Double click on Daily Absence(004)

Daily Absence by Class Roster

This will be the primary method for entering absence for your school.  When you set up your courses and enroll students in the classes, Estudiante will create a class roster.  This method of entering absence uses that class roster to create a list of all enrolled students in a format that the data entry person (can be the teacher or a designated staff person) will only need to check off absence for those in the list who are absence.  Click on the screen dump to the left to view the layout of this form.

Absence by Quarter Day

ADE has specified that absence will be recorded and submitted to SAIS in quarter day quanties.  That is a student can be absence for a quarter, half, three-quarter or full day.  To facilitate data entry  a control is provided that allows user to select absence by quarter day as follows.

Select the length of the absence and the total in 1/4 day will be computed.  This total is converted to minutes (based on your school day) before sending to SAIS.

Notice that there are two types of absences i.e. Excused and Unexcused.  These two type are submitted separately to SAIS.

Procedure for entering daily absence base on course roster

1. Select school calendar
2. Select date of absence
3. Select Term--this will populate the course dropdown list which is just to the left of term
4. Select a course from the course dropdown list
   1. This will fill in the class roster list on left side of screen
5. Set the Sort option to sort by student name
6. Click on "Go Course" button---this will add absence records for all students on the roster who are currently enrolled in school.
7. Set the time in quarter days for each absence student for that date
   1. Leave other students record unchanged with zero absence.  Some time later run the "Remove Blank Records" procedure to remove these records.
8. This completes data entry for this course and date.
   1. To enter absence for same course but another date change the date at top of screen and click on "Go Course"
   2. To enter absence for same date but another course select a different course and click on "Go Course"

At this point the absences will be entered in Estudiante database.  Later you will submit absence to SAIS by "Run Absence" procedure.

Sorting by Student Name

To facilitate data entry user may sort the absence record by name.  The options are ascending, descending or none.  After setting the option click on "Go Course" button to reorder the records.

Click to enlarge 20 day roster

Print Roster for Recording Absence

This prints a roster which is handed out to teacher for recording student absence.  The competed report can be used for entering absence into Estudiante.  It also serves as hard copy backup which may be required for audit.

20 Day Roster

Start from Main Menu/Absence and Attendance/Recording Attendance-20 Day Roster.

Fill in the information on the switchboard:

• Select school calendar
• Select a "start date".  This will be the first date on the 20 day roster.
• Select school Term
• Select a course
• Click on "Preview Report" button.

A sample roster screen dump is shown to the left.

Daily Absence by Student

There are several situations where it is advantageous to enter absence for an individual student (rather than by class roster).

1. To enter absence days that had not been entered by other method i.e adding individual absence days.
2. To edit an absence that was incorrectly entered. This would include deleting absence.
3. To view and review absence record for a student

All of these items can be done using the controls that are enclosed in the yellow box on the form as below.

Enter am Absence Day for Student

• After selecting the calendar and absence date find the student name in the "Select Student" dropdown.
• Click on "Add Student".  A absence record will be shown in the list as shown below.

Select the absence duration in quarter days.  In this example student Gregxxx Anderxxx had an excused half day absence.  That is all there is to it.  The absence is in Estudiante database and will be submitted to SAIS will all other absences.

Correct an Absence

• Select students name in the "Select Student" dropdown.
• Set checkbox "View Recent Absence this Student".
  • You could also set checkbox "View All Absence this Student"
  • You can also view this students absence for a specific date by entering a date in upper portion of the form.  Then click on "View By Date" button.
• Click on the "View" button.
• The recent absence for this student will be listed as shown below.
• Find and edit the absence that needs correcting. 

The software will automatically sense the change you made to the absence record and will send the appropriate transaction to SAIS when you Run Absence
 

Review-Browse Absence Records for a Student

The procedure to review is the same as for Correct Absence described above.

How to Delete Absence record

There will be time when it will be necessary to delete a daily absence record. For example, when a student is marked absence when the student has actually left school.  In this case there will be absence records beyond the withdrawal date which must be deleted from both the Estudiante database and the SAIS database.

Start in the Daily Absence section.  You will be using the portion of the screen shown in screen shot to the left.

