Biometric Attendance Sync Tool (For ERPNext)

Python Scripts to poll your biometric attendance system (BAS) for logs and sync with your ERPNext instance

Table of Contents

• Pre-requisites
• Usage
  • GUI
  • CLI
• Setup Specifications
  • UNIX
  • Windows
• Setting Up Config
• Resources
• License

Pre-requisites

• Python 3.6+

Usage

There's two ways you can use this tool. If accessing the CLI is a bit of a pain for you, the GUI has a simple form to guide you through the process.

Under /releases, for a particular release download the biometric-attendance-sync-tool-[version]-[distribution].zip and unzip it's contents. Now from the location of the unzipped files, you can go ahead with the CLI or GUI method.

GUI

Run the attendance-sync file from the folder; This should setup all it's dependencies automatically and start the GUI.

CLI

The erpnext_sync.py file is the "backbone" of this project. Apart from Windows (which has its own wrapper erpnext_sync_win.py), this file can be directly used to set up the sync tool. Further information provided in the /Wiki.

Setup Specifications (For CLI)

1. Setup dependencies

   cd biometric-attendance-sync-tool
     && python3 -m venv venv
     && source venv/bin/activate
     && pip install -r requirements.txt
   

2. Setup local_config.py

   Make a copy of and rename local_config.py.template file. Learn More

3. Run this script using python3 erpnext_sync.py

UNIX

There's a Wiki for this.

Windows

Installing as a Windows service

1. Install pywin32 using pip install pywin32
2. Got to this repository's Directory
3. Install the windows service using python erpnext_sync_win.py install
4. Done

Update the installed windows service

python erpnext_sync_win.py update

Stop the windows service

net stop ERPNextBiometricPushService

To see the status of the service

mmc Services.msc

Setting up config

• You need to make a copy of local_config.py.template file and rename it to local_config.py
• Please fill in the relevant sections in this file as per the comments in it.
• Below are the delineation of the keys contained in local_config.py:
  • ERPNext connection configs:

    • ERPNEXT_API_KEY: The API Key of the ERPNext User

    • ERPNEXT_API_SECRET: The API Secret of the ERPNext User

      Please refer to this link to learn how to generate API key and secret for a user in ERPNext. The ERPNext User who's API key and secret is used, needs to have at least the following permissions:

      1. Create Permissions for 'Employee Checkin' DocType.
      2. Write Permissions for 'Shift Type' DocType.

    • ERPNEXT_URL: The web address at which you would access your ERPNext. eg:'https://yourcompany.erpnext.com', 'https://erp.yourcompany.com'

  • This script's operational configs:
    • PULL_FREQUENCY: The time in minutes after which a pull for punches from the biometric device and push to ERPNext is attempted again.
    • LOGS_DIRECTORY: The Directory in which the logs related to this script's whereabouts are stored.

      Hint: For most cases you can leave the above two keys unchanged.

    • IMPORT_START_DATE: The date after which the punches are pushed to ERPNext. Expected Format: YYYYMMDD.

      For some cases you would have a lot of old punches in the biometric device. But, you would want to only import punches after certain date. You could set this key appropriately. Also, you can leave this as None if this case does not apply to you.

TODO: fill this section with more info to help Non-Technical Individuals.

To build executable file for GUI

Linux and Windows:

1. Activate virtual environment.

2. Navigate to the repository folder (where gui.py located) by

   cd biometric-attendance-sync-tool
   

3. Run the following commands:

   pip install pyinstaller
   

   python -m PyInstaller --name="attendance-sync" --windowed --onefile gui.py
   

4. The executable file attendance-sync created inside dist/ folder.

Resources

• Article on ERPNext Documentation.
• This Repo's /Wiki.

License

This project is licensed under GNU General Public License v3.0