Use attendance activity tracking

Organizations can enable attendance activity tracking to record class and daily attendance activities. This helps you control and identify which users and processes create, update and delete attendance records.

Note: To use this feature, an organization must enable the Attendance activity tracking preference (in the Daily Attendance category).

When the attendance activity tracking preference is enabled, the following features come into play:

• Attendance Activity Tracking system table
• Security role edit privilege levels
• Required Override Reason and pick list
• Attendance History icon and pop-up

Attendance Activity Tracking system table

The Attendance Activity Tracking system table stores all student attendance activities (District [Root Organization] view, Admin > Data Dictionary > Tables). This table also tracks who makes changes to student daily and class attendance records, as well as any associated override reason.

Security role edit privilege levels

Users can create, edit and delete attendance records, depending on the edit privilege level associated with their user roles. Aspen recognizes a user's edit privilege levels when the Attendance activity tracking preference is enabled.

The Student Attendance and Student Class Attendance system tables have edit privilege levels (District [Root Organization] view, Admin > Security > select a user role > Details > Student category). They range from level 1 through level 5; level 5 has the most editing privileges. The system administrator has all edit privilege levels enabled by default, and can edit the privilege levels of other user roles.

When the Attendance activity tracking preference is enabled by the district (root organization), intermediate organization or school:

• A user can edit or delete student attendance records that were created or edited by someone with the same, or lower, edit privilege level.
• A user with a lower edit privilege level (or no edit privilege level) cannot edit or delete student attendance records that were created or edited by someone with a higher privilege level.
• A user with an edit privilege level must enter an attendance activity tracking override reason when creating, modifying or deleting student attendance records. Generally, users do not need to enter an override reason when creating student attendance records that have no attendance activity history.
• In the Staff view, teachers can edit attendance records that they created or edited. Teachers can view, but not edit, an attendance record if the person who created or edited it has an edit privilege level that is higher than their own. To allow teachers to create or edit attendance records without entering a required override reason, do not assign an edit privilege level to any of the user's role(s).

  Notes: If the Attendance activity tracking preference is not enabled, Aspen ignores a user's edit privilege level. If the Attendance activity tracking preference is enabled, and all users have a edit priority level of 0 (no level), then they will see the attendance history icons and the Attendance history pop-up, and they are not blocked from editing student attendance records. Update (U), Delete (D) and Mass Update (M) user role privilege restrictions take precedence over edit privilege levels 1 through 5.

  Example: If a user does not have an Update (U) privilege for the Student Attendance table, he cannot edit records on the Student Attendance table, regardless of his edit privilege level.

Override Reason field and pick list

When the Attendance activity tracking preference is enabled, a required Override Reason field can appear when users who have an edit privilege level assigned to their user roles create, edit or delete the attendance record. Generally, users do not need to enter an override reason when creating student attendance records that have no attendance activity history.

When a user clicks at this field, the Reference pick list appears. The user selects a code for the override reason (such as Family emergency) and clicks OK. If Other is selected, the user must enter an Activity Comment to describe the reason.

Example: A teacher's user role does not have an edit privilege level assigned to it, so he does not need to enter an override reason for attendance records. However, the attendance administrator is assigned an edit privilege level, so she must enter an Override Reason when she edits an attendance record, even if she edits it from the Staff view.

Once an override reason is entered for a daily or class attendance record, teachers (and other staff members without an edit privilege level or with lower edit privilege levels) cannot edit the attendance record.

Attendance History icon and Attendance History pop-up

The Attendance History icon appears when a district (root organization), intermediate organization or school enables the Attendance activity tracking preference. The icon indicates that a student had a daily or class attendance record for that day. It appears on daily and class attendance lists, as well as detail and entry pages.

Click the icon to see a list of attendance activities in the Attendance History pop-up. You can enter an Activity Comment on the pop-up. Once you save the comment, it is read-only like the rest of the pop-up.

The icon is one of three colors. The color indicates the edit privilege level of the last user who entered or edited the attendance record. If the icon is green or yellow, the user can edit the student attendance record (unless the record is read-only for another reason, like an archived record). If the icon is red (meaning that the record was edited and posted by a higher edit-privilege-level user), the attendance record is read-only.

This icon color:	Means that:	And I can:
	I am the last person who entered or edited the attendance record, regardless of my edit privilege level.	Edit the attendance record as many times as needed, until someone with a higher edit privilege level does. Note: A record can be edited unless it is read-only for another reason, like an archived record.
	Someone with the same or lower edit privilege level as me made the most recent edit to the attendance record.	Edit the attendance record. Note: A record can be edited unless it is read-only for another reason, like an archived record.
	Someone with a higher edit privilege level made the most recent edit to the attendance record.	View, but not edit, the attendance record.

Example: The teachers at Parkview School do not have edit privilege levels associated with their user roles. During homeroom attendance, a teacher marks a student absent. If this teacher (or someone else) views the class attendance list page, he sees a green attendance icon, indicating there is an attendance history record for that day. The teacher can edit the attendance record. Parkview's principal has an edit privilege level of 2. When the student arrives late, the principal changes the attendance record from absent to tardy. The icon now appears red to the teacher (read-only), but green to the principal, since she was the last person to edit the record. If the teacher is the only other person taking attendance, then he can edit any other student records for that class, but only the principal or someone with an edit privilege level of 2 or higher can edit that attendance record. Like the school principal, the attendance coordinator has an edit privilege level of 2. The attendance coordinator modifies the attendance record that the principal had edited. The attendance history icon appears green to the attendance coordinator, since he was the last user to edit the record. However, the icon is yellow to the principal, indicating that someone with the same or lower privilege level edited it last. They can both edit the record, if needed. The school's conduct manager has an edit privilege level of 3. When the student cuts class that afternoon, the conduct manager edits the attendance record. The icon appears green to the conduct manager, and he can continue to edit the record. But the icon appears red to the principal and the attendance coordinator, and the record is read-only to them.

Note: The system administrator role has all 5 edit privilege levels enabled by default, and can overwrite edits made by all users.

Attendance activity tracking and Mass Update

If an override reason is required for modifying the records selected for Mass Update, then the Override Reason and Activity Comment fields appear on the Mass Update pop-up. You must select an override reason for Aspen to save any edits in Mass Update. If you select Other, enter an Activity Comment to describe the reason. The selected override reason and activity comment will apply to all records that are updated.

Users who have the Override archive lock date privilege enabled can edit archived records by selecting Force save in Advanced Mass Update (Options > Mass Update > click Advanced).

Example: If a user who does not have the Override archive lock date privilege runs Mass Update, Aspen skips the records with dates prior to the Archive lock date. If the system administrator, whose role has that privilege enabled, runs Advanced Mass Update and selects Force save, Aspen will update all the records, including the archived ones.

Mass Update skips records marked that are read-only or that do not pass validation.

Attendance activity tracking and Modify List

If an override reason is required to modify the records in the list, then the Override Reason and Activity Comment fields appear on the Modify List page. You must enter an Override Reason for Aspen to save any edits in Modify List. If you select Other as the Override Reason, enter an Activity Comment to describe the reason. The selected override reason and activity comment will apply to all records that are modified.

Note: Aspen does not support attendance activity tracking with second daily attendance. You can enable the Second daily attendance preference or the Attendance activity tracking preference, but you should not enable both.