Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2019 February 26

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February 26

Software to use with fingerprint time clock

My company has a time clock, whose model is Ronald Jack 9900C. It is from Malaysia I believe, but I cannot seem to find any official information and companion software. The seller also provide us with a management software written by some small local company, which is full of bugs and sh*t, and caused a lot of headaches to me recently. The time clock can be used with several software on the market (you can't believe how low skill the programmers in my country are and how terrible their software is), so I guest it uses some standard APIs to communicate and allow management software to download data. I am looking for a replacement, preferably free & open source. The main usage is simple: download the data from the clock at the end of the month to see if employees are late, and how many days they attend so that their salary can be calculated. Thanks for any suggestions! -- Livy (talk) 09:33, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

The manufacturer seems to be based in Vietnam and they offer this hotline 24/7 on which you could try to contact them: 0982.884.779 - 0913.884.779 | 55/11 Đường Số 28, Phường 6, Q.Gò Vấp, TP.HCM. DroneB (talk) 16:24, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

No, it is the website of a retailer store. They have the habit of trying to mimic the official website using a different top level domain (such as .vn / .net / .info) to fool users. There is no useful information on it. This time clock is imported from Malaysia according to several retailers. It does not come with any Vietnamese text either. Strangely, the manufacturer leaves no trace on the Internet. -- Livy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Livy (talk • contribs) 18:51, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

While there are a bunch of Malaysian [1] and other results [2] for the Ronald Jack name in relation to time recording machines, they are all much simpler devices. Meanwhile every single result with that model number seems to be Vietnamese. This makes me think this particular product is a badged with that name when intended for the Vietnamese market, by one of more parties, whether with a name they've used before (hence the 3300N) or more likely some other random name associated with time recording machines.

Anyway looking for 'malaysia biometric time clock' finds this website [3] with a bunch of different devices. You provided no images (links or actual photos of your device), and most images of the device with that model number look to be 3D renders or weird stylised photos, but I found this video [4] which shows a device with a 9900c badge shown. Assuming your device looks the same, this [5] on that other website also looks the same. The software listed for that is "ZKTime 5.0 (Free), ZKTime.Net". A search for ZKTime.net finds this website [6] (which looks to be a big Chinese manufacturer) and from there this product [7] which looks the same. A search for iClock360 likewise and [8] also these websites [9].

Whether they are the actual manufacturer or the only manufacturer of this product, I have no idea. I also found [10] which looks the same, but I think [11] is a different company.

Back to zkteco, both .me and .com websites have a download section (no idea about eu since the download section lacks categories and I didn't look through all pages) with some software and for one of them an SDK, whether either have anything related to this product, I have no idea. [12] [13] [14]. Possibly the software actually provided by zkteco will be better, if not I suspect actually knowing the likely common badge may help assuming your device is compatible. For example, a quick search found [15] [16] [17] [18] [19], although whether any of these are useful and compatible, I have no idea. (There are also a bunch of other zkteco websites for different countries.)

P.S. I'm assuming "Ronal Jack" is a typo, since a search for that just finds stuff with the Ronald Jack name even if the website says Ronal Jack. Also have you tried since the device seems to have multiple ways of connecting, it may be worth looking into the different ways e.g. [20].

Nil Einne (talk) 20:17, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes it was a typo. ZKTeko is indeed a big Chinese manufacturer. My company uses one of their metal detectors. Thanks to your suggestions, I suspect "Ronald Jack" is just a rebrand from other existing products. I've tried some of ZKTeko software, but looks like they are not what I am looking for. The SDK may be of some helps with supports for all major programming languages, however I am not really interested in spending months writing code just to make it work. If the API they use is not stardard of some sort, then it is impossible to find compatible software, except for those written for the time clock in the first place. -- Livy (talk) 04:04, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Finally got it. There is no generic software to use with these time clocks. Each manufacturer releases their own SDK, and one software usually supports a manufacturer or 2. I guess I am out of luck. -- Livy (talk) 03:43, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

How many of those clocks do you have? Time clocks with documented API's aren't that expensive (there are a bunch on staples.com). The protocols aren't terribly complicated either. You might have some luck reverse engineering your clock's protocol, though if it's just for one-off use it's probably not worth the trouble. You could also try a reverse image search and see if anyone is selling a rebadged version of that clock (I didn't see obviously similar ones on Staples, but didn't look hard) that might have better docs. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 09:40, 28 February 2019 (UTC)