A geofence is a circle on the map: a centre point and a radius. When a worker clocks in, SVDY compares the coordinates shown on their screen against the fence that applies to them and accepts the punch if it falls inside.
Draw a fence
In the admin console, open the Geofence page for the level you want to configure — Department, Group, or Worker — and create a fence there.
- Find the place. Type the address in the search box and pick the match. The map moves to it and the coordinates fill in.
- Put the pin where your team actually stands. Drag the pin, or click the map. Address search usually lands on the middle of a building or a postal centroid, which is not always the entrance people walk through. When you move the pin, the address is looked up again to match.
- Adjust the coordinates directly if you need to. Latitude and longitude are editable, which is the reliable option for a site with no clean street address — a yard, a construction site, a rural location.
- Set the radius. The default is 200 metres, and you can set anything from 50 to 2000 metres.
- Name it for the person who will read it later. "Riverside warehouse — loading bay" beats "Site 2".
- Save, then test it in the real world. Stand where your team stands and check that the app shows you inside the zone.
Pick a radius you will not regret
The radius is a trade-off, and both directions have a cost.
- Too tight and honest people get turned away — a phone indoors, near tall buildings, or in a basement corridor reports a position that wanders by tens of metres.
- Too loose and punches from the car park, the street, or the café next door are accepted.
For a single building, somewhere around 150–250 metres usually works. A yard, campus, or spread-out site needs more. If you are unsure, start at the default and widen it only when a real rejection tells you to.
SVDY already allows a small margin based on the accuracy your phone reports with each reading, so an honest punch taken at the edge of the zone is not rejected for being a few metres out. You do not need to add slack for that yourself.
Which fence applies: the rule that matters
You can set fences at four levels. SVDY checks them in this order and uses the first level that has at least one enabled fence:
- Fences set on the worker
- Fences from any group the worker belongs to, taken together
- Fences on the worker's primary department
- Organization-wide fences
Two consequences are worth reading twice.
Later levels are ignored completely. This is not a merge. If a worker has one fence of their own, their group, department, and organization-wide fences do not apply at all.
Within the winning level, fences are alternatives. If the level that wins holds three fences, a punch inside any one of them is accepted. That is how you cover a team that legitimately works across several sites: give them several fences on the same level.
A worker-level fence must list every place that person may clock in. Because it replaces everything below it, adding a single fence to let someone punch from a client site will stop them clocking in at the office. Add the office as a second worker-level fence at the same time.
If no level has a fence, there is no location to check and punches are accepted wherever they are taken. An empty configuration is not a strict configuration.
Troubleshooting
A worker is refused while standing at the door. Widen the radius, or move the pin closer to the entrance. Indoor positions drift, and a 50-metre circle around a building centre often does not reach the doorway.
One person can no longer clock in at the office. Check for a fence set on that worker. It replaces the department and group fences, so it must include the office too.
A change to a group's fence had no effect for one member. That worker has a fence of their own, which wins. Remove it, or update it.
Address search finds the right place but the pin looks wrong. Expected — search returns a centroid. Drag the pin to the entrance and save.
Punches are being accepted from far away. Confirm which level is actually winning for that worker, and check the fence there is the one you think it is.