The Automated World We Live In

Monday, 28 December 2015 , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments


Change in inevitable and for those who refused to change will be left behind. It’s true.

I just came back from my vacation and everything was done self-service at the comfort of our own home and our own pace. Flight tickets were booked and paid online, visa applications were settled and paid online, accommodation bookings were made and paid online, our car for hire were booked and paid online, theme parks ticket were purchased and paid online; okay you get the drift of the ‘doing things online’ bit.

My point is, nowadays people are so used to doing things on their own, online, without hesitation or worry. In fact, it’s becoming uncommon for people to engage with agencies in traveling related matters these days or they might be labeled as ‘old school’ should they continue to do so. Online stores have seeped into our lives, threatening the very existence of brick and mortar shops, and making all-day shopping dream a reality for many women. 

After 8 hours of flight, we arrived at midnight and there was no reception working overtime to wait for us; the cost of labor is too high to wait for a few customers who arrive at wee hours. We were instructed to open a safe and they left us a key to the apartment and a HID tag to enter the building. We did everything on our own without any problems, frustrations or arguments. A big plus point, imho. 

My point is, the world has become automated that we are tuned to be independent. Automation in our life and our workplace are unavoidable. In the office, all departments are using Google Drive to connect shared data with relevant team members. Skype has been one of the most important communication tools to connect us with other colleagues effectively, reducing noise and unnecessary awkwardness and waste of time. Many argued that the automation technology reduces human interactions and development, but believe me, in developing these solutions, user experience, and user interaction have been made priorities. 

When we first started with fingerprint technology, never have we thought that the solution will be available online and on mobile phones. Fast forward 15 years, the solution is on the Internet and mobile, making things easy(er) for everybody. FingerTec allows its data to be viewed online at the comfort of your own space and pace, and managers in charge can think of the effective remedy if any noncompliance and attendance anomalies occur to reduce cost and increase effectiveness of the operation. 

In keeping up with the pace of today's business, FingerTec is offering automation for workforce management with FingerTec biometrics devices and TimeTec TA cloud application. Use our fingerprint and face biometrics product to monitor your workforce and keep an eye on every activity in the paid times without being intrusive with TimeTec TA. 

The world is getting older but somehow, unlike us humans, the world doesn’t seem to slow down. The world doesn’t change in size but somehow; it feels smaller and connected than ever. You can now work from any location in the world and be connected to your office with TimeTec TA. 

We don’t stop there; we carry on with other workforce cloud solutions to serve our clients in the future. 


I know it's cliche but change is truly inevitable and those who resist change will be fixated in time and be left behind. 

Mrs Norana Johar
Group Chief Operating Officer

Change in inevitable and for those who refused to change will be left behind. It’s true. I just came back from my vacation and ever...

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Behind Every Great Hardware.. There’s An Equally Great Software

Friday, 27 November 2015 0 Comments


 
FingerTec has been in the biometrics time attendance and security business since the beginning of the millennium and after a good 15 years, we are still going strong, distributing the brand far and wide from Asia to the Middle East to Africa and around the world. In some countries FingerTec is known as a generic name to represent fingerprint technology. According to a few businessmen in India, they were selling FingerTec and they offered several brands of FingerTec. Some potential clients in Malaysia also wanted to install fingertec when they didn’t mean FingerTec brand specifically. And in some other, FingerTec is a recognized brand name for biometrics products. Either way, it’s good news for us; people want FingerTec. 



However, despite the glitz and glamorous technology of biometrics, the mystery surrounding it’s matching algorithm and the uniqueness of every human being’s fingerprint, the core of it all is the complementary software accompanying each and every device we ship to our clients. Using the car analogy, no matter how posh the car is, at the end of the day it’s the engine’s capability that speaks volumes. This also holds true to a biometrics system.

Our initial software, TCMS V2 has gained trust from FingerTec’s clients worldwide because of its useful functions, accurate attendance data and reports. The software definitely has its own unique flaws, which have been frequently pointed out over the years, but eventually TCMS V2 fulfills most of the requirements without taxing the clients more money. Then, Ingress came into the picture more than a decade later with a heavier focus on door access and security, utilizing the latest language, loaded with the latest features and functions; and still being provided as a complementary solution to all our clients in the security sector of the market. 


