Introduction

For organizations with field employees, remote workers, sales teams, service engineers, or employees working outside the office premises, knowing the real-time location of employees during working hours can significantly improve workforce visibility and operational efficiency.

Live tracking helps managers monitor employee movements, verify attendance activities, improve accountability, and ensure better coordination between teams.

uKnowva HRMS provides a Live Tracking feature through the Virtual Biometric - Attendance Tracker plugin. This feature allows organizations to capture and display employee locations in real time during their working hours, provided the necessary permissions and configurations are enabled. Managers and authorized personnel can view employee locations on an interactive map, access location history with timestamps, and monitor attendance-related movements directly from the system.

In this article, you will learn how to enable live tracking, configure the required settings, grant location permissions on different devices, and view employee live locations within uKnowva HRMS.

Step 1: Access the Live Tracking Configuration Settings

To begin, navigate to the top-right corner of the uKnowva home page and click on your profile icon. This will open a list of available options.

From the list of menus, select uKnowva Configuration to access the system configuration panel.

Once inside the configuration page, navigate to the Plugin Manager from the left-side menu.

This section contains all the plugins available within your uKnowva instance.

Locate the Virtual Biometric - Attendance Tracker plugin and click on it to open its configuration settings.

Step 2: Configure Live Tracking Settings

Inside the plugin configuration window, scroll through the available settings until you locate the Live Tracking configuration options.

The first setting is Show Location Permission Setup Guide. Enable this setting by toggling it to Yes if you want users to see step-by-step instructions for enabling location permissions on their devices and browsers. This helps users configure location access correctly without requiring additional support.

Next, locate Allow Live Tracking and toggle it to Yes. This setting activates the live tracking functionality and allows managers and authorized users to view employee locations during working hours.

You will then find the Live Tracking Update Interval (in minutes) setting. This setting determines how frequently the employee's location is updated based on time. Enter the desired interval in minutes to specify how often the system should capture and update the employee's location.

Next, configure the Live Tracking Update Distance setting. This setting determines the minimum distance, in meters, that an employee must move before their location is updated on the live tracking map.

Both of these settings work together, and the system uses them as follows:

Configuration	Tracking Behavior
Update Interval > 0 and Update Distance = 0	The employee's location is updated based only on the specified time interval.
Update Interval = 0 and Update Distance > 0	The employee's location is updated only after they have moved the specified distance.
Update Interval > 0 and Update Distance > 0	The system updates the employee's location whenever either the configured time interval is reached or the specified movement distance is covered, whichever occurs first.
Update Interval = 0 and Update Distance = 0	When both values are set to 0, the system automatically uses the default update interval of 15 minutes.

After that, configure the Allow User Group for Live Tracking setting. Select the user groups whose locations should be tracked. Only users belonging to these selected groups will be eligible for live tracking, and if no user group is selected, it will be applicable to all the users.

If required, enable Failed Live Tracking Logs by setting it to Yes. This allows administrators to track location issues more effectively.

Next, configure Allowed Devices for Live Tracking according to your organizational requirements. You can choose from options such as All Devices, Desktop/Laptop Only, Mobile/Tablet Only, Mobile App + Desktop/Laptop, or Mobile App Only. This setting controls which devices are permitted to submit live location updates.

Once all the required settings have been configured, click on the Save button to apply the changes.

Step 3: Understand the Conditions Required for Live Tracking

After enabling Live Tracking, it is important to understand when the system starts tracking an employee's location.

The following table explains the conditions under which the system tracks an employee's live location:

Condition	Live Tracking Status	Explanation
Employee has punched in but has not yet punched out	Tracked	The employee is actively working, so the system continuously updates their live location.
Employee has attendance recorded for the day, even without a punch-in record	Tracked	If attendance has already been marked, the system continues tracking the employee's location.
Employee has an assigned shift, even if attendance has not yet been recorded	Tracked	As long as the employee has a scheduled shift, the system starts tracking the location during the shift period.
None of the above conditions are met	Not Tracked	The system does not start live tracking. Instead, the logs display the appropriate reason, such as User on Leave, User Holiday, or User is Not Working.

