Admin Attendance: Class and Group Attendance

The Class/Group Attendance page is designed as a fast way to enter Class or group Attendance and to activate pre-registered non-absent students. Access to the page is determined by the Attendance, Class Entry task. From the Admin Attendance page, click Class/Group to open that tab.

There are three major tasks performed from this page:

Entering the same values into Attendance records for a certain day and for a selected group of students;
Modifying Report As, Reason, Must See, Phone, Note Rcvd, and Comment values for individual students
Deleting Attendance records en masse or individually.

Activation of non-absent students is performed automatically when you save the page. You should realize the page leaves something "behind the scenes." Namely, each line in the grid belongs to one student but might represent several Attendance records. For example, if the selected Track has five Periods on the current day and the Entry Mode is All Day, then in reality, there are five records for each student, and you intend to enter the same data into each of them. It might happen that some of this data was already populated by you or a co-worker. You can look at them by clicking Today's Atd on the student's line. If there are three periods before midday and two after midday, and the Entry Mode is AM, then each line corresponds to three Attendance records.
The page does not allow a mix of different entry modes within the grid. This means that the content must be saved before changing the entry mode. You initially display the Students grid by searching the group of students in the Student Search panel. Then select Report As, Entry Mode and perhaps Reason and Comment (the Attendance Values panel) and select part or all the students using the selecting column on the left of the grid. You might apply the selected values by clicking Apply Values to Selected. Then you might change the values for some students and add Must See, Phoned or Note Rcvd.

Then you Save the results, change the Report As field and repeat the actions. If the current Report As values have been entered by mistake and you do not want to save the data, uncheck all the boxes and change the Report As value. When all Attendance data for the selected students is entered, select another group of students.

Student Search Panel

The Student Search panel populates the Students grid in the Attendance List panel, based on selected criteria. When you click Search, the Attendance List panel expands. But you actually start setting parameters above the Student Search panel, under Attendance Date, where you choose Track and Attendance Date.

Track - Determines the Track a student must be enrolled in. This value is also used in filtering Classes which appear in the Class picklist. (This list appears below the Select By picklist, if Class has been selected). For example, selecting the Senior Track will result in only Senior Classes in the Class selection picklist. The Track picklist is populated with the tracks for the current school and school year. If you have not selected a track, the Search button, Attendance Date and Select By fields are disabled. If there are no valid tracks, the box is not populated and the action cannot be performed. In this case, the List button and other fields of the panel are disabled as well.

Attendance Date - Input field contains the date for entering Attendance records. The Date Picker contains only the Attendance-taking dates for selected Track. All other dates in the calendar are disabled. If the current date is not attendance-taking, the closest date in the past is selected. If there are no valid dates, the box is not populated and the page actions cannot be performed. (Your List button is disabled).
When you select another Track, the Attendance Date picklist is re-calculated. The previously selected date is kept. If the previous date is not applicable for the selected Track, the closest Attendance-taking date in the past is selected.

Select By - Under Student Search, the Select By options are Homeroom, Grade, Class, Group, Bus Route, Period, Absences/LatesToday, and EntireSchool. On selecting any value except the Absences/LatesToday and Entire School, a picklist of the same name appears below the Select By field. If a picklist is empty, the Search button is disabled.

When Homeroom is selected, the picklist populates with all the Homerooms in the school that are Primary Homerooms and are designated to the Track and Semester corresponding to the selected date. The students displayed in the lower portion of the page must have the selected Homeroom in their timetable.
When Class is selected, the picklist is populated with all the Classes, including Homerooms, which are designated to the Track and Semester corresponding to the selected date. The students displayed in the Attendance List grid must have the selected Class in their timetable.
When Group is selected, the picklist is populated with all the Groups in the school. The students displayed in the Attendance List grid are a part of the selected Group.
When Bus Route is selected, the picklist is populated with all the Bus Routes in your school. The students displayed in the Attendance List grid must be assigned to the selected Bus Route.
When Absences/Lates Today is selected, all students who have had a Period Attendance Absence or Late recorded on the selected date will be displayed in the Attendance List grid.
When Period is selected, the picklist is populated with Periods of the selected Track. In this case, the Entry mode of the Apply As group in the page will have only one value: Period. The student(s) having Classes in the selected Period will be displayed in the Attendance List grid.
When Entire School is selected, all Active students who have arrival dates before or equal to the selected date will be displayed in the Attendance List grid.

When you click Search, the module performs the data search, populates the Attendance List grid and enables the Apply As group on the page. Each time you re-enter the Class/Group Attendance page, our application displays the last page content; the search criteria and results of the last search.

Attendance Values

This panel is located to the right of Student Search, above the Attendance List grid. It defines the rules for Report As, Reason, Entry Mode, and Comment values of the Attendance List grid below.
Report As picklist is populated with Absent, Excused, G-Day, Late, and Noninstructional.

When Absent or Excused are selected, all values in the Entry Mode group are enabled.
When Late is selected, only Period is enabled.
When G Day is selected, only All Day and Period and Sign Out are enabled.
When Noninstructional is selected, only All Day and Period are enabled.

Entry Mode picklist includes options for All Day, Period, Sign In, and Sign Out. Additional fields are displayed when Period, Sign In, and Sign Out are selected. The fields are:

Period – a picklist with the Periods for the current track.
Sign In and Sign Out - a text box for Time that the Student(s) signed in or out. Values are determined by the Use Current Time options in the School Preferences. If the Sign In and Sign Out options are selected, Attendance defaults to using the current time according to the computer's clock. If the options are not selected Attendance will insert a time of 00:00 (midnight).

The Reason picklist is populated with the values from the Reason By Attendance validation table. The values in the box depend on selected Report As and the date.

The Comment field holds up to 80 characters.

Clicking Apply Values to Selected in the Attendance List panel replaces the values in the selected lines there with the values you just set in the Attendance Values group.

Attendance List

This grid is populated by clicking Search in the Student Search panel. The grid contains Attendance data of Active and PreReg students meeting the search criteria. You'll see columns for Status, Name, Attendance. Report As, Reason, Contacts, Must See, Phoned, Note Rcvd, Comment, Date of Birth, and Student Number. Checking the box in the selection column selects or deselects that row for an update. Preregistered students are activated automatically if you enter an Attendance record different from All Day Absent or you do not enter any Attendance information at all.

When you modify a line in the grid, that line's Select Box becomes checked (selected). You can deselect any line and all that line's values return to their initial empty values. Once at least one row is selected, Apply Values to Selected is enabled above the grid. Clicking it does what the button says. When the last selected line is deselected, the "Apply Values to Selected" choice is disabled. Report As, Reason, Must See, Phoned, Note Rcvd and Comment fields are editable.

Report As includes options for Absent, Excused, G Day, and Noninstructional. When you select a Report As value, the Reason picklist is re-populated from the Reason by Attendance validation table. E.g. if Absent is selected, the picklist under the column Reason contains the values from the Reason by Attendance validation table that are assigned to the Attendance Code Absent.
Contacts: Clicking the phone icon displays a view-only list of Name, Relationship, Telecom and other details about the student's Contacts.
The Must See column is used to flag a student who should be 'seen' by the administration.
The Phoned checkbox indicates the home was telephoned about the student's Attendance record. The phone list will be displayed when you click the Phone icon in the Contacts column for the current student. The pop-up list contains telecom data for all that student's contacts. The Today's Atd button is enabled only for students already having Attendance records for the current day. Clicking this button will display Today's Recorded Attendance window for the current student.
The Comments column is text (up to 80 characters).

Note: G Day Attendance is not overwritten by entries in Class/Group .

This section also provides the ability to Save for Date Range. Once you have selected your list of students and applied attendance values to the selected students, you can use the Save for Date Range button instead of the Save button to give you additional functionality while saving the attendance changes. Using the Date Range button, you will be given the opportunity to enter a date range, allowing you to record the same attendance information for multiple days. As well, you will also be able to indicate if you want to overwrite any existing attendance information previously recorded for that date range. Given the likelihood of needing to process many attendance records, this process will be performed in the background. Use the green and white progress bar to the right of the Delete button to check for completion of this request.

Attendance Roll-Up

More information on how the Attendance roll-up procedure converts the entered Period Attendance data into the Daily Attendance format required by the Ontario Ministry of Education is here.