While potential customers might shop around looking at the swankiest biometric readers around, we are confident that our humbled complementary software will usually get the job done.

Not only that, we offer more software tools and SDKs to ease the integration and simplify all the works.

Learn more about software solutions from the guide:
http://www.fingertec.com/softwareselectionguide/


  FingerTec has been in the biometrics time attendance and security business since the beginning of the millennium and after a g...

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8 Noteworthy FingerTec Developments in 2015

Tuesday, 20 October 2015 , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments


 
Making the transition to cloud is part of the development this year.

1. FCC Stores FingerTec Data Free on Cloud
Customers’ feedback is gold and through years of customer support, one thing customers are very concerned about is data lost and how to avoid it from happening.    
We heard you loud and clear, and starting July 2015, FingerTec customers have an option to store their data in the cloud for 3 months based on the first in, first out rule whenever they register online at http://www.fingertec.com/ver2/english/e_warranty.htm
FingerTec Cloud Center keeps terminal information, transactions data and user data online as backup on cloud and each customer of FingerTec can access FCC at anytime he pleases. Isn’t that an amazing service?

2. Improved Coreboard for Better Performance
The most important part of a car is its engine, and for FingerTec biometrics products, you have to look at the coreboard. This year we introduced the FMM100, the latest that comes with an 800MHz microprocessor, 128MB RAM and 256MB flash memory. The new specifications come with new firmware with enhanced features, greater data compatibility, and improved synchronization capabilities. Machines with this board will have upgraded graphical user interface and attractive designed icons which afford greater personalization and customization of the display style for the user interface, wallpaper, voice, bell schedules, punch state options and shortcut key mapping area. Who wouldn’t want that?

3. IngressVMS Launched
In May 2015, FingerTec launched its very own Visitor Management System, named IngressVMS. This application is tailored to manage visitors of a premise, fully integrated with Ingress Door Access System for a secured visitor management system. With IngressVMS, an organization can filter its visitors effectively, making sure that no security risks are allowed into a premise. IngressVMS is a fully automated web-based system. Try it for free for 30 days at http://www.fingertec.com/newsletter/June2015/fn-06-step.html

4. Powerful Ingress is Getting Stronger
Ingress is FingerTec’s powerful door access software dedicated for FingerTec’s door access terminals. In 2015, extensive research and developments have been carried out to better Ingress in many aspects including features, functions and user experience. Ingress Mobile also has been reintroduced to contain various functions suitable for door access management. Experience amazing Ingress yourself, request for a trial version: http://www.fingertec.com/trialversion/ingress/


5. TimeTecTA is Gaining Momentum
Cloud is the future trend and what’s a better option than to be ready with the solution now. TimeTecTA, our very own cloud solution for time attendance has been getting interests from the market that requires attendance data to be accessible at anytime. Loaded with awesome time attendance features, compatible with many verification methods plus the crucial scheduling and rosters management, TimeTecTA is not only affordable, it’s online; it’s scalable, accessible, secured and reliable. And the good news is, we are giving 10 user licenses worth USD20 per month per account for LIFE! Sign up for an account now and get your licenses free from us!

6. FingerTec OFIS Y is Now ANSI 378 and ISO-IEC 19794-2 Compliant
Benefits of having these standards include enabling development of integrated, scalable and robust solutions, and ensuring the availability of multiple sources for comparable products and of competitively priced products in the marketplace. For those who have these standard requirements, contact us at info@fingertec.com to order OFIS Y.

7. TimeTec Cloud is Cumulonimbus
Because it’s big, it carries weight, and it’s lucrative! TimeTec cloud contains more than just time attendance at www.timetecta.com. In the pipeline, we are at the last stage of TimeTec Patrol, guard patrolling cloud solution, and we will offer TimeTec Leave, TimeTec Hire, TimeTec VMS, i-Neighbour and EpiCamera to complete the cloud workforce management under one roof. Get with the program and get the rainfall when the market is ready to take on cloud! In the meantime, sign-up to your cloud solution of choice at www.timeteccloud.com and you’ll be the first to know when they are ready!

