Neurotechnology is a company based in Lithuania, specialized in software development products (SDK’s) for biometric fingerprint, face, iris and palm print recognition for system integrators and hardware manufacturers. At the time of writing they offer only one end-user product, a fingerprint attendance software NCheck Finger Attendance which uses fingerprint recognition.
NCheck, biometric time attendance (check-in)
NCheck can be installed on a dedicated computer for biometric time attendance. Enrolled users only have to provide one fingerprint upon arrival and departure. NCheck performs biometric identification and authentication so next to providing a fingerprint no other user interaction is needed, check-in and check-out takes not longer than one second.
NCheck targets small to medium sized companies, and offers on a small scale the advantages of biometric time attendance:
- No more lost or forgotten tokens
- Fraudulent use of the time attendance system, for example colleagues checking in for each other, becomes impossible
NCheck requires a standard computer, hardware minimal requirements should be no problem to exceed, and a compatible fingerprint reader. NCheck supports most commonly used fingerprint readers, including the Upek Eikon 404 (only on 32-bit) and the Futronic FS88 404. For this review we tested the one month trial version of NCheck version 1.1.11.3 installed on MS Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) with a Futronic FS88 fingerprint reader.
| NCheck Finger Attendance | |
|---|---|
| Current version | 1.1.11.3 |
| Price / license | 95.00 EUR |
| Hardware Requirements | Pentium 1.6 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 2 GB hard drive space, compatible fingerprint reader (*) |
| Supported OS | MS Windows XP, MS Windows Vista, MS Windows 7 |
(*) compatible fingerprint readers are listed here, be aware that not all fingerprint readers are supported on each OS. For example the Upek Eikon is only supported on 32-bit.
Installation
Installation of NCheck is straightforward: download the 30-days trial version from Neurotechnology’s website and run the installer. Make sure a compatible fingerprint reader is connected and its drivers are installed, the NCheck package includes a number of fingerprint reader drivers in case you don’t have these available.
When first using NCheck you have to create a new database file, set up an administrator password and select the fingerprint reader(s) you want to use. Setting up the software is easy, and if you encounter difficulties additional instructions are provided in the user manual which is available in the installation directory.
Overview of functionalities
Creating a new user in NCheck.
Register new employees
To register a new employee in NCheck, the administrator has to enter basic information such as first name, last name, login name, etc. Then the employee has to swipe one or more fingerprints which are assigned to the user account. Optionally a photograph of the employee can be add, and an email address can be entered to send notifications. Enrollment of a new employee takes only a few minutes.
Check-in / check-out
To check-in the employee simply has to fingerprint, no other interaction is needed. After check-in NCheck briefly shows a welcome message while indicating the employee’s first and last name, as well as information on the number of hours worked today and this week.
Checking out is similar, after fingerprinting the application shows a goodbye message as well as the number of hours worked.
Checking out.
To avoid intentional or unintentional tampering with the system by employees it is recommended to run the biometric software in full-screen or kiosk mode. As such the administrator password is needed to take any action other than checking in or out.
Checking in and out only takes a second, this causes no additional overhead when compared to non-biometric time attendance systems.
Reporting
Using the administrator account it is possible to print a simple report from NCheck. Otherwise it is possible to export attendance data, hours worked per employee per day, to a file in Excel or comma separated (csv) format.
Conclusions
NCheck is targeted at small and medium sized companies which require only one check-in / check-out station. The software is less suitable for bigger companies because there is no client-server model, it is not possible to use the same database from different clients.
Because the software is so easy to use and the price is very reasonable this product is recommended for companies or branches with a limited number of employees who wish to implement biometric time attendance.