How We Automated Attendance System for an SME—"Saving Hours Every Month with Zero Maintenance" – Detailed Real-Time Case Study
Client: A Chennai based e-commerce retail company below 12 employees.
Project Goal: Transforming their long sized manual attendance note into a hassle-free digital attendance workflow.
Here’s how we did it — step-by-step.
💡 1. The Challenge that the e-commerce retail company faced:
The HR of this company was manually marked the presence of their employees. The errors, delays, workload (not heavy but avoidable), time consumption became very common, and also monthly report took hours to compile it.
Let's keep stacking.
- The owner needs to come to the office or call a representative to check the presence of employee.
- They need to allocate a separate shelf to keep their attendance log book month wise, since every two months they have to buy a new notebook.
- They need to secure it for future use, and maintaining it makes them determine switching to digital.
- The company should allocate a separate person like HR, Manager, Supervisor to mark the presence of employees (as some companies do).
💪2. The Challenge we faced in this project:
At the beginning, we (The TNY Company) thought it was easy. But when we heard their preference, it changed the perspective.
"They asked, “It should be low maintenance.”
And we replied, “That’s so easy.”
They asked, “Error-free system, reduce workload.”
We said, “Yeah, we can do it.”
Because, their preferences are very valid since they are already tired of this thing. So, we understand it.
But you know the final twist...?
“Their budget is just the cost of a note book.”
We are unexpected this twist in budget constraint—added a challenge but we happily accepted as an exciting problem to solve.
⚙️ 3. Project Goal: Transforming their long sized manual attendance note into a hassle-free digital attendance workflow.
We took this as a challenge to create an easy automated attendance system that meets all their preference.
You may wonder how we managed it with just the cost of a notebook.
But we don’t only focus on the project’s budget. We love the challenge, we love solving problems, and we work for quality.
So, keep read to see the result.
🔧 4. The Solution – exactly what we built/implemented:
- Tools/Tech Used: Zapier (automation workflow platform), Tally Forms, Excel
- Process: The workflow was automated using Zapier.
We created a Tally form to collect details such as employee name, ID Number, Timestamp, attendance status (absent/present) and a note section (which employee can use if they are absent).
Then we linked the tally form with an excel sheet and set up a Zap in Zapier. Technically the form submission from employee acts as a trigger of in Zap, and the data automatically flow excel sheet (Action). Every day a report will be shared with HR, owners can check the employee status from everywhere—no extra hassle as that business owner particularly asked.
- Key Features:
- In this case, it’s a no-code, allowing business owners to understand and edit it in the future as they wish.
- Employees can report their attendance with just a simple link.
✨ 5. Why this worked for this e-commerce retail company:
The owner said,
“This system is very simple, transparent, and fully automated. It reduces manual work, keeps management updated in real-time and our employees loved it. Honestly, we felt like Tony Stark, because it’s just a simple link – once they fill it, the magic happens. I can see the attendance, even when I’m in driving, outside the office.”
We gave this system to them for three weeks.
Every day, the company owner shared the report with us—even though we didn’t ask. Then we realized that she wasn’t just sharing the report; she was sharing her excitement, shared her happiness, and pouring out a message full of gratitude: “Thank you sooo much for this.”
After three weeks, we measured the outcomes, and we are amazed—result was far beyond what we had expected.
After automation:
- Reduced the manual work – after this HR no needs to mark attendance by hand.
- Saves hours – 10 minutes/day × 30 days = ~5 hours/month (or ~4 hours excluding holidays), with just simple attendance automation we can save few hours.
- Time saving – compiling the monthly attendance report now takes just a few minutes
- Error elimination – manual errors in marking attendance have been completely removed.
- Real time marking and tracking – status is stored with exact time and date; owners, managers can check employee status from anywhere, anytime.
- Digital storage – records are safely stored in excel/drive. Now shelves are free for useful books and replaced the damaged attendance log book.
- Low maintenance – this automated attendance requires less effort to run and maintain or edit.
- Employee friendly – they can submit attendance easily via just a link
- Cost effective – we implemented this system at the cost of a note book; as the business owner requested
Scroll down to download the automated attendance system template for free!!!
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💠6. Lessons Learned:
We didn’t expect the owner’s preference, but we learned once again that not every business owner expects complex, expensive software to automate simple business processes. Of course, no one expects the process to look like a spider web.
Want to build same automated attendance for your business?
No worries!!
Download my free Attendance Automation Template below, or connect with me for a quick strategy chat about other automation process for your business.
Not just for automation—we specialize in business development—bringing your business to the next level, helping businesses achieve their goals effortlessly.
👉 Contact:
Tamilselvan Karuppaiah - CEO, The TNY Company.
Business Development & Automation Strategis
ℹ️ LinkedIn | 📩 pennedbytamilselvan@gmail.com