8. FingerTec’s Packaging Gets Eco-Friendlier
We are using Kraft 100% recycled packaging boxes for all our hardware and accessories, which reduces packaging materials by up to half, a big win for us in our book. The new look and design of our Kraft packaging boxes is our way of not only making things easier for our customers but also incorporates eco-friendly measures, a clean and attractive packaging design that not only looks good but goes hand in hand with our Going Green initiative, balancing the packaging needs of our consumers with the best environmental practices. Love the Earth, our home.

We are an organization that always moves forward with the we-can-do-it attitude, and we always find the how-to-do-it ways. We will keep on churning new developments and will find ways to assist and satisfy the market the best we can. Look forward to our latest news in FingerTec newsletter!


More news and more developments are on the way!

  Making the transition to cloud is part of the development this year. 1. FCC Stores FingerTec Data Free on Clou...

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IngressVMS Video Guide for a Boost in Security

Wednesday, 23 September 2015 , , , , , 0 Comments

The IngressVMS is a solution that is integrated with the Ingress access control software and specializes in visitor management. Fully automated and web-based, IngressVMS is a welcomed addition to the security system of any company as it provides the necessary features in managing and monitoring visits to the office or premise. 

 
With a VMS at their disposal, companies can now store and view information such as visitor profiles, visitor current status, black listed visitors, and total number of visitors. The online visitor registration option can speed up processes and help security personnel to filter out potential hostile visitors while administering access rights to those who are deemed benevolent.
 
The video guide in the link below will provide the necessary information and the steps on how to fully utilize IngressVMS. From the installation process to vehicle registration to access group configuration, these nine videos can guide you in accessing all the features available and how you can increase the security and safety of your company. Click here to watch the IngressVMS Video Guide.

The IngressVMS is a solution that is integrated with the Ingress access control software and specializes in visitor management. Fully autom...

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4 REASONS TO COMMIT TO CLOUD SYSTEM

Thursday, 3 September 2015 , , , , , , 0 Comments

The World is Changing Rapidly and Cloud Technology is Embracing the Future

There are many advantages to cloud technology that businesses aren’t capitalizing on just by them merely focusing on the price tag of the service.  With cloud service,  the price is usually offered per person per monthly basis as compared to the other conventional systems that lump sum all the cost and call it a day. Cloud on the other hand, offers cyclical payments, which intimidates a lot of buyers to commit to a period of time.

Cloud technology's environmentally safe system makes the world a better place; 
think about it.  
However, there is more to cloud technology and what is has to offer for the modern business than meets the eye. The value that cloud services provide is more than the sum of its cost. This article explains on 4 main reasons why cloud should be your clear choice.

ACCESSIBILITY – Time Waits For No Man
In the current world that’s constantly connected, having no access to your business’s data is not an ideal situation. Cloud technology enables the personnel-in-charge to be in charge whenever required without being imposed with accessibility limitations. TimeTec (www.timeteccloud.com) for example, offers a cloud-based solution that collects data, stores it immediately at the cloud server and can be accessed at anytime by authorized individuals without any restrictions of time zones and/or hardware isolation. 

TRANSPARENCY – Nothing Is Lost In Translation
When accurate data is available online and users are given customized access rights to the data; it creates transparency amongst the organization in an effective way that will only benefit the business. Nobody who is given the rights to access can claim to not having any information or be ignorant about it, and having the correct information during the decision making time is a big plus for any organization. TimeTec lets the users see their own data and request for corrections whenever needed while the managers can oversee their teams’ performance online and offer remedial actions to avoid further complications.

