Solar installer time tracking
Solar installer time tracking for rooftops in town and arrays at the end of a county road.
Solar installer time tracking has to cover long drives to rural ground mount sites, rooftop jobs on warehouses in town, and the yard where trucks are loaded. ZeroBadge records each installer's shift from a company-managed badge with its own cellular connection, keeps the drive apart from time at the array, and builds the week by project. It needs typical cellular coverage; reports made in a dead spot upload later with their original times.
- Drive time kept apart from array time
- Stored reports upload after a gap
- 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 solar installers
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
An installer alone at a remote ground mount site can press SOS, and the office sees which project site the alert came from.
Learn more02
Workforce management
See which crews are at the yard, on a rooftop or at a ground mount site, and spot a late start before a long drive eats the day.
Learn more03
Automated timekeeping
The drive to a ground mount site is recorded apart from time at the array, so a crew's paid day shows both without anyone logging the drive by hand.
Learn more04
Workforce productivity
Compare hours on mobilization, piles, racking and commissioning against the plan by date range and see how much of the week went to the drive.
Learn more05
Location analytics
GPS covers open ground and rooftops, and where cellular signal drops the badge stores reports and uploads them when coverage returns.
Learn more06
Field logistics
Plan crews across rooftops and ground mount sites using the record of drive share, so a distant site gets the right crew size and travel week.
Learn more07
AI advisory and analytics
Ask what share of a crew's week was drive time and get an answer from your own badge records, with each number linked to the shifts behind it.
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 solar hours hide
On a ground mount job, the drive can be a quarter of the paid day.
Solar labor is usually estimated per watt or per module. The hours that come back include an hour or more each way in the truck, and the timesheet rarely says so.
Rural sites far from the yard
A community solar site on farmland is often well over an hour from the yard. A crew that loads at 5:30 and is back at 5 has a long paid day and a much shorter one at the array.
Mobilization and the laydown yard
Setting up trailers, receiving pallets of modules and racking, and staging material happen before the first pile goes in. Those hours belong to the project, usually without a line of their own.
Rooftop, carport and ground mount bid differently
A ballasted rooftop, a carport canopy and a driven-pile ground mount carry very different labor per module. When a week mixes them, one weekly total hides which one ran over.
Waiting on inspection and interconnection
A crew finished with racking waits on an inspector or a utility witness test. Whether they are sent to another job or kept on site, the hours need to land somewhere honest.
Travel weeks
A project three states away means a travel day out, a week of long days and a travel day back. The travel days look like nothing on a crew sheet and like real hours on payroll.
An honest note on coverage
The badge needs typical cellular coverage. A short dead spot is fine: reports are stored on the badge and uploaded on reconnect with their original timestamps.
Rural ground mount sites are where this matters. A crew that loses signal on a county road and regains it at the array, or the other way round, ends up with a complete day once the badge reconnects. A site with no cellular signal at all is outside what ZeroBadge is designed for. Check coverage at your remote sites before rolling out there, and start with the sites you already know have service.
A rooftop morning and a ground mount afternoon
The yard, two projects and the drives between, on one shift.
Draw the yard as an office-type location, each rooftop as a jobsite and each ground mount site as a jobsite. A crew that loads at the yard, finishes a carport punch list in town and drives out to an array for the afternoon shows each piece as its own stretch, with the drives as transit.
Outdoors, under open sky, the badge uses GPS, which suits both a roof and a field. On a large site the record answers which project the crew was at. It does not say which block or which row of an array they were working.
Tue Oct 6
- 6:30 AMShop & OfficeClocked in at the shop, loaded fittingsOn site · 25m
- 6:55 AMTransit to RiversideDrive to Riverside Medical PavilionTransit · 40m
- 7:35 AMRiverside Medical PavilionCrew hand-over with Marcus T.On site · 45m
- 8:20 AMTransit to Cascade SupplyDrive to Cascade Supply Co.Transit · 25m
- 8:45 AMCascade Supply Co.Vendor stop: valve pickupVendor · 25m
- 9:10 AMTransit to Harbor YardDrive to Harbor YardTransit · 30m
- 9:40 AMHarbor Yard Distribution CenterOn site with the Harbor Yard crewOn site · 6h 10m
Phases and cost codes
How a solar project breaks down, and what the record adds.
Phases come from dates and your foreman's counts. The badge supplies the hours for those dates.
Mobilization
Trailers, laydown setup and receiving. On a large site, draw a laydown yard that sits well away from the array as its own location, so staging hours stay apart from install hours.
Piles, racking and modules
These usually run in sequence across blocks. Pull the project's recorded hours for the dates each phase ran and divide by the piles driven or modules set that your foreman reports.
