This article explains how to configure attendance settings in Messages XR Enterprise, including setting up phone-based excuse options for parents and assigning digits to pre-defined absence reasons.
💡Quick answers
- Where are attendance settings configured? Navigate to Settings and select the Attendance option to open the configuration screen.
- Can parents report an absence excuse over the phone? Yes, if phone attendance is enabled, parents can call a school-specific number and follow the prompts to report and excuse an absence.
- How do digit assignments for absence reasons get updated? Each absence reason is assigned a dial-pad digit in the Attendance settings; admins can reassign digits as needed from that screen.
- Adding a custom absence reason beyond the default list? Open Attendance settings and use the Add option to create a new reason, then assign it a dial-pad digit for phone-in use.
- Do attendance configuration changes apply district-wide or per school? Settings can be applied at the district level or scoped to individual schools depending on how the configuration is saved.
- Where does the excuse report go after a parent calls in? The recorded excuse is logged in the attendance report and is visible to administrators from the Reports area.
How students and parents view attendance
Once you configure the settings in this article, Parent and Student users can view and manage attendance in their Personal File account profile.
- Students will see the Attendance tab on their Personal File.
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Parents can find their students' attendance by clicking into the Students tab on their Personal File profile window and then clicking on each student. Once clicking on the student, they will see the exact same view as their students see in the Personal File window.
- Summary: Once in the Attendance tab, users receive a Summary of overall attendance.
- Details: Here, students and parents can enter certain criteria to populate specific date range or term attendance
- Attendance file: Clicking this button allows them to download a PDF version of their attendance based on the criteria set in Details.
Parents can provide excused absence reasons over the phone
Messages XR Enterprise has a great absence reporting feature to enhance efficiency and ensure accurate attendance tracking in your district or school. Here's how it works:
- When parents receive an attendance call from your system, they have options that they can do to communicate the reason for the absence. Here's one example of how you can assign a digit to an absence reason if you choose:
- Press 1 if your child is sick
- Press 2 for bereavement situations
- Press 3 if your child is on a field trip
- Press 4 for other reasons
- The system can switch to microphone mode, allowing the parent to verbally state the reason for a child's absence.
- Once the call is completed, a detailed report will be sent to the designated school secretary, including a breakdown of responses and clickable links to hear recorded reasons.
Program each number to represent a reason
Did you know that you can assign an absence reason to a digit to be pressed so that parents can respond quickly and easily? See below to learn more.
Configure attendance settings
You as the district administrator can configure the settings so that you provide a quick and easy way for your parents and families to communicate the reason for the absence. Here's how it works:
- Navigate to Settings > Global Settings. Scroll down to Attendance.
- School: Select each school in the dropdown to configure its Attendance settings.
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Excuses: Check the box next to the options you'd like to apply to this specific campus.
- Allow parents to excuse absences over the phone
- Automatically email excuses to: Add an email address where the excuses will be emailed to.
- Allow parents to record an excuse over the phone
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Let the parent choose from a pre-defined list
- Allow parents to choose from these excuses: Click Add to add excuses.
Add excuses assigned to a digit
If you select the box "Allow parents to choose from these excuses" be sure to add the excuses that they will hear and need to select.
- Click the Add button to add an excuse.
- Confirm the correct campus is displaying at the top.
- Decide if you want to Select a pre-populated excuse OR type custom excuses that your families will be given:
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Select excuse: Choose from the dropdown one built-in or pre-populated excuse
- Add your excuses one by one, then you will see them populate below.
- Change the order of your excuses.
- Select "Let me type in my own excuse" so that families may enter an excuse that might not fit into the other categories. Then you will enter in a Custom excuse in the next field.
- Custom excuse: This is a great field for adding an event that many students may be going to so that families can call in on their behalf. A few examples may be: graduation practice, athletics events, or other special school-wide events going on.
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Select excuse: Choose from the dropdown one built-in or pre-populated excuse
- Move Up/Move Down: Change the order of your excuses that populate.
- Record Audio button: Click this button to upload a pre-recorded file in the format .wav or .aiff that will be read when the parent is given the opportunity to select the excuse for the absence.
- Click Save or Apply to and then select several schools to apply these settings in bulk to multiple schools at the same time.
Order excuses to assign digit that will be pressed
It's important to note that the order that your excuses populate in the Attendance settings screen will determine the order that the digits are assigned when parents call in and need to press a digit to select that excuse.
In this screenshot, the order you see means that the excuses that parents are provided with will be assigned the following digits:
- For doctor's appointment, press 1.
- For cold, flu, or injury, press 2.
- For family emergency, press 3.
- For some other reason, requiring a note from the parent, press 4.