1. The "Void Me" button will physically delete the record from the Estudiante database (unless the record exist on the SAIS database...see below).
2. The "Delete Me" checkbox sets a flag that tells the program that this transaction is to be deleted from the SAIS database.  The delete absence transaction will be created when you execute the "Run Absence" for this student for this date.

There are two situations where you will need to delete absence transaction records. These will require different actions for deleting the absence record:

1. In one situation the transaction has not been submitted to SAIS.  This case requires a simple deletion of the record in the local database i.e. there is no record in the SAIS database to be deleted.
   1. Click on the "Void Me" will delete the record from Estudiante database.
   2. If you click when the record is already in the SAIS database you will get the message "You can not delete because already submitted to SAIS...".
      
2. The transaction has been submitted to SAIS and a record exist in the SAIS database.
   1. Set the "DeleteMe" flag- see screen dump to left.  This will identify (flag) a record to be deleted.
   2. When you "Run Absence" a Delete Absence transaction will be created.
   3. Submit to SAIS using SAIS Step 1 and the absence will be deleted from the SAIS database.

Run Absence - Submission of absence to ADE/SAIS

Double click on the "Run Absence" menu item. This will open the "Submit Absence to SAIS" form- see screen dump to left.

1. Select the calendar that you have set up for the current year.
2. To submit absence for all student leave the student name blank, otherwise select a student name from the drop down to submit data for a single student.
3. Select a date range over which you want to submit absence. The start and end dates must be scheduled school days.
   Hint: Take advantage of Estudiante Date Select: Highlight a date text box and then click on a date from the "List of School Days".  This will place the date in the selected text box.
    
4. Click on "Run Absence Transactions". This will find all absence data for the specified date range that needs uploading, create all of the necessary transactions and place them in the SAIS upload buffer.
5. Click on "Go to Make File". This will take you to SAIS Support Step 1. Continue as you would with any SAIS submissions.

Re-Submit Absence to SAIS

There are times when absence data will need to be re-submitted to SAIS.  This is because SAIS rules say that all transactions for a student are automatically deleted within the SAIS database when an enrollment for that student is deleted.  In this case there will be a mismatch between Estudiante and SAIS databases i.e. Estudiante incorrectly has the absences recorded.  This requires an exception to how absences are normally submitted.

Since Estudiante believes that the students absence have been submitted; running "Run Absence" will not create any transaction to be sent to SAIS because it seems to Estudinate that all is well and nothing needs to be done.

Use the following procedure to re-submit absence for the student:

1. Open Daily Absence
2. Select Calendar, Student Name and click on View Student
3. For the dates that need to be re-submitted uncheck the following flags
   1. Clean
   2. ActiveSAIS
4. With these flag settings Estudiante will know that the SAIS database needs to be  updated
5. For this student only, run the normal Run Absence and submit data to ADE as you normally would.

Remove Blank Absence Records

Because of the data entry method use, records with zero absence are created and some are not used (no absence entered by the user).  These records will accumulate and will need to be deleted to avoid clutter.

Click on "Remove Blank Records" to delete these records.  Ideally this will be done after each data entry session but definitely should be done before each Run Absence and before running absence reports.

 Report Daily Absence Entered

This is a utility report of absence data during a time interval.  In the sample report to the left the date range is 1-1-2007 to 1-31-2007.  You may also select grade level for the report.

The screen dump of the report input menu should be self explanatory with fields to enter date range and to select grade level.

The report list all absence records with dates within selected interval.  Also shown are some record status flags as follows

• Active SAIS means record has been sent to SAIS
• Clean Flag means there have been no edits that need to be sent to SAIS
• The "2" refers to unexcused absence record

The calendar is for date lookups.  Additionally if the curser is in a date textbox, when you click OK on the calendar the selected date will be transferred to the date textbox.

Main Absence Report

This report give absence as reported to SAIS. It is useful for your own tracking and helpful with audits.

There multiple report parameters as follows:

• By Student Name
• By single date
• By Date Interval

The report has two levels of detail

• Details - daily absence plus details.  This report can be huge so may use "Totals Only" to shorten.
• Totals Only - Includes totals that go into membership.  Also shows totals for grade level.

The screen dumps at left give example of this report and how to select options.