This ensures that live location tracking is active only for employees who are expected to be working, while excluding employees who are officially unavailable or not scheduled for work.

Step 4: Enable Location Permission in a Web Browser

If employees are accessing uKnowva HRMS through a web browser, they must allow location access to ensure successful tracking.

Open your uKnowva HRMS instance in the browser and locate the site settings icon positioned next to the browser's address bar. In this example, we are using Google Chrome, although the process may vary slightly in other browsers.

Click on the site settings icon and open the Site Settings page.

Locate the Location permission setting and change it to Allow or Default, depending on your browser configuration. This grants the browser permission to share the device location with uKnowva HRMS whenever tracking is required.

Once enabled, reload the page, and the browser will be able to provide location updates to the system during active working hours.

Step 5: Enable Location Permission in the Android Application

If employees use the uKnowva HRMS mobile application on an Android device, location access must be granted through the device settings.

Open the device Settings application and navigate to Apps or Manage Apps, depending on the phone manufacturer.

Search for and select the uKnowva HRMS application from the list of installed apps.

Open the Permissions section and select Location.

Grant the appropriate location permission based on your organization's tracking requirements.

Please note that the exact navigation path may differ depending on the Android device manufacturer and operating system version.

Additionally, some Android devices restrict background activity for applications to reduce battery consumption. If the device automatically stops the uKnowva HRMS application from running in the background, location updates may stop when the application is closed.

You can review device-specific guidance for managing background app restrictions atDon't Kill My App.

For Live Tracking to continue updating the employee's location, make sure the uKnowva HRMS application is allowed to run in the background and is not automatically stopped by the device's battery or background activity settings.

Step 6: Enable Location Permission on the iPhone (Browser Access)

If you access uKnowva HRMS from an iPhone, you can use Live Tracking through your preferred mobile browser, such as Safari.

Open Settings on your iPhone and navigate to Privacy & Security > Location Services. Ensure that Location Services are enabled for your device.

Next, open Safari (or the browser you use to access uKnowva HRMS), sign in to your uKnowva HRMS instance, and allow the browser to access your location when prompted. If location access has been previously denied, you can update the browser's location permission from the browser settings.

Granting location access allows uKnowva HRMS to capture and update your live location during active work hours while you are using the browser.

Note: Live Tracking on iPhone is currently available through browser access. Background location tracking through the uKnowva HRMS app is not currently supported.

Step 7: View Employee Live Locations

Once live tracking has been enabled and users have granted the required permissions, managers and authorized personnel can view employee locations directly within uKnowva HRMS.

Navigate to the left-hand navigation panel and click on the Teams menu.

From the available options, select Daily Attendance Report.

This will open the attendance report page for the current day.

Within this page, navigate to the Team's Live Tracking tab.

Here, you will see a list of employees whose locations are currently being tracked. The system displays the tracked users along with their latest location updates.

When you click on a user's name, additional details become available, including timestamps, latitude coordinates, longitude coordinates, and location history information.

The system also displays the employee's location directly on an interactive map, allowing managers to visually track movements and verify attendance-related activities with greater accuracy.

When you click on an employee's name on the map, you can view details such as the date and time of the punch-in, along with the device used to record the attendance.

Note: Live Tracking continuously accesses location information during active working hours to provide real-time location updates. As a result, the uKnowva HRMS application may consume additional device resources such as battery, memory, and mobile data, especially when shorter tracking intervals are configured.

The impact may vary depending on the device model, operating system, network conditions, and other applications running on the device. For optimal performance, configure tracking intervals according to your organization's requirements and ensure that the device has sufficient battery and location services enabled.

Conclusion

That’s it!

You’ve now successfully enabled and configured Live Tracking in uKnowva HRMS.

By following this process, you can monitor employee locations during working hours, improve workforce visibility, and ensure accurate attendance tracking for field and remote teams.

If you have any questions or need additional support, feel free to contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

How to Enable and Use Live Tracking in uKnowva HRMS?