FMSEngine FAQs

Terms to Know

FMS Engine (FMSE): This is the overall system encompassing Evvie and the Participant Dashboard.

FMS One: FMS One is the login portal Participant Employers and their Employees will use to log in to FMSE. New users will receive a welcome email from noreply@annkissam.com titled “Welcome to Fello” through which they will create their user account and password in FMS One.

Evvie Portal: Both Employees and Participant Employers approve and adjust Employees’ time here. It is a requirement that both parties approve shifts. The Evvie Portal is accessed in a regular web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.). Both Participant Employers and Employees can manually add and cancel shifts through the Evvie Portal as well.

Evvie App: This is the mobile device app used by Employees to clock in and out of a shift from a smartphone or tablet. Only Employees will use the Evvie App.

Participant Dashboard: This is the dashboard where a Participant Employer can see their budget and approved timesheets in real time.

FMSE General

What is the process for Participant Employers and Employees to begin accessing FMS Engine?

Participant Employers and Employees will each receive an email from the system with their login credentials and instructions. Refer to training materials on the Self-Directed Services website for details.

What are my user credentials to log into FMSE?

Both Participant Employers and Employees will log in with their own unique email. A user will set their own password when they receive their FMSE One welcome email, titled “Welcome to Fello”, from noreply@annkissam.com. Please refer to the quickstart guide for additional details. Once a Participant Employer has activated their account, they will also receive welcome emails for the Evvie Portal and Participant Dashboard. Once an Employee has activated their account, they will also receive welcome emails for the Evvie Portal and Evvie App.

Can Employees submit paper timesheets?

Use of the Evvie electronic timekeeping system is required.

A Participant Employer is not capable of acting to administer the Participant Employer’s duties. I am an Employee. Can I act on their behalf, i.e., approve time?

If the Participant Employer has an authorized representative able to make decisions on their behalf, that person can support the Participant Employer. The person supporting the Participant Employer must use the Participant Employer’s account. Please note an Employee must have a different unique email address for their own FMSE account.

I am an Employee without a computer or a smartphone. Do I have to submit and approve my time using the Evvie App and Portal, respectively?

The Evvie App and Portal are required for the submission and approval of time.

My Family of Staff Employee works for more than 40 hours and works under two different service codes. How does payroll determine which service hours are paid?

Once 40 hours are reached (Sunday through Saturday), the remaining hours submitted for the week will not be paid. Whichever hours are logged before the 40-hour limit are the ones that will be processed for payment.

What if an Employee has a religious exemption from clocking in electronically at certain times?

The Participant Employer must submit paperwork from their religious institution confirming the requirement for the exemption. In the Evvie Portal, the Employee or Participant Employer will enter the shift manually, noting the religious exemption in the Notes section.

How does an Employee enter PTO and Holidays?

If a Participant’s budget sheet includes Paid Time Off (PTO) or Holiday time, service codes can be added for an employee when they are onboarded by including the code(s) on the Applicant Data & Payroll Form. If the request is being made for an existing employee, an Employee Change Form can be submitted.

Participants should specify on the Applicant Data & Payroll Form or Change Form whether the Holiday time is “Holiday Time Worked” or “Holiday Time Off.” Holiday rates may not exceed the DDA’s reasonable and customary rates. If an Employee is to be paid their regular rate of pay for working on a holiday, they will use their regular service code.

Holiday Time Off and PTO time is not required to be EVV-compliant. Holiday Time Worked must be logged using the Evvie App.

If a budget sheet did not include funding for PTO or Holidays, a budget modification must be submitted.

Evvie Portal

How do I approve time in the Evvie Portal?

Please note that both the Employee and the Participant Employer have a role to play in approving and approval locking shifts. Employees and Employers must access the Evvie Portal to approve and approval lock shifts.

Some important notes:

• Both the Participant Employer and their Employee must approve the Employee’s shifts. It does not matter who takes which step.
• The first person to approve the shift will select “Approve.” The second person will select “Lock as Approved.”
• In most cases, we recommend that Employees submit and then Approve their shift in the Evvie Portal so that the Participant Employer can then select Lock as Approved.
• Because the system requires checks and balances, one person cannot both Approve and Lock as Approved the shift.

