1. Before muster: the device is prepared
Face attendance starts before any worker arrives. Each supervisor's tablet is configured with the sections, work codes, and rules for their lines. Worker lists and face templates are refreshed on the device, and the day's plucking tasks arrive from the office. When a supervisor walks to the line, the tablet already knows who it should expect.
2. At muster: the verification flow
Each verification follows the same short sequence:
- The worker looks at the camera. No fingers, no tokens, no contact with the device.
- Face quality and liveness checks run first. The app checks that a live person is in front of the camera, not a photo or a screen, and that the face is captured well enough to match.
- The match happens on the device. The app compares the capture against templates stored on the tablet. No internet is needed.
- A confirmed match saves the record. Worker, section, work code, and time are written together. If the estate uses punch work, the record also carries the punch type.
Once one worker is done, the next steps up. The line keeps moving because nothing in the flow depends on a network.
3. When verification does not go through
Face attendance is only trustworthy if it is honest about failure. Three situations come up in real gardens, and each has a documented path:
- Ambiguous match. If two workers are close matches or the capture is poor, the app rejects the result instead of picking the closest guess. The supervisor retries.
- Changed appearance. A worker with a new beard, spectacles, or illness can be re-enrolled on the device with fresh photos. Re-enrollment is a normal maintenance task, not an emergency.
- Camera or device problem. The supervisor records manual attendance with a remark. The record is marked manual, so the office can review it with everything else.
The fallback keeps the line moving, and the record always shows which path it took. That is what helps stop proxy attendance: the app never silently accepts an uncertain face.
4. After muster: what the record holds
Every attendance record carries its context, not just a mark:
- Worker identity, verified by face or recorded as manual with a remark.
- Section, work code, and session the record belongs to.
- Time of capture, and punch details for repeated time-in or time-out work.
- Device and user who captured it, so the office can trace any record to its source.
5. In the office: review and finalize
When tablets connect to the office network, records upload. The office opens the attendance views to check the day: worker-wise summaries, raw records, sessions, and sync status. Staff can see which records are accepted, which failed, and which were manual, then make permitted corrections and finalize the day for the estate workflow.
That final review is the difference between a register and a system. The field captures what happened; the office confirms it before payroll sees it.