Python - Kronos Workforce Management Clock In/Out

I have been working on the Web Team of the BYU Marriott School for almost a year now. Overall it has been a very enjoyable experience, except for one thing: Kronos. Kronos is an online time management software solution that we must use to keep track of the hours that we work - you clock in when you come in, and you clock out when you leave. Pretty simple problem with a simple solution, but they have complicated this process by providing many unnecessary levels of navigation with unintuitive and inconvenient controls.

If you have two campus jobs (which I do) then it makes matters worse as the means of clocking in requires additional steps. Even though I only ever clock into one job through this website, there is no way for me to tell the system I want to use this job as my default job. It has hardwired itself to always use this other job as the default - there is no way to change that. I must explicitly tell it every time I clock in that I am clocking if for "Job 2". Also, there is also no way to quickly and easily check if you are clocked in (sometimes I forget if I clocked in). I have to go through 3 levels of navigation to find my time card and check if there is a clock-in time without a clock-out time next to it. The system won't even tell me - I have to determine my status by inspecting my time card personally.

There are many other shortcomings, but these are my biggest complaints. (I am not just a complainer, I already implemented my own time-tracker/management system that handles all of these problems in PHP that unfortunately I can't use at work for payroll purposes.)

So, I wrote a script in Python that will clock in and out of Kronos for me. It isn't too sophisticated, but it works well for my purposes. The script actually does not check to see if you are logged in or out, but based on the name of the file it will perform either the clock in or clock out actions. For example - if the name of the file is "Kronos Login.py" then it will clock you in, giving Kronos the correct job code (you hard-code that in, so I made my clock in job code "Job 2" since that is the only one I ever use). After it has done this, the script will change the name of the file it is in to "Kronos Logout.py". The next time it is run, is sees that it is named "Kronos Logout.py" and will clock out, then change it's name back to "Kronos Login.py". Like I said - not sophisticated, but it solves my problems: No clumsy navigation, and I can just check my Desktop for the script to see my clocked in/out status. I have been using it for a few days now without any problems.

Here is the source (or download it directly):

import sys, os
import urllib2, urllib

# Set up useful variables
file_name = os.path.basename(sys.argv[0])
full_path = os.path.abspath(file_name)
current_directory = os.getcwd() + '\\'

username = 'YOUR USERNAME'
password = 

# URLS
kronos_home_page = 'https://kronprod.byu.edu/wfc/applications/suitenav/navigation.do?ESS=true'
kronos_login = 'https://kronprod.byu.edu/wfc/portal'
kronos_timestamp = 'https://kronprod.byu.edu/wfc/applications/wtk/html/ess/timestamp-record.jsp'

# If you have more than one job, set the number of the job you want to clock into here
# Example: '2' or '1' ('1' Kronos will assume you want job 1 by default, so you don't need to set that one)
# Leave blank if you only have one job. 
job_number = '2'

# Create our opener
opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor())
urllib2.install_opener(opener)

login_credentials = urllib.urlencode({
    'password': password,
    'username': username
    })

# Open home page to get cookies 
opener.open(kronos_home_page)

# Login
opener.open(kronos_login, login_credentials)

#Clock in or clock out
if ('Logout' in file_name):
    transfer = '' # Logging out - transfer parameter must be blank
else:
    if job_number != '':
        transfer = '////Job ' + job_number + '/'
    else:
        transfer = ''
       
time_stamp_parameters = urllib.urlencode({
    'transfer' : transfer
    })
    
opener.open(kronos_timestamp, time_stamp_parameters)

if ('Login' in file_name):
    os.rename(full_path, current_directory + 'Kronos Logout.py')    
else:
    os.rename(full_path, current_directory + 'Kronos Login.py')    

I hope to later turn this into a Windows sidebar gadget - if I am successful, I will post that code as well.