Attendance

Users with relevant permissions can enter classroom attendance in GradesFirst.

Find a Course

To access the Attendance Tracking screen, click the Record Class Attendance link in the Options menu on the right side of your home page.

To take attendance, first locate the course for which attendance is to be taken.  You can use the Filter Course, Location, Professor field to automatically narrow down the search grid.  For instance, if you wish to look for only those courses offered in Yates Hall, simply type in “Yates” in the filter and press <enter>.  The search grid will then automatically narrow down the results and only show you those courses offered at that location.

Filter by Student Criteria

If you would rather search by student criteria e.g. category, tag, classification, major, students at-risk. Simply click in one of the fields and you will see the options available to you. You may also click on the plus icon to open up additional fields for the selection you have chosen in the event you would like to search by: Any of these, None of these or All of these in the criteria. 

You can also narrow the search results down to only classes happening right now by checking the Classes in Progress checkbox.

Once you find the course and section, click the Record Absences link. The system will then display the Record Absences screen.

Record Absences

Mark each student Present, Absent, or Tardy. Designate an absence as excused by checking the checkbox in the Excused? column.  Comments can also be entered on a per student, per incident basis. Then, click Save Attendance.

If you prefer to mark all students as present and don't want to select each individual student in the class, there are two places you can accomplish this. One is from the Actions menu dropdown. Click on the menu and you will see the option to Mark All Present. 

Mark All Present

This feature allows professors to mark all students as present rather than indicating attendance for each individual.

Clear

Click this option if you would like to clear all of your selections from the screen. 

Mark Remaining Present

This check box is on the left side of the screen just below the grid and allows professors to mark all remaining students as “Present.”

Comment

This button allows you to record comments about the student and his or her absence. 

Professors recording class attendance

Professors also have a link to record record attendance. To access the Attendance Tracking screen, click the Record My Class Attendance link in the Options menu on the right side of your home page.

Record My Class Attendance

To take attendance, first locate the course on the left side of the screen for which attendance is to be taken. Selecting the radio button for the course will bring up the course results. You may also use the Choose a Date option if you wish, to select a day that a course is scheduled for. 

Mark each student Present, Absent, or Tardy. Designate an absence as excused by checking the checkbox in the