Facial Recognition: New Exciting Feature for Zoho People

Zoho People, one of the most sought-after Zoho products strives to make people management an easy and enjoyable task for all the customers. Zoho has been very receptive to every customer’s feedback, questions, and suggestions. It is not just about receiving feedback. They try to accept the feedback and deliver the best user experience possible. One of the features that have been constantly requested by almost everyone Zoho People user is Facial Recognition. And guess what? We are crazily excited to announce that Facial Recognition is now available as part of Zoho People’s attendance management system. Yes! You told us and we heard you!

If you are new to Zoho People HR, read below to learn more.

What is Zoho People HR?

Zoho People HR is HR management software specially designed for your HR processes and employee management. You can build a happier workforce as Zoho People HR takes care of everything from onboarding and attendance management to time tracking and appraisals, etc. With enhanced collaboration features and the right Zoho implementation partners, Zoho People will be the perfect HR management software provider for your business! And the implementation process is frictionless with the right Zoho implementation partners.

What is a facial recognition system?

Using a facial recognition system becomes one of the safest and easiest methods to mark employee attendance. The process behind this very simple. The facial recognition system captures the image of your employee’s face. This is to validate their identity when your employee attempts to check in or check out via their Zoho People mobile application.

Zoho People’s facial recognition software is very useful as it prevents identity theft, attendance fraud, and other malicious activities. This process will also help you to ensure that your employees work only from their specified work site and not anywhere else. This is very useful especially when employees are working remotely as it creates an efficient way to track where they are working from i.e. location and also where any organization assets like phones, computers, or other items are located from being lost or stolen due to negligence. Also, in the recent pandemic era, it offers the safest avenue for attendance management because it’s contactless.

What are the benefits of using facial recognition?

· Know the interesting benefits of using facial recognition for your business:

· To confirm your employees’ presence in office premises, remote work location, or a project site.

· To identity theft or to detect if someone pretends to be someone who they are not. This will in turn prevent data theft, tampering, and other illicit activities that will cause harm to your company.

· The image captured by Zoho People’s Facial recognition will be automatically face-matched with the already existing employee’s Zoho People profile photo by using AI before a check-in/check-out action is performed. In this way, we reduce the need for manual supervision.

· The employee’s image captured will also be stored. And this stored image can be accessed for manual verification if required by the managers.

How does the facial recognition feature work in Zoho People?

We will give you a clear idea of how this facial recognition feature works in Zoho People. It offers two options to facilitate stress-free attendance management.

Option 1:

The first option is very simple. It captures the image of the employee when they check-in, check out, or even if they go for a break. This image gets saved inside the system. The saved image can be accessed later under the list view in the attendance module as and when needed. This information can be accessed by reporting managers or administrators when required to confirm the identity and location of employees. While using this option, make a note that the image captured will not be automatically matched with the profile photo of your employees. But, if your employees need it, they can check the picture themselves as well.

Option 2:

The second option is a bit different from the first one. IT captures the image of the employee when they request a check-in or check-out. This will be successful only when both the pictures match. You have the liberty to select either one of these options or both.

Another important piece of information is that you get to enable this feature for a specific set of employees as well. For example, let’s consider that 10 of your employees are working from specific remote locations. You can enable the facial recognition feature only for them to make sure that they all work from that specific location. This way you get to know that those 10 employees are working from home. At the same time, other employees who are not working from home don’t have to use facial recognition every time they check-in or check-out which will be unnecessary for them. This feature is also very useful when you have to monitor the attendance of shift employees.

How to enable this option?

It is very easy to enable the facial recognition option. Go to the User/Shift Specific Settings under the attendance module.

So, what do you say?

Attendance management is no easy task. Most of the important business decisions especially payroll processing completely relies on accurate and efficient attendance management. By having Zoho People HR’s facial recognition feature in your attendance management system, you can rest assured that you know your employee’s identity no matter where they work from. This will prevent illegal entries and also keeps your data free from theft and tampering.

Learn how to enable Zoho People’s Facial Recognition feature for your employees.

The steps to enable this feature are very simple and straightforward. Please check them out below:

· Go to Attendance > Settings > General Settings. Now, please scroll down to Permissions. From the listed options, enable the required option and click Submit.

· If you require to only Capture and save the photo but without face-matching, then only enable the first option to Capture and save the photo. This is when an employee checks-in or checks-out using the mobile app.

· If you require to verify the image by face-matching with the profile image which is already stored in Zoho People then, enable the second option to Capture and verify the photo. This is when an employee checks-in or checks-out using the mobile app.

· Or if you wish for both the options i.e. to save and also verify, then enable both options

Once you complete this process, employees will be required to capture and verify photo when they Check-in/Check-out or even if take a break.

· If you require the facial recognition feature enables only for the remote location users or employees with a specific shift group, you can do that by enabling facial recognition within a particular group in the User/Shift Specific Settings.

· To enable this, go to Attendance > Settings > User/Shift Specific Settings > + Add Settings. You can configure settings as you require and enable the facial recognition related features.

Check-in/Check-out with Facial Recognition

· For employees who want check-in, simply open the Zoho People mobile app and click Check-in.

· Now you will be directed to capture a photo (if you are a first-time user, you may be required to authorize camera permission for security reasons),

· Then the captured photo will be face-matched and check-in action will be performed. (Here, the Face matching is performed by comparing the captured image and the existing profile image of the employee in Zoho People)

· You have to repeat the same steps for check-out and also when you take a break via the mobile app.

Now, if another employee tries to check-in as the employee who checked in already, the face-matching AI will detect that it’s not the same person. In this way, it will prevent multiple duplicate check-in.

Accessing Saved Image for Manual Verification

For Reporting Managers, Administrators, or Users who wish to view the captured image to manually verify authenticity, check the steps below:

· Navigate to Attendance > List View.

· Search for or select the employee whose image you would like to view to verify.

· Now select the corresponding attendance record and click on the profile icon.

· This can be used to confirm employee presence in an official environment.

Important Note:

Please make a note that you are required to have Zoho People version 7.6.1 (Android), version 10.1 (iOS), or higher to use and enjoy this feature. If you don’t have this, please visit the Google Play Store or the App Store and update your application immediately. This feature will be available for all the editions out there.