Low voltage contractor time tracking
Low voltage contractor time tracking for crews on a new site every few days.
Low voltage contractor time tracking has to follow security, data and AV crews through many short sites and three very different kinds of day: pulling cable above a ceiling, terminating and testing at a rack, and programming or commissioning a system. ZeroBadge records each from a company-managed badge. Every site and the office are locations you draw, so site hours and office programming hours stay apart, and each job's hours come from the days its crew was there.
- Site and office hours kept apart
- Works in closets with no signal
- One month or more of battery life*
*Under qualifying operating conditions. Battery life varies with reporting frequency, signal conditions, usage, and configuration.
Crew allocation
On site
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
- Riverside610999
- Harbor Yard107777
- Northgate88888
Site transfers detected
- Ben C.Harbor Yard → Riverside · Tue
- Mateo G.Harbor Yard → Riverside · Tue
- Rosa D.Harbor Yard → Riverside · Tue
Lena O. · Tue Oct 6
4 locations in one shift, 1h 35m in transit, still one record.
What ZeroBadge does for you
How ZeroBadge helps low voltage contractors
One company badge per worker covers safety alerts, timekeeping, labor analytics and ZeroBadge AI. Here is what each part does in your line of work.
01
Worker safety
A technician working alone in a head-end closet or a ceiling can press the alert button, and the office sees which site raised it.
Learn more02
Workforce management
See which crews are at which site today, and which of the week's many short jobs has no one there yet.
Learn more03
Automated timekeeping
Badge on starts the day, and pull, termination and programming days across many short sites land on one timesheet.
Learn more04
Workforce productivity
Compare hours by day type against each job's estimate, so a pull day that ran into a second day shows up early.
Learn more05
Location analytics
Each site and the office are drawn locations, so programming at the office is kept apart from time in a closet that gets no signal.
Learn more06
Field logistics
Balance crews across the week's short sites using recorded hours, scheduling cutovers in occupied buildings with enough people.
Learn more07
AI advisory and analytics
Ask ZeroBadge AI how many hours each job used on pull, termination and programming days, answered from your records.
Learn more
Safety alerts support your safety program. They do not replace supervision or training, ZeroBadge does not monitor alerts or contact 911, and in an emergency workers should call 911.
Where low voltage hours hide
The job is small, the sites are many, and the work changes from day to day.
A low voltage contractor might have a camera retrofit, a data build for a tenant, an access control install and an AV room all running in the same week, with two or three techs moving between them.
A pull day and a programming day are different jobs
Pulling and dressing cable is physical, repeats by the drop and runs in a crew. Programming a recorder or an access panel is one person at a laptop. Both go on a timecard as eight hours at the site.
The programmer who works from the office
Cameras are configured, door schedules built and AV sequences written before and after the site visit, often at a desk. A card that says the project name does not say whether those hours were on site.
Head-end closets and basements
The main distribution room is usually the worst place in the building for signal and the place the crew spends the last day of the job. A phone app that needs coverage to punch fails exactly there.
Cutovers and after-hours work
Moving an occupied office to a new network, or swapping a door controller on a live building, happens at night or on a weekend. Those hours are premium hours on one job.
Return trips for punch items
A client calls with three cameras out of focus and a door that does not latch. The return visit is real labor on a job that was already billed and closed.
Day types stand in for phases
A job's hours follow the days its crew was on site.
ZeroBadge places a person at a site, not at an activity. It does not know whether someone was pulling cable or terminating a rack. In practice crews tend to do one kind of work per day, so a job's pull phase is the run of dates the crew was on site pulling, and its termination and test phase is the run after.
Keep a short note per job of which dates were which phase, in your project system or on the foreman's board, and pull the job's recorded hours for each run of dates. The record supplies the hours by site and day, and your schedule supplies the phase.
Crews by jobsite
Jobsite | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riverside | 6 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 375.0 |
| Harbor Yard | 10 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 300.8 |
| Northgate | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 328.9 |
Office time versus site time
Only the office hours need to be assigned to a job.
Draw the office as an office-type location. Everything a technician does on a client's site is already placed there. What's left is the office programming time.
On-site hours
Placed by site and day automatically. Programming done at the client's building is on that job without a step.
Office hours
Show as office time on the timesheet, separate from site time. The badge cannot see which project a laptop was open on, so the programmer assigns those hours in your own system.
