On occasions you may find you need to import the TCD files which your clock generates in order to write the punches into the Clock Data Table. First we need to determine what dates and time range we are missing in transactions. Once we have that we can look for the TCD files with your punches in it.
The naming convention for the file is MMDDXXXX.TCD, MM is the month the file was generated, DD the day, and the XXXX is the sequence the file was created on that day. Example, we poll our clock for the third time in a day, the day is April 12th, the TCD file would be named 04120003.TCD. We will keep working with our example here of 04120003.TCD, the files created by the Communication application can be opened with note pad or any other text editor.
Communications will write the TCD file in the same location as your Data base, if you do not know the location you can open Company and see the path underlined in red here in the picture below.
By navigating to the location indicated in our Directory field we will see the following files in the window, generally you may see many more TCD files as one is created for every successful call to the clock.
Our 04120003.TCD file is circled in red. If you do not generate TCD files due to the configuration of your polling method of a physical clock then you may find your punches in the .ARC file circle in blue. The name of the ARC file will reflect the same name as your .MDB file here in this location.
Let's open our example with Notepad to see what it looks like.
Here are the clock punches in raw form in a TCD file. If you open the ARC file with note pad you will see the same thing except that the entries will go back to the beginning inception of the product. The same information here can be applied to the ARC file to view.
In the blue square you will see the date 4/12/2011 with two punches, let's say we have the 12th but were missing the punches on the 10th (in the red square). These are the punches we will be importing. If these punches are in the ARC file then copy and past these files into a text file and save it as PUNCHES.TCD. By naming the file as such you will be able to import those punches into Realtime Advanced.
We have found our missing data so now it's time to import them. There are two methods, I will go through both.
First we will use the evaluation method with our example.
Since we have a fair number of the punches in our TCD and just the 10th to import we will use the Evaluation function. What will happen is that Realtime will look at the file and compare it to the Clock Data Table and import the missing punches. To get to the Evaluation tool use the Navigation window and click Utilities/Evaluate TCD.
Once you click the 'Evaluate TCD File' button this screen will appear.
Our example file is underlined in red in the picture. Click on the file to highlight then click open or double click the file to open it - either method will work.
You will get the following window displaying the missing Punches.
All of our missing April 10th punches are displayed here to be imported into the application. Click 'Add Records'
Which brings up this dialogue box:
Click yes to continue and import the punches.
Once the import has completed you will see an empty Missing Records Window.
Now you can close this window by clicking the red X in the right top corner. Go to your Transactions to see the imported punches, don't forget to match.
The second method is using the Import Clock Data utility. Navigate to it as below:
Once we click the 'Import Clock Data' you will see the selection window as with the Evaluate TCD File function.
Open the TCD we wish to import and remember that this function imports everything in the TCD even if the punches are already in the Clock Data Table so this would be useful for our hand made TCD file from the ARC we discussed at the beginning. Once clicked to import you will receive this dialogue:
After clicking the OK button you will see this dialogue box:
Here we can choose to delete the file or leave it. As a way to keep a re-importable back up to your clock data I normally click on NO.
You have now imported your missing punches, go into transactions and edit as necessary. If you do see duplicates in the Transactions you can use the steps out lined in Deleting Clock Duplications in the Knowledge Base.