Electrical and commissioning
Wire management, combiner boxes, inverters and start-up land on their own dates near the end. Their hours show up at the project on those dates, separate from the mechanical install.
Rooftops and carports
Each building or parking lot is its own jobsite. Short rooftop jobs in a week split by building without any coding.
Service and warranty visits
A return trip to replace a failed optimizer or inverter is a dated stretch at that site, which helps you price service agreements on real hours.
Payroll wrinkles
Drive policy, travel weeks and records for clean energy credits.
Your drive policy
Many contractors pay drive time from the yard and not from home, or pay a different rate for driving. The record separates transit from site time so your policy is applied to real minutes. A drive time policy written down helps.
Travel weeks and per diem
Travel days show as transit. Per diem, hotels and mileage stay in your expense process; ZeroBadge does not calculate them.
Prevailing wage and apprenticeship for tax credits
The IRS says several clean energy credits, including the clean electricity production and investment credits, can be increased when prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements are met, and its FAQ describes payroll records for each worker that reflect hours worked in each classification. ZeroBadge supplies hours by worker, day and project. It does not record classifications or wage rates. These rules and their deadlines have changed in recent years, so check current IRS guidance with your tax adviser. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
Public projects
Arrays on schools, municipal buildings and other public property can carry prevailing wage rules. See public works contractors.
Why phone apps fail a solar crew
Seasonal helpers, long days and a module in both hands.
Helpers who change every season
Big ground mount jobs bring on helpers for a few months. Getting an app onto each new person's phone, and off it again, is a step that gets skipped. A badge is handed out and collected.
A personal phone on a 12-hour day
With the drive, the day is long and a phone is also the worker's map and camera. The badge has its own cellular connection and battery, and never touches the worker's phone or data plan.
Modules take both hands
Carrying and setting a module is a two-hand, often two-person job. The badge is switched on at the yard and left alone until the truck is back.
Rolling it out
Start with one crew and the sites you know have signal.
- 01
Draw the yard and the active projects
Type each address, or draw the boundary on the map for a site with no street address, and adjust the geofence. Add a separate laydown yard where it sits far from the array.Office · first day
- 02
Check coverage at remote sites
Before badging a crew for a rural site, confirm there is typical cellular service on site or close by. Short gaps are filled in on reconnect.Office · first week
- 03
Look at the drive share
After one week, compare transit hours with time at each project. That number belongs in your next bid and your drive policy.Estimator · week two
- 04
Approve and send
Clear the exceptions, approve the week, and approved hours are sent to your payroll provider, with CSV, Excel or PDF export.Payroll · weekly
Go deeper
Where solar installers 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 guideUtilities & EnergyLine crews, substations, generation sites and storm restoration, with hours by site.
- Industry guideCommercial roofing contractorsWeather days and partial days recorded as they happened, tear-off apart from install.
- Industry guidePublic works contractorsPrevailing wage jobs with hours by worker, day and contract, and the site of the work kept apart from the shop.
- Industry guideConstructionGeneral and specialty contractors with crews across several jobsites, the shop and the supply house.
- SolutionDrive time trackingDrives between the yard, suppliers and jobsites recorded as transit, separate from time on site.
- SolutionMulti-jobsite time trackingSite transfers, transit and supply runs inside one shift record.
ZeroBadge AI
Ask ZeroBadge AI about your install crews
Type the question you would ask your office manager. The answer comes from your records, and each number links to them.
You ask
What share of the Sandhill Ranch crew's week was drive time?
Drive time was 19% of Crew B's week: 11h 40m of 61 hours. It is recorded apart from time at the array and listed by day.
You ask
Which projects used the most labor hours this month?
Sandhill Ranch used 1,146 hours and the Dunes Carport 402, with hours listed by date and crew. Each total links to its shifts.
You ask
Which crews uploaded stored reports from remote sites last week?
Two crews uploaded 38 stored reports after leaving coverage at Sandhill Ranch, all with their original timestamps. The days back-filled automatically.
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 solar installers ask.
Does ZeroBadge work at rural solar sites with weak cell signal?
How is the drive to a ground mount site recorded?
Can it help with prevailing wage records for clean energy tax credits?
Can it tell which block or row of an array a crew was on?
Do we need to install anything at the site?
Last updated
Sources
- 1.Prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements · Internal Revenue Service
- 2.Frequently asked questions about the prevailing wage and apprenticeship under the Inflation Reduction Act · Internal Revenue Service
Get started
See a week of drives, rooftops and an array in one record.
We'll walk through ZeroBadge with your yard, your active projects and the coverage at your remote sites.
What we will walk through
- 01Drive time kept apart from time at each project
- 02What happens to reports made in a dead spot
- 03Weekly timesheets, review and the payroll integration