, so the command waits.

Check and fix

1. On the employee record, check the Area (Attendance Settings).
2. Device › Device Management: tick the device › Device Maintenance › Send Employee To Device.
3. Open Device › Commands Monitoring and wait for the command to get a ResponseTime.
4. Enrol the fingerprint or face on the device, or use Enroll Fingerprint By Device.

Verify

The person can punch and the punch shows in Real-Time Monitoring.

Symptoms

The Dashboard shows the device offline; Last Activity in the device list is old; commands get no response.

Possible causes

• Power or network at the device.
• Wrong server address or port in the device's ADMS settings.
• A firewall blocks the device service's port.
• The serial number in LanaTime differs from the device.
• The LanaTime device service is stopped.

Check and fix

1. Check the device's network settings and that it can reach the server.
2. Compare the serial number in Device Management with the device.
3. Ask IT to check the device service site and the firewall.
4. When it is back online, use Upload Transactions Again so punches stored while offline are sent.

Escalate

To IT or your LanaTime supplier with the device's serial number, model and the time it stopped.

Check and fix

1. Attendance › Transactions: filter by the person and date. Is the punch there under another number? Then the Device ID on the employee does not match the device user.
2. Is the device online (Device Management, Last Activity)? If not, see device offline.
3. Tick the device › Upload Transactions Again, then check Transactions again.
4. If the device cannot connect, export punches to USB and use U Disk Import on Transactions.
5. If the person really forgot to punch, create a manual punch request.
6. Recalculate the person and dates.

Verify

The punch appears in Transactions and the day's symbol in the Attendance Report is correct.

Possible causes

• The person has a different timetable that day than you think (temporary schedule, other shift).
• Grace minutes (Late Arrival / Early Out) on the timetable.
• Punch outside the check-in or check-out window, so it is ignored.
• The rule's Check-In/Check-Out Rule (Base On Schedule vs First/Last punch).
• Overtime options off on the timetable, or the rule's Min/Max OverTime.
• The late-count rule moved a half day to another day.
• Units and rounding in the rule's Calculation Item.

Check

Follow Investigating a wrong result step by step.

Possible causes

• A temporary schedule on that date overrides the normal one.
• The schedule's start or end date does not cover the day.
• No schedule, so the shift on the employee record (or Auto Timetable) is used.
• Two timetables on one day with overlapping windows.

Check and fix

Attendance › Schedule: select the person and look at Schedule TimeTable details for the date; check Temp Schedule. Correct the schedule, then recalculate.

Cause

Results are stored when you calculate; they do not change by themselves.

Fix

Select the people and dates and select Calculate (Attendance Report) or Att Calculate (Payroll Report). See When to recalculate.

Possible causes

• The leave is still Pending, was rejected or revoked.
• The dates were calculated before the approval.
• The day is a weekend or holiday: leave is applied on working days only.
• Two leave records on the same day: only the first is used.

Fix

Check the status on Attendance › Approvals › Leave Request, approve if appropriate, and recalculate.

Possible causes

• No person selected in Select Person.
• Start date after end date.
• Nothing calculated for those dates yet.
• The people resigned before the period, or are hidden by the rule's Resign Staff setting.
• The dates are before the people's Date Of Attendance Start.

Fix

Select people and correct dates, select Calculate, then Search.

Attendance pages and reports hide resigned staff unless the rule's Display The Resign Staff is Yes. The Payroll Report's person list does not offer people with a resignation record. Calculate a leaver's last period before recording the resignation, or temporarily change the rule setting.

Possible causes

• Send notifications is off (Notification Settings › General).
• The channel is not set up or its test fails.
• The rule for that event is inactive, or has no recipients with an e-mail address or mobile number.
• WhatsApp: the employee has not opted in, or the approved template is missing.
• The background worker is not running.

Check and fix

1. Notification Settings: switch on, then send a test message on the channel's tab.
2. Notification Rules: open the rule and use Who would receive it?.
3. Background Jobs: filter by Failed or Retrying and read the error.
4. Restart the worker on Notification Settings.

Escalate

Mail server or gateway errors (authentication, blocked sender) go to IT or your provider.

Possible causes

• The file is not a real Excel .xlsx file (only .xlsx is accepted; renamed or script files are refused).
• Columns differ from the template example.
• Departments or other references in the file do not exist yet.
• Duplicate numbers.
• The file is larger than the upload limit.

Fix

Start from the template shown in the import window, save as "Excel Workbook (*.xlsx)", create referenced departments first, and import a few rows as a test.

Possible causes

• Your role does not include the page (System › Role).
• The page needs a selection first (for example Adjust Area: tick employees on the Personnel list first).
• Known in LanaTime 7.5 test installation: Archived Personnel, Set Area (Device menu) and Commands Logs opened the Dashboard even for a super user.

Fix

Ask an administrator to add the page and its actions to your role. For the three pages above, report it to your supplier.

Sessions end after a period without activity and when the server restarts (for example after an update or a configuration change). Sign in again. Save long forms before leaving them open.

LanaTime records each error with the time, page, user and a request id in its application log. Tell your administrator what you did, the page and the exact time; IT finds the entry in App_Data\Logs on the server.

Run Att Calculate and then Payroll Calculate again for the period, then Search. Check the allowance's issue date falls in the period.

• The Time Zone is not selected ("Please select timezone").
• The licence's device count is used up: check System › About (Count, Occupied, Remaining).
• A device with the same serial number exists.

• The key is inactive or wrong.
• The API licence option has expired.
• Calculated keys return only calculated results: calculate the period first.
• Dates outside the data, or in a format the server cannot read (use yyyy-mm-dd).