SCALABILITY – Use Only What You Need
Hardware dependency is counting its days when the cloud technology is introduced because initially, the investment must match your company’s growth and then it should be able to justify when the company continues to grow or downscale. When the investment is huge, having to downscale would mean that the company could suffer losses and when the company grows, more investments are required to sustain a bigger system. The cloud technology releases the users from all those commitments and when scalability is key, you can downsize and grow as often and as comfortable as you like without having to think about the “investment risk”. Tailor your budget to your company’s size to achieve efficacy.

SECURITY – Confidence is Key to Productivity
While security is the major concern by subscribers because by putting the data on cloud, the threat is assumed to be greater due to higher exposure to various elements. Data in cloud is totally secured because the provider is accountable when there is a case of data breach or data collapse, etc. Hence, cloud service provider is securing every corner to ensure the security of the data stored in the server. However, it’s important to select a trusted name of cloud provider to ensure security.

In the era where businesses are racing against time and fluidity of information is crucial, the implementation of cloud technology in an organization is a wise and clear choice.

Subscribe to TimeTec and experience cloud technology in managing your staff’s attendance, scheduling and roster assignment. Get 10 user licenses free for life when your company register an account with TimeTec. Go to www.timeteccloud.com


The World is Changing Rapidly and Cloud Technology is Embracing the Future There are many advantages to cloud technology that businesse...

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Declaration of Future Commitment

Monday, 27 July 2015 1 Comments

A biometric device is a hardware terminal designed as an instrument to solve clocking problems, and its complementary software is a program designed as a tool to solve operational problems.  In this biometrics clocking system, clocking plays a lesser role in the entire operating system. Software is indeed pivotal in almost every business system. While FingerTec seems like a hardware’s brand name; we have been preparing ourselves and dispensing more resources in software development for our brighter future. 

This bestseller TA100C has been selling like hotcakes worldwide yet this is not the future as we see it. 

When the iPhone debuted in 2007, and later the iPad in 2010, they made a huge paradigm shift in the IT world that was once dominated by personal computers.  The computing power that normally stayed intact on a clunky desktop had been shifted into the hands and pockets, which came with them the term ‘mobility’.  Obviously, size did matter; an action used to transfer software from a CD to a computer simply couldn’t be performed for a tablet and smartphone anymore. 

Laptop was the coolest in town before smartphone said hello. 
However, that was only a bump in the road, since almost all devices are network connected nowadays; you just need to download any software directly from the Internet. The aggressive ones came with another great idea, “Why do we need to download software to a device? Isn’t it easier to log in to a website and use it there?” Hence, the Web and Cloud program were created. And, another smart guy would reply, “Since everyone is carrying a smartphone and staying connected 24 hours now, why don’t we create some specific Apps with different function roles for employees to collaborate at all times?”

And we, as one of the market leaders in time & attendance industry and an innovator ourselves, started to think that since everyone carries a handset, do we really need a special device to do time clocking? This is just like how digital camera became quite irrelevant when the smartphones can take high-quality picture. Instead of letting the newcomers phasing out your products, you may need to take the initiative to kill your own products with newer inventions.   

Cloud is the way forward
We predict that the industry would inevitably be drifting slowly away from the clocking terminals and, the initial software that runs on Windows Operating System that were usually used by a few administrators, seemed inadequate when the business owners want to tap on the computing power that is within the employees’ grasp.  The software has to reinvent itself and become more accessible among staff, more collaborative among peers, more communicative among superiors and subordinates; and to notify irregularities in real time.

Then, abruptly, the software-as-a-tool’s era is over and software pulsates like a central nervous system, transmitting signals into your business operation.

When the trend is shielded away from a specific hardware but offered other probable methods for clocking, and demanding all of the abovementioned features to be available in the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) era, another great time of IT for corporations that unavoidably based on cloud computing and business model based on SaaS (Software as a Service) is declared arriving. 

This trend supported by Computerworld's 2015 Forecast predicts that 42% of IT decision makers are planning to increase spending on cloud computing in 2015, with the greatest growth in enterprises with over 1,000 employees (52%). By 2018, 59% of the total cloud workloads will be Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) workloads, up from 41% in 2013.