Work from home
A badge is powered on for the paid shift and off between. Remote programming from home with the badge off is not recorded. Decide your own rule for it and apply it in payroll.
Vendor and supplier stops
A stop at a distributor counter for cable and a parts pickup is a location like any other. It shows as its own line instead of disappearing into the next site.
Payroll wrinkles
Short jobs, mixed work and the weekend cutover.
Many small sites in a week
Each site is a line on the timesheet with its own hours and the drives between, so a week across seven sites reaches payroll already split.
Public and private work together
A school or government building and a private office can appear in one technician's week. Hours carry their site, and rates and certified payroll forms are handled in your payroll process.
Overtime for a cutover
A Saturday overnight shows on the day it happened at that site, so the overtime belongs to that job.
Billing time-and-material service
Hours at a client's building on a given day are the support for a T&M ticket or a service invoice. Export them as CSV, Excel or PDF.
Why phones fail low voltage crews
Ladders, ceiling tile and the MDF.
Both hands on a ladder
Fishing cable above a ceiling and mounting a camera from a ladder leave no hand for a phone. The badge is switched on once and stays out of the way.
No signal where the work ends
Racks sit in basements, electrical rooms and interior closets. The badge stores its reports there and uploads them with their original times when signal returns.
A client's building, not yours
Many customers don't allow a worker's personal phone to join a building network. The badge has its own cellular connection and never uses the site's Wi-Fi password.
Where this page stops
Power, lighting and conduit work belongs on electrical contractors, and building automation on controls contractors.
Many low voltage companies do some of both. The badge and the weekly timesheet are the same for all of it.
Rolling it out
Badge the crews on the shortest jobs first.
- 01
Draw the office and each active site
Type each address and adjust the geofence. Add your distributor counters and the shop or warehouse.Office · first day
- 02
Badge the crew and the programmer
One crew and one programmer for a week shows pull days, termination days and office time on a single job.Office · first week
- 03
Compute one unit rate
Take a finished job's recorded hours and divide by drops, cameras or doors installed. Compare to your estimate.PM · week two
- 04
Approve and send
Timesheets run Saturday to Friday. Clear the exceptions, approve, and approved hours are sent to your payroll provider.Payroll · weekly
Go deeper
Where low voltage contractors usually look next.
- Industry guideSpecialty contractorsSmall crews on many small jobs, with shop time and drives separated, and a page for each specialty.
- Industry guideElectrical contractorsCrew mix by job across TI work, service calls and public projects, with no phones needed.
- Industry guideConstructionGeneral and specialty contractors with crews across several jobsites, the shop and the supply house.
- SolutionMulti-jobsite time trackingSite transfers, transit and supply runs inside one shift record.
- SolutionTime tracking without phonesA company-managed badge instead of an app on a worker's personal phone.
- SolutionLabor cost trackingLoaded rates, job budgets and forecasts from badge-recorded hours.
- SolutionPayroll integrationApproved hours sent to your payroll provider automatically. Nobody re-keys a timecard.
ZeroBadge AI
Ask about sites and day types
ZeroBadge AI answers from your own recorded days in plain English, read-only, and each figure links to its source shifts.
You ask
How many hours did the Meridian Office access control job use at the site versus the office?
Meridian recorded 188 hours at the site and 64 at the office, against 170 and 80 estimated. The split links to the weekly timesheets.
You ask
Which jobs ran into a second pull day last week?
Harbor Clinic and Meridian Office each needed a second pull day, adding 36 and 24 hours. Each day links to its crew records.
You ask
How many crews were at the Westgate cutover on Saturday?
Six technicians were recorded at Westgate on Saturday from 6:05 PM to 1:40 AM. Each person's hours link to their shift.
Answers come only from your company's own records. Every number links to the records behind it. Read-only; admins control access.
How ZeroBadge AI worksQuestions
Questions low voltage contractors ask.
How do low voltage contractors track time across many short jobs?
Can it tell cable pulling from programming?
How are office programming hours handled?
Will it work in an MDF or a basement rack room?
Can I calculate hours per drop or per camera?
Last updated
Get started
See a week of short sites, a rack day and a programming day in one record.
We'll walk through ZeroBadge with your crews, your office programming and the way your estimates are built.
What we will walk through
- 01How site hours and office hours appear on one timesheet
- 02Hours per drop or per camera from recorded site hours
- 03Weekly timesheets, review and the payroll integration