Class Attendance FAQ

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Question 1: I would like my daily attendance to propagate to my class attendance. For instance, if I post a student as Absent Full Day, I would like the student to be marked as absent to every course. Is this possible?
• Question 2: All my classes show 'Class Does Not Meet', yet they showed up before. How do I fix my attendance?Question 2a: None of the attendance drop downs are appearing on the Student Data->Class Attendance screen. What could be wrong?
• Question 3: I post my daily attendance and it correctly propagates to the class attendance. Once I post an update to the daily attendance, the class attendance is not changed. What is set up wrong?
• Question 4: We have changed the a code to be an unexcused absence and the class attendance totals do not reflect the change. How can I get the number's to jive?
• Question 5: I have posted daily attendance for the student as tardy to school but the courses before the tardy are not updating to absent. I did not enter the time that the student showed up. What is wrong?
• Question 6: My Class Attendance is setup to Post my daily attendance when a teacher posts for there Homeroom class. However, it is not updating a previously posted daily attendance code for the student. What could be setup incorrectly?
• Question 7: My Homeroom Class Attendance is not posting my Daily Attendance. What could be set up incorrectly?
• Question 8: I want to post my Daily Attendance for a full day absence and have it propagate to all the students classes. How can this be accomplished?
• Question 9: I have a class attendance code that I do not want teachers to be able to change. Is this possible?
• Question 10: What is that warning on Student Data→Modify Student→Class Attendance→ By Period View / Daily Schedule View?
• Question 11: A user updated a kid's schedule but did not check off "Transfer Grades/Class Att." as they did so. Is there a way to push the former class' class attendance to the new course?
• Question 12: Does Daily Attendance and the "Include students in state reporting (school keeps daily attendance records)" option affect Class Attendance?
• Question 13: Can students also check in for each class through the portal?

Question 1: I would like my daily attendance to propagate to my class attendance. For instance, if I post a student as Absent Full Day, I would like the student to be marked as absent to every course. Is this possible?

A: Of course! First thing that you will have do is to make sure that your school is setup to propagate. Go to the Schools Basic Parameters screen and change the "Allow Daily Attendance to propagate to Class Attendance" flag to Yes.

Secondly, you have to mark off which of the school's periods are homerooms. This can be done on the Scheduling.Setup.Print Periods screen or the Scheduling.Setup.Rotating Periods screen, depending on whether you have a rotating schedule or not. Lastly, go to the screen Attendance.Codes.Modify.

Here you can associate a daily attendance code with a class attendance code by making use of the 3 fields we have reserved for this process.

1. Class Attendance Code - If this field is filled in and no time is provided with the daily attendance code, then this class code will populate every course in the student's schedule for the day. If a time is provided, then this is the code that will update the student's course that is meeting at the time the student entered.
2. Class Code Pre Event - If a time is entered for the students daily attendance, then this is the code that will be propagated to all classes prior to the time entered. For instance if a student is tardy and enters the building in period 4, then periods 1, 2, and 3 would be updated with the Class Code Pre Event.
3. Class Code Post Event - This is the same as above with the only difference being that this code will be propagated to all classes after the time entered. For instance if a student is tardy and enters the building in period 4, then periods 4, 5 and 6 would be updated with the Class Code Post Event.

Question 2: All my classes show 'Class Does Not Meet', yet they showed up before. How do I fix my attendance?
Question 2a: None of the attendance drop downs are appearing on the Student Data->Class Attendance screen. What could be wrong?

A: This type of issue is almost always one of these four common problems:

1. If you are nearing a MP change, your courses may be experiencing this problem because your dates are setup incorrectly. Change the dates on your 'Semester' cycles to the correct start and end dates for your school. This is found via Setup>Schools>Modify School>Attendance Cycles.
2. Genesis requires that any attendance cycle that defines a length of a course be defined as a type of 'Semester'. These cycles are FY, S1, S2, Q1-Q4, C1-C6, E1-E8 and M1-M12.
3. Another possible problem may be that your cycle days are not laid out on your school calendar. You can apply your cycle days on the Calendar>School>Calendar screen.
4. If your school uses Rotating Periods, make sure that the print period of the course is set up to meet for all of the students in the class section. This is found via Scheduling>Setup>Rotating Periods.

Question 3: I post my daily attendance and it correctly propagates to the class attendance. Once I post an update to the daily attendance, the class attendance is not changed. What is set up wrong?

A: If your daily attendance is setup to propagate to class attendance, and the class attendance is not being overridden, make sure that the field "Overridable By Daily Attendance" is set up to be Yes on the Class Attendance.Attendance Codes.Modify screen for the code that you want to be overridden.

Question 4: We have changed the a code to be an unexcused absence and the class attendance totals do not reflect the change. How can I get the number's to jive?

A: You can recalculate your attendance totals by going to the Class Attendance.Attendance Codes screen. At the bottom is a link labeled 'Recalculate Class Attendance for All Class Attendance Codes'. This will recalculate all of your class attendance based on the codes current values.

