Preventing Timecard Manipulation with Hardware Battery Time since Power Cycle

[Wesley]

In the way AppSheet can see a unique device identifier can it receive the device hardware battery time since power cycle? I don’t understand the specifics but the key is the battery time since power cycle being un-changeable in a way system time isn’t, and comparing battery run time before/after successful syncs and when the record is saved.

I don’t need this but it seems it may help - key would be the employee in field with no service couldn’t let their phone die between syncs.

Prevent timestamp manipulation? Questions

Is there a way to ensure that the timestamp is the actual time and not the device’s time? We just discovered someone manipulating their timecard by manually setting the device time and then punching in to show they were on time. Sneaky… I can go into the audit logs which timestamps the actual time of the operation to verify but this would get pretty cumbersome when trying to manage 35+ timecards. The device’s belong to the employees and we install the app on their phone. Thank you.

[Aurelien]

Hi @Wesley

I don’t get the relation between timeStamp and phone remaining battery.

About that:

Wesley:

key would be the employee in field with no service couldn’t let their phone die between syncs.

I agree, but it is responsibility of users to get enough battery.

I assume you are thinking about a very specific case. Would that help you ?

help.appsheet.com

Offline & Sync: The Essentials

Learn how to control your app's offline behavior.

Thank to this option, with the flight mode the battery may be saved.

[Wesley]

@Aurelien
I apologize for my poor communication.

The specific case inspiring the idea was a post regarding the prevention of time manipulation for working hours. Employees stole wages saying they arrived earlier than true by changing the time in their phone before clocking in on the app.

There are many great ways to handle this, and this method may improve security further. (OSHA?)

This resource explained it best. (Followed by pics of same)

stackoverflow.com

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This gives a little context of the challenges

stackoverflow.com

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How to prevent usage of expired license through system clock tampering?

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asked by Lalchand on 08:15AM - 13 Jun 11 UTC

When I find the post on your forum I will update

Thank you

[Aurelien]

Hi @Wesley

Got it. You can’t do so.
Please have a look here:

We need independent time Feature Requests

You could get the server time with a simple workflow-triggered action to populate a column with NOW(), which would provide the server time. All true. AppSheet is designed to both work offline and with delayed sync. There’s no way around that short of a fundamental change to AppSheet. That requires an Internet connection, which can’t be guaranteed. It requires the connection to the internet-based time source can be trusted, which can’t be guaranteed. Ultimately, consumer-grade mobile device…