Calpendo Activity Recorder
Calpendo Activity Recorder (CAR) is a solution that tracks the actual usage of any instrument that is connected to a PC.
Calpendo Activity Recorders (CAR) is a Windows native program that runs on Windows XP through to Windows 10. It keeps track of users and the programs they are running (if desired) and sends the information to Calpendo so that Calpendo can know who is using the instrument and for how long. Additionally, Calpendo can use the CAR data to compare the actual usage against the booked usage and report on the difference.
The Benefits of the Calpendo Activity Recorders:
Monitor exactly who is using your instruments and machines, when they are using them and for how long.
Create a comparison report to highlight the differences between booked usage and actual usage.
Set up alerts to remind users if they are using more than their allotted time.
Billing can be set to calculate from the actual time used, the booked time or a combination of the two.
Configuration ensures that all instruments and machines can only be accessed by authorised users.
CAR can be utilised either as part of a full Calpendo, or as a stand alone system.
Now let's get a little more technical:
Regardless of the means of identifying the user for a particular PC or instrument (either Windows login or LDAP/Active Directory), once CAR knows who the user is, that information is then sent to Calpendo to be authorised to use the PC or instrument. If authorisation is denied, then the user will be told.
Further, if CAR is configured to watch particular processes on the PC, then when the user is unauthorised, should any of those configured processes be found to be running, CAR will kill or close them, or warn the user about their use.
Calpendo will also be notified with regular pings about which of the configured processes are running and there's a final notification sent to Calpendo when a user logs out.
Calpendo can work out who was using an instrument connected to a PC, and for how long. If the regular pings stop coming, then it means Calpendo can notice the lack of messages and send a warning that the PC is potentially down. If the PC does die for some reason, then Calpendo will still have all the data from those regular pings so that it knows who was using the instrument and for how long, up to the time when the PC died.