One record per person per day

I think at a minimum you will need to have 2 tables.
1- Resources (all your employees)
2- Resource Logs

What you will want it to have the "In/Out" status be an option on the employee record.  Then you can utilize an action to add a 'log' every time they check in, and then edit that log to close out when they check out.

Even though it sounds simple.  To get the action to edit the correct record, or use any type of API button requires some guidance.  So don't feel bad if you get stuck.

(Sorry for delay - I had to whitelist emails to get them in my inbox)
Thanks for the reply!  I am, indeed, stuck at a very simple level.  Right now I am just trying to create a formula url with the add record api that fills in just the one check-in/out field and saves the record.  I was hoping to have this happen without the user going to the form page and have to hit save.  Is that possible?

Tate,
You can have a field for the current date which is a data entry field which defaults to "today". (no data entry required)
You can have a field for the user which defaults to the current user. (no data enruy required.

Your can then make a formula field to concatenate them together.

Lirt("-", ToText(Date]), UsertoName([Userid]))

and set the field properties for that field to be that to be unique.  Then there can only be one record per user per day.

Thanks for the concatenate idea.  That makes perfect sense!

Unfortunately, I'm still stuck just trying to make a URL field that will add a record.  I just took off the requirement in the app for the token, which us why I thought my link was not working, but the link that is generated by this formula just takes me to the dashboard if when I click it in the form and takes me to the form when I click it in the dashboard with no record being created.  What am I doing wrong here?

URLRoot() & "db/" 
& [_DBID_CHECK_IN_OUTS] 
& "?a=API_AddRecord"
& "fid_6=CheckIN

If you are looking to Create a record and then display it

URLRoot() & "db/" 
& [_DBID_CHECK_IN_OUTS] 
& "?a=API_AddRecord"
& "&_fid_6=CheckIN"
& "&disprec=1


If you are looking to put up an Add Record form

URLRoot() & "db/" 
& [_DBID_CHECK_IN_OUTS] 
& "?a=API_GenAddRecordForm"
& "&_fid_6=CheckIN

That last line made the difference.  I was getting some strange behavior from my code since nothing would show up then 5 minutes later all of sudden 4 records would appear simultaneously.  So, it seems like it needs something at the end there to specify the view.

My desired state would be to put this in a button on the main dashboard, have the user click it to generate the check-in record and look like they do not leave the dashboard.  Is that possible with a redirect or something or do we have to go to the record after saving?  (Thanks for all the help.)

Which method do you plan to use? - API_Add Record or API_GenAddRecordForm

Clearly I'm new to all of this.  So, I'm going to get out some presumptions I'm now realizing I'm making and I GREATLY appreciate you disabusing me of my mistaken notions.

First, it seemed to me that the API_GenAddRecordForm was pulling up the form itself although you could specify field values.  I was hoping that the AddRecord API was going to add a record without having to interact with the form.  Is that even close to right?  What is the difference between these two? 

Also, I was presuming I could take the URL that gets generated when I create the Formula URL Field in the form and drop it into a button on a button bar in the dashboard, but I'm now wondering if that will work like that.  How would I put something more than just the stock add a new record button on a dashboard?

All I'm hoping to do is for the user to click a "Check-in" and a "Check-out" button on the dashboard and have a record recorded in the "Check-in/out" table with the one variable field set to check-in or check-out and the owner be the current user and the created date be the date time the record was created, which I was presuming would happen automatically, and have it appear like they never left the dashboard (maybe with a redirect after an automatic save.)  

I'd recommend that you create one button that has 2 actions (based on the current In/Out status)

(1) Will us the API_AddRecord call to create a new 'time log' record with a date/time of the clock in time.

and 
(2) Use the API_EditRecord call to edit the currently 'clocked in' record to add an 'out' date/time.

What you gain;
- Each day you have a single record.
- Duration calculations are based on the in/out fields
- Summarized data can be filtered easily with different criteria (today, yesterday, last 7 days, etc).
- An easy report that can be added to a dashboard for each user to clock in/out


Tricks:
You will need the Record ID# of the lastest "In" record, and the record ID# of the latest "Out" record.

Because you will need to make the button (formula-rich text) dynamic to Clock In (Add) or Clock Out (Edit) based on the current status.

Thanks for the suggestion, Matthew.  That does sound ideal.  How would I get the last record ID#?  Also, I'm still struggling with adding the form with a simple button press.