We have another chart to strengthen the upward trend for the adoption of Cloud Services. As normal software application users, you just deal with SaaS providers, and can ignore Platform as a Service (PaaS) and IaaS (Infrastructure as Service) where SaaS providers will deal with them to park their cloud applications onto it.  

At FingerTec, we noticed the trend and set our transformation plan since we adopted Salesforce.com as our Cloud CRM system in 2008. Today, we have launched TimeTec, cloud-based time and attendance system (www.timeteccloud.com), and EpiCamera, cloud-based surveillance system (www.epicamera.com), and we continue to add features and refine the systems to meet market expectations.


In the pipeline, we have TimeTec Cloud Visitor Management System, TimeTec Cloud Patrol System and TimeTec Cloud Recruitment System, and TimeTec Cloud Leave Management System. The former three Cloud Services will be introduced in early next year, and the fourth Cloud Application is expected to commence in the third quarter of next year.

Our determination can even be observed by the change of the company’s name from FingerTec to TimeTec to mark our commitment in this transformation. The transformation will not only happen on the product level but our business approach as well in the foreseeable short future.   

Teh Hon Seng
CEO, TimeTec Computing


A biometric device is a hardware terminal designed as an instrument to solve clocking problems, and its complementary software is a program...

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KEYS ARE RETRO, BIOMETRICS IS THE WAY TO GO

Friday, 24 July 2015 , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

10 REASONS YOU SHOULD RETHINK REGULAR KEYS AND SHIFT TO BIOMETRICS ACCESS CONTROL WITH FINGERTEC R3

Biometrics door access solution has been around for more than a decade but because biometrics sounds scientific as compared to the one-syllable "key" term, still many people are intimidated by its advancement when, in fact, biometric provides a more secure and user-friendly solution than the conventional push-and-turn key offers.

Here are 10 reasons why biometric system trumps key for access control.

1. What can you do with your keys except to push it into a keyhole to turn the door open?  Unless it’s a key to your heart, almost every key can only just open one door. Well, there’s no hole to turn in FingerTec R3 but it offers not only 1 but 3 methods to open your doors. With R3, you can use fingerprint, card and PIN plus the combinations of these methods for those who prefer things a bit knotty.

2. If you think using a key is fast and easy, let’s see how fast a fingerprint can open a door.


3. Keys cannot stop people from going in and out at certain hours (if it could, teenagers wouldn’t dare jump curfew). FingerTec R3 biometrics can prevent people from accessing a certain area at a certain time through its time zone features. So, if your office is off limit from 8 pm onwards, set your R3 to match. 

4. Key system requires you to install a separate alarm system to complete your security system, but FingerTec R3 comes with the built-in alarm to be used during an emergency. This feature could potentially save you money, time and that headache to search for a good alarm system. 

5. Key system provides authorized people with appropriate keys to access your premises, but you can’t tell who open which door at what time. FingerTec R3 can provide you with an audit trail, providing you with a reliable door access data at all times, transferable via IP, USB and Serial connectivity.

6. For those who wish to have fingerprint system for in and out readers,  FingerTec R3 can be paired with R2c at an affordable price and not double the price. 

7. Biometric system like R3 is tokenless (unless you choose to use RFID system along with the fingerprint) You can walk into the office without having to keep any keys because the key is you. No buddy punching is possible because the system only recognizes your body parts.



8. Modern access control like FingerTec R3 comes with fancy multimedia features, where you can broadcast short messages display, feature your company’s slide shows on the R3 when the system is idle. Keys are just keys.

9. When you purchase FingerTec R3, it comes bundled with powerful Ingress software which you can go as set as simple or as complex as your requirements. Keys are just keys.

10. Last but not least, FingerTec R3 has a great design for your office space and it is built with robust material, totally worth your investment. 



Learn more: http://www.fingertec.com/images/brochure/R3-E.pdf
Enquire within: info@fingertec.com


10 REASONS YOU SHOULD RETHINK REGULAR KEYS AND SHIFT TO BIOMETRICS ACCESS CONTROL WITH FINGERTEC R3 Biometrics door access solution has...

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