Virtual Attendance
Taking Attendance When Remote Learning
This document describes methods to take attendance when some or all students are attending class remotely.
TASS does not recommend creating/using additional Attendance Types to cater for online attendance capture.
Additional Attendance Types that are not mapped to ‘Absentee Type Parameters’ in TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Setup Information > Attendance Setup on the ‘General’ tab:
Do not contain logic to determine the hours that students are on campus or absent. As an example: If a student is marked as ‘Absent from School’, their attendance status will be ‘Absent from School’ for the entire day and reflected in all rollcall periods. An additional ‘Attendance Type’ will not have this logic.
Will not ensure mandatory capture of associated attendance data such as Arrival and Departure Times.
Additional Attendance Types will also not display relevant time and period data when running reports from TASS.web (i.e that the absence occurred during Period 1).May not check/prevent attendance conflicts.
For example: If a student is marked using an additional ‘Attendance Type’ (say Present – Online) during Period 1, and later in the day a record for ‘Late for School’ is created, the software will not stop you and will not resolve/remove conflicting record.
Method 1
In this method, every student is ‘Present’ by default and the classroom consists of:
A combination of students participating onsite and online
Or all students participating online.
Attendance needs to be marked to indicate:
Students who are physically present
Students who are present online
Students that are absent.
How to Setup for Method 1
Allow parents to acknowledge unexplained absences in Parent Lounge using TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Setup Information > Attendance Setup on the ‘Parent Lounge’ tab.
Identify the ‘Absentee Reasons’ that parents can use when acknowledging absences. Use the ‘Acknowledge in Parent Lounge’ field in TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Setup Information > Attendance Setup on the ‘Absentee Reasons’ tab.
Create a new ‘Online Learning’ reason (or something similar), defining it as ‘Acceptable’ using TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Setup Information > Attendance Setup on the ‘Absentee Reasons’ tab
Update the ‘Teacher Flag’ for the ‘Absent from Class’ type to ‘Visible to Teachers in all Rollcall Periods’ using TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Setup Information > Attendance Setup on the ‘Absentee Types’ tab.
Workflow for Method 1
Step | Menu Path | Task | ✅ |
1 | Staff Kiosk Rollcall > Class Rollcal | Leave students that are physically present as ‘Present'. | 🔲 |
2 | Staff Kiosk Rollcall > Class Rollcal | Mark students that are present online as ‘Absent from Class’ with a reason of ‘Online Learning’. Use the ‘Detailed Entry’ to enter the ‘Reason’. | 🔲 |
3 | Staff Kiosk Rollcall > Class Rollcal | Mark students who are not physically present or online as ‘Absent from Class’. The Default Reason for Absent from Class should already be set to ‘No Reason’, ‘Unexplained’ or something similar. Important! Teachers will need to acknowledge if students are participating in Online Learning in every rollcall period. For example: If you mark a Student as Absent from Class – Online Learning in Period 1, in Period 2 their attendance status will be ‘Present’ (again) and need to be redefined as Absent from Class – Online Learning. Important! In Staff Kiosk Rollcall > Class Rollcall use the ‘Attendance Rollcall Status Button’ to send a reminder to staff who have not marked the roll. Important! Only one administrator user should have access to this program. This is a resource intensive program and should only be accessed by one person at a time. | 🔲 |
4 | TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Processing > Generate/Send SMS Notifications | Send an SMS Message to parents whose student(s) were marked ‘Absent from Class’ with a ‘Reason’ of ‘Unexplained’, ‘No Reason’, or something similar. Note The ability to send SMS Messages for additional Absentee Types (other than Absent from School) was a feature developed to assist with online learning made available at the beginning of Term 2, 2020. To set this up, update the ‘Message Text’ in TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Setup Information > Attendance Setup on the ‘Contact Info’ tab. An example might be: [NAME] is [ABSENTTYPE]. Please log into Parent Lounge and ‘Acknowledge’ this absence by adding a Reason. Using the ‘Absence Acknowledgement’ feature in Parent Lounge, parents can acknowledge student absences by entering an appropriate ‘Reason’ and additional ‘Comment’ where required. | 🔲 |
Method 2
In this method, every student is ‘Absent from School’ by default and the classroom consists of:
All students participating online
Attendance needs to be marked to indicate:
Students who are learning online for the day
Students that are absent.
This method caters for marking attendance once for the day
How to Setup for Method 2
Allow parents to acknowledge unexplained absences in Parent Lounge using TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Setup Information > Attendance Setup on the ‘Parent Lounge’ tab.
Identify the ‘Absentee Reasons’ that parents can use when acknowledging absences using the ‘Acknowledge in Parent Lounge’ field in TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Setup Information > Attendance Setup on the ‘Absentee Reasons’ tab.
Create a new ‘Online Learning’ reason (or something similar), defining it as ‘Acceptable’ using TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Setup Information > Attendance Setup on the ‘Absentee Reasons’ tab.
Workflow for Method 2
Step | Menu Path | Task | ✅ |
1 | TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Student Information > Bulk Absentee Entry. | Mark all Students as ‘Absent from School’ using your Default Reason (eg No Reason, Unexplained or similar). | 🔲 |
2 | Parent Lounge | Parents are then required to ‘Acknowledge’ the absence through Parent Lounge. Parents should have a list of Reasons to choose from e.g. Online Learning, Sick etc. Parents should be advised that acknowledging attendance should be completed before school starts. | 🔲 |
3 | Staff Kiosk Rollcall > Class Rollcall | Teachers can see which students should be online for the day, and can update the ‘Reason’ where required. | 🔲 |
4 | TASS.web Student Admin > Attendance > Processing > Generate/Send SMS Notifications | Send an SMS Message to parents whose student(s) were marked ‘Absent from School’ with a ‘Reason’ of ‘Unexplained’, ‘No Reason’, or something similar. | 🔲 |
Pupil Free Days
In this scenario, attendance at school (either onsite or online) is not mandatory, but optional.
To take attendance on Pupil Free Days:
Step | Menu Path | Task | ✅ |
1 | TASS.web Student Admin > Timetable > Setup Information > Timetable Calendar Setup | Update your Timetable Calendar/s to indicate that the Pupil Free Day is a non-school (reportable) day by removing the ‘Day Code’ from the corresponding calendar date. | 🔲 |
2 | Staff Kiosk Rollcall > Custom Roll Parameters (Setup) | Set the ‘Default students to’ field to ‘Absent’. | 🔲 |
3 | Staff Kiosk Rollcall > Custom Rolls | Create new ‘Custom Rolls’ for each group of students on campus. For example are students reporting to their homeroom, to a specific location, in year groups etc. If you are creating this roll on behalf of someone else, ‘Assign Admin Rights’ to this person so that they can also access the custom roll. If there are multiple pupil free days, create a recurring custom roll. | 🔲 |
4 | Staff Kiosk Rollcall > Custom Rolls | If required, run a report to indicate the total number of students who came to school on the pupil free day. | 🔲 |