You can also recalculate the totals for just one code by clicking on the modify icon of the code that you want to update. Then click on the ' Recalculate Class Attendance for Class Attendance Code X' link at the bottom of the screen.

Question 5: I have posted daily attendance for the student as tardy to school but the courses before the tardy are not updating to absent. I did not enter the time that the student showed up. What is wrong?

A: For any attendance code that requires a time, you MUST post the time in order for daily attendance to propagate to class attendance using the 'Pre' and 'Post' class attendance codes associated with the daily attendance code.

If no time is entered, Genesis can not figure out when the student got to school, so it can not update the class attendance correctly. The Pre and Post events for the codes are set up via Attendance->Codes->Modify Code.

Question 6: My Class Attendance is setup to Post my daily attendance when a teacher posts for there Homeroom class. However, it is not updating a previously posted daily attendance code for the student. What could be setup incorrectly?

A: This is usually related to the daily attendance code that has already been posted for the student. On the Attendance.Codes.Modify screen, there is a field called "Overridable by HR Class Attendance".

If this is not set to Yes, then the Class Attendance can not overwrite that daily attendance code.

Question 7: My Homeroom Class Attendance is not posting my Daily Attendance. What could be set up incorrectly?

A: This problem will usually occur if your HR is not setup in your Print Periods or Rotating Periods. If your school does not use Rotating Periods, go to the Scheduling.Setup.Print Periods screen and make sure that there is a check mark on the "HR" column for the appropriate HR period. If not, modify the correct print period and set the Homeroom field to Yes.

If your school does use Rotating Periods, then you can go to the Scheduling.Setup.Rotating Periods screen and verify that a period is set as HR for every grade in each of your cycle days. If you see a grade and cycle day that does not have a HR period listed, then you must modify the correct period to be set for HR.

If you are using Rotating Periods and it is still not working, you should take a look at the alternate code on your rotating periods.  If that is not set to the same code on your subsection, Genesis will not be able to determine that the course is a homeroom. 

In most cases, that field on the period should be left blank.

Question 8: I want to post my Daily Attendance for a full day absence and have it propagate to all the students classes. How can this be accomplished?

A: This can be accomplished quite easily. If your daily attendance code does not require a time, then you can just fill in the "Class Attendance Code" field on the Attendance.Codes.Modify screen with the code that you want to propagate.

If the code that you are entering does require a time, then you will have to update the "Class Attendance Code", "Class Code Pre Event" and "Class Code Post Event" on the Attendance.Codes.Modify screen

Question 9: I have a class attendance code that I do not want teachers to be able to change. Is this possible?

A: You betcha! Navigate to the Class Attendance.Attendance Codes.Modify screen for the code that you do not want teachers to be able to change. Switch the "For Teacher Use" field to No. T

his will prevent users from changing the class attendance for any student with this code on the Gradebook.Attendance or the Class Attendance.Post Attendance screen.

Question 10: What is that warning on Student Data→Modify Student→Class Attendance→ By Period View / Daily Schedule View?

A: If class attendance exists for a day that the course does not meet, the Daily Schedule View and By Period View screens will display a warning.

Can be fixed by using the "reconcile class attendance" tool on Student Data→Modify Student→ Class Attendance→ By Section View for each course showing the warning.

Question 11: A user updated a kid's schedule but did not check off "Transfer Grades/Class Att." as they did so. Is there a way to push the former class' class attendance to the new course?

A: Yes.  Go to Student Data>Modify Student>Class Attendance>By Section View.  In the "Choose a Course" dropdown, select the Dropped course.  In the lower right hand side, there will be a "Transfer Grades/Attendance" button:

If you click that, you will get a pop up that allows you to select the new course to push attendance and grade info to:

Select the course you need, and click Transfer.

*This is still in regards to posted Marking Period grades.  This will not push assignment grades over.

Question 12: Does Daily Attendance and the "Include students in state reporting (school keeps daily attendance records)" option affect Class Attendance?

A: It can.

With "Include students in state reporting (school keeps daily attendance records)" set on the Setup>Schools screen to YES, Gradebook class attendance cannot be taken if students do not have daily attendance initialized.

With "Include students in state reporting (school keeps daily attendance records)" set to NO, gradebook class attendance can be taken, regardless.

Question 13: Can students also check in for each class through the portal?

A: We added a new feature to class attendance on 8/11/20 which may help out here.

There is a new functionality for the parents where students can check into a class from the Parents/Student Module.

On the P screen, there are 2 field under the "Allow Student Checkin" column.

The first is to activate the student checkin and the second is a class attendance code to post when they check in.

It is recommended you create a new code like "Class Checkin" for this functionality.

The student can check into class from the Student Summary screen right above the schedule by clicking a "Check into Class" button. The button will appear 10 minutes prior to the start of class.