The Participant Employer and Employee can both see all the Employee’s shifts on the main page of their Evvie Portal. If the shift is officially approved by both people, it will appear as Approval Locked. This is your confirmation that the shift is locked as approved and has been sent to payroll for processing.

If the shift only says Approved, the person who has not yet approved the time must approval lock the shift. There are two ways:

• To approval lock each shift one by one, click View All Shifts at the bottom of the screen. The person will select “Lock as Approved” for each individual shift.
• To approval lock all the shifts in bulk, click View My Weekly Timesheets at the bottom of the screen. The person will select “Batch Lock as Approved,” and on the next screen, click the “All” toggle switch on. Every shift’s toggle button will then appear blue, meaning it has been selected. (To view the service codes associated with shifts, go to View All Shifts first.)

Important: If a shift on the Evvie Portal main page has a status of “Submitted” or “Approved,” IT IS NOT FULLY LOCKED AS APPROVED. The shift must have the “Approval Locked” status to be sent to Fello’s payroll department.

Please see our training materials and Quickstart Guides on the Tools & Technology page of our website for instructions on how to approve a shift.

What is a manual shift?

A manual shift is a shift that has been created in the Evvie Portal rather than by the Evvie App. Manual shifts are not EVV-compliant and should only be used for services that do not require EVV compliance or for shifts that we missed or incorrectly logged through the Evvie App.

When are shifts approved in FMSE?

Shifts can be approved daily or in bulk at the end of a pay period.

I am a Participant Employer without a computer or smartphone. Do I have to approve time through the Evvie Portal?

Participant Employers are required to approve time through the Evvie Portal.

What if a Participant Employer doesn’t have a computer? Can they use a smartphone to approve time and view the budget?

The Evvie Portal can be accessed through any web browser, so it is possible to view the Portal on a mobile device.

Will Support Brokers and CCSs be able to see employees’ time? How do Support Brokers gain access to participants expenditures?

CCSs have read-only access their Participant’s Participant Dashboards, which includes budget information. Support Brokers do not have access to the Dashboard.

Evvie App

Does the Evvie App track Employees all day?

No. The App captures an employee’s location at the time of clock in and clock out only. A message will pop up asking the user if they would like to allow one-time location services.

Do employees have to log shifts in real time?

This is mandatory for Personal Support and Respite; it is how employees remain EVV-compliant. If an Employee is a live-in caregiver, they are eligible to be exempt from clocking in and out in real time. The Participant should reach out to their CCS about submitting the required materials to DDA. Live-in caregivers are still required to enter their time electronically using the Evvie Portal to manually create shifts.

Can an Employee take a Participant Employer out into the community, and another Employee takes over for the first Employee at the end of their shift, outside of the Participant Employer’s residence?

Yes. EVV is flexible and allows freedom of choice for where participants want to start and end their time with staff.

What if an Employee misses a shift or needs to adjust a shift?

Both Participant Employers and Employees can correct missed punches in the Evvie Portal. However, any missed punches or corrections are not considered EVV-compliant. See question below related to compliance.

What happens if a shift is not EVV-compliant?

Employees will be allowed 6 non-EVV compliant shifts per month. Once the limit is exceeded, corrective disciplinary action will apply per DDA guidelines.

What if an Employee doesn’t have internet access when punching in and out?

If wireless service is not available at the time of punch in/out, the punch will be stored until an internet connection is made available and the Employee logs into the App again. Please note that the Employee must log in to the App once the internet connection has been restored for the shift to automatically transfer to the Evvie Portal.

How do Participant Employers and Employees know that their shift has been recorded?

Both Participant Employers and Employees will see their hours recorded in the Evvie Portal automatically if the device is connected to the internet. These hours will appear as “Submitted” in the Evvie Portal before they are approved by both the Participant Employer and Employee.

What happens if an employee clocks in on one day and clocks out on the next day?

If a shift goes past 11:59 p.m. on one date, it will automatically be turned into two separate shifts in the Evvie Portal, one for the first day, and one for the second day.

How does logging into a shift apply when providing weekend Respite care? Must the provider be logged in the entire weekend?

An employee would stay logged in the full weekend, and a new shift would automatically start at midnight in the Evvie Portal. However, a shift cannot last longer than 72 hours in the Evvie timekeeping system. If a shift lasts 72 hours, this will cause an error, and the shifts will need to be manually entered in the Evvie Portal.

What if an Employee does not have a phone to clock in and out of Evvie?

Employees should use their own device to clock in and out. However, they do have the option to log in to their Employee account through the Evvie App on their Employer’s phone or tablet to clock in and out, in situations where the employee does not have their own device.

What happens when a Participant Employer and Employees are traveling out of state?

You can clock in and out using the Evvie App anywhere. Please refer to DDA program guidelines regarding where services can be provided.

Does my shift start at the exact time I clock in, or does Evvie round shifts?

Employee time from 1 to 7 minutes will be rounded down, and thus not counted as hours worked, while employee time from 8 to 14 minutes will be rounded up and counted as a quarter hour of work time.

When the shift first appears in the Evvie Portal and then in the Participant Dashboard once it has been Lock Approved, you will see the exact time that was logged to the minute. However, when the shift is processed for payment, the rounding convention above is applied to the payment.

What do you suggest for transition between two employees? What if the clock-ins/outs overlap?

The Evvie system is not able to process employee shifts that overlap by more than 7 minutes. If two shifts overlap, the overlapping portion of the shift cannot be processed.

Participant Employers must work with their teams to ensure that their Employees are clocking in and out so that their shifts do not overlap by more than 7 minutes. We suggest Participant Employers train their Employees to coordinate the shift change so that one clocks out before the other clocks in.

Before approving shifts in the Evvie Portal, Participant Employers should confirm that their employees’ shifts do not overlap by more than 7 minutes. If two employees have overlapping shifts, the shifts should be edited in the Evvie Portal so that they do not overlap. Please note all Employees’ shifts in the Evvie Portal appear chronologically, so teams can easily see if any shifts overlap.

If the incorrect shift is Approval Locked by accident, please place a customer service ticket for “Payroll > Timesheet Correction.”

What if two employees are in training at the same time?

Employees may be paid for overlapping shifts if one employee is being trained by another. If Participants want to pay staff for training in which shifts overlap, Participants may need to complete a budget modification to add money to the Training line, so that Fello can create a Training service code in the Evvie system.

Are shifts set up in the system in advance?

No. Shifts are captured in real time as Employees clock in and out.

What if a service code is missing when an Employee has clocked in?

If you believe a service code should be available in FMSE and it is not appearing in the drop-down, please place an FMSE Help ticket in Zendesk.

If a new service has been added to a Participant’s budget, please ensure that an Employee Change Form is submitted, specifying the new service code and the rate the employee will be paid.

How do I switch service codes mid-shift?

Each shift can only have one service code. You must clock out and start a new shift.

What will I see in the Evvie App if I support multiple Participant Employers?

You will see both Participant Employers’ names on the menu when you log into the Evvie App.

If an Employee is not performing Personal Supports or Respite, do they still need to use FMSE?

Per DDA, all services must use electronic timekeeping, regardless of whether the shift itself needs to be EVV-compliant. For Fello, this means timekeeping must be done through the Evvie Portal. However, if the service is not Personal Supports or Respite, the time may be manually entered in the Evvie Portal, rather than logged in the Evvie App in real time.

Can I use the Evvie App on a Chrome Book, Kindle Fire, or laptop?

No, the App must be accessed on a smartphone or tablet.

Updating Contact Information in FMSE

How can a Participant Employer or Employee update their email in FMSE?

Please submit an Employee Change Form to SDSEmployeeUpdates@fello.org.

What if a Participant or Employee has not provided Fello with a unique email address?

Please submit an Employee Change Form to SDSEmployeeUpdates@fello.org.