Attendance Notifications Basic Mode
Overview
In Basic Mode, Compass offers four options for automatic attendance SMS and/or email alerts - Student Late to one or more Classes, Student Not Present in one or more Classes, Student Unaccounted For, and Student Not Present in one or more Classes (Irrespective or Unmarked Rolls).
These alerts now integrate with the Compass Student Chronicle which allows for entries to be recorded against the student directly and to be reported on.
Permissions
To enable/disable the Attendance Notifications, you will require the Configure permission.
To edit the content of the Chronicle template including the email notification wording, you will require the ChronicleConfigure permission.
For details on assigning Permissions in Compass, please refer to the 'Permissions' article from our Knowledge Base.
Attendance Notification Types
The Attendance Notification settings can be accessed by staff with the permission Configure by going to the Tools menu (cog icon) > Administration Tools > SMS - Attendance Config.
Here you will see each type listed, an indication if it is enabled, the time it is issued when enabled, and the last time it was issued.
Student Late to one or more Classes:
Notifies a student's primary family that the student has been late for any one or more sessions (and there is no known reason why).
On weekdays, at the time defined by the school, Compass automatically evaluates the attendance for all students. For a given student, an SMS and/or email message will be sent if all of the following conditions are satisfied:
- The student is marked 'Late' in any one or more of the sessions they possibly could have attended which start after 6am and prior to the time the SMS/email is due to be sent (including normal classes, custom classes, support classes and events), AND
- Compass has deemed these 'Late' entries Unexplained, AND
- There are no attendance notes/approvals for the student for this period of time, AND
- There are no school activities for the student for this period of time, AND
- There are no unmarked rolls for the sessions the student could possibly have attended
Student Not Present in one or more Classes:
Notifying a student's primary family that the student is not present for any one or more sessions (and there is no known reason why).
On weekdays, at the time defined by the School, Compass automatically evaluates the attendance for all students. For a given student, an SMS and/or email message will be sent if all of the following conditions are satisfied:
- The student is marked 'Not Present' in any one or more of the sessions they possibly could have attended which start after 6am and prior to the time the SMS/email is due to be sent (including normal classes, custom classes, support classes and events), AND
- Compass has deemed these 'Not Present' entries Unexplained, AND
- There are no attendance notes/approvals for the student for this period of time, AND
- There are no school activities for the student for this period of time, AND
- There are no unmarked rolls for the sessions the student could possibly have attended
Student Unaccounted For:
This profile is recommended for schools who use the 'Sessional' Primary Attendance Perspective setting in Compass (for example, VIC Public Schools, QLD Schools).
Notifying a student's primary family that the student has not arrived at school (and there is no known reason why).
On Teaching Days at the time defined by the school, Compass automatically evaluates the attendance for all students. For a given student, a Chronicle Entry (with potential SMS and/or email message) will be added if all of the following conditions are satisfied:
- The student is marked 'Not Present' in all of the sessions they possibly could have attended which start after 6am and prior to the time the evaluation is performed (including normal classes, custom classes, support classes and events), AND
- Compass has deemed all of these 'Not Present' entries Unexplained, AND
- There are no Attendance Notes for the student for this period of time, AND
- There are no School Activities for the student for this period of time, AND
- There are no Arrivals for the student for this period of time, AND
- There are no unmarked rolls for the sessions the student could possibly have attended
Student Not Present in one or more Classes (Irrespective of Unmarked Rolls):
On weekdays, at the time defined by the school, Compass automatically evaluates the attendance for all students. For a given student, an SMS and/or email message will be sent if all of the following conditions are satisfied:
- The student is marked 'Not Present' in any of the sessions they possibly could have attended which start after 6am and prior to the time the SMS/email is due to be sent (including normal classes, custom classes, support classes and events), AND
- Compass has deemed these Not Present entries Unexplained, AND
- There are no attendance notes/approvals for the student for this period of time,AND
- There are no school activities for the student for this period of time
Note: NSW schools have an additional option.Student Unaccounted For (Segment Analysis):
This notification is recommended for schools who use the 'Whole/Partial' Primary Attendance Perspective setting in Compass (NSW Schools).
On Teaching Days at the time defined by the school, Compass automatically evaluates the attendance for all students.
For a given student, a Chronicle Entry will be added where, between 1) the beginning of their Teaching Time for the day and 2) the calculation time of the profile:
- There is some Not Present: Unexplained time, AND
- There is no Present time, AND
- There is no Non-counted Absence time, AND
- There are no Arrivals for the student for this period of time
Enabling Attendance Alerts
To enable/edit any of the types, click the associated edit pencil icon to open.
Tick to enable the type (untick to disable). Add/edit the time of day you want the notification to trigger/issue.
You can use the available fields to specify cohorts that the notification is to be applied to. Please note, leaving those fields blank will mean all students are included in the notification.
Click 'Save' to update your changes.
To edit/view the SMS/email wording, click the option 'Edit Template'.
This will open the Chronicle template for that notification type.
Reviewing the SMS Content
To review the SMS content, click on the 'Communications' tab and then the 'Parent SMS' sub-tab.
Here you will see the current wording issued in the text. You can edit as needed. Please note there is a limit to the number of characters you can have for the message, refer to the running total at the bottom of the screen for your status.
There are a range of placeholders you can use (listed in the right hand section of the screen). Please note for each Attendance SMS type, there is a specific placeholder called {calculationtime} that we recommend you include to provide key information to the parent.
There is also the option to include the placeholder for the 'One Time Attendance Note' feature. For details on this, please refer to the 'Attendance Notifications One Time Link' article from our Knowledge Base.
Choose your preferred 'Send Mode' from the available options in the drop-down.
Reviewing the Email Content
To review the Email content, you will need to go to 'Chronicle' under the Organisation menu (grid icon).
Click to the 'Administration' tab and then to the 'Templates' tab.
Locate the applicable Attendance Notification template in the list and click the edit pencil icon to open.
Click to the 'Communications' tab and then the 'Parent Email' tab.
You can edit/review the email wording. There is a range of placeholders available also, to use, click the cursor to the position in the email that you want to insert the placeholder then click the applicable placeholder from the list on the right-hand and it will insert.
Set the applicable 'Send Mode' you require for the email from the drop-down list.
When you have finished editing/reviewing, click 'Save Template and Close' to update your changes.
Student Chronicle Entry
When an Attendance SMS/email is issued for a student, a Chronicle entry will be added to their profile.
SMS Report
When an Attendance SMS notification is issued it will display in the SMS Outbound Report.
To view this report, go to the Administration Tools page (under the cog menu icon) and click the 'SMS Outbound Report' option.
Disclaimer: We are unable to guarantee delivery of any SMS messages sent through Compass.
We do use Australian SMS providers as we have found these to be more reliable than internationally routed messages.
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