Attendance System Initial Procedures

The initial procedures identified below are usually performed by your system administrator or building personnel.

1. Set up the security resources for the Attendance System. Use the Security Profile option to designate which users may access which options (Administration > Security > Users > Security Profile.
2. Set up the Attendance System's State Group and District Group validation tables (Administration > General Setup > District > Validation Tables) as needed.
3. Define the attendance codes for your district, using the Attendance Code option (Administration > Attendance Setup > Setup > Attendance Codes). You can assign specific buildings to codes that are not valid for other buildings. If needed, you can select a building that does not have an attendance configuration.
4. Set up the Attendance Building Configuration for every building that takes attendance (Administration > Attendance Setup > Setup > Attendance Building Configuration). The configurations must be set up for each building by year.
5. For each building that reports attendance totals, use the Attendance Intervals page to define the intervals for calculating the totals (Administration > Attendance Setup > Setup > Attendance Intervals). For example, if you need to report totals to the state monthly, create an attendance interval for every month.
6. For each building, use the Attendance Periods page to define the periods for storing attendance (Administration > Attendance Setup > Setup > Attendance Periods). You may define periods based on homeroom or scheduled courses.
7. For each building that reports totals, define the view types used by the Day Totals Calculation to convert attendance entries into attendance totals (Administration > Attendance Setup > Setup > Attendance View Setup). For example, if your building takes attendance by course, create a view to convert course attendance into a single daily attendance record.
8. For each building using attendance letters, set up the groups of letters needed, using the Attendance Criteria Groups option (Attendance > All > Attendance Communications > Attendance Criteria Groups). Groups allow you to set up multiple criteria and ensure that students only receive a letter for the first criteria met.
9. For each building using attendance letters, use the Attendance Criteria Setup option to define the criteria for determining which students should receive letters (Attendance > All > Attendance Communications > Attendance Criteria Setup). This option also can be used to determine whether students are at risk, whether behavior incidents should be created for students, and whether students should be deemed ineligible for athletics.
10. Use Microsoft Word software to create attendance form letters for your buildings.
11. For each building that has teachers entering attendance in Teacher Access Center, set up a schedule to run the Missing Submission report (Attendance > All > Reports > Missing Submission). The report can be set up to automatically notify teachers who have not submitted attendance.

For more information, refer to the appropriate topics in the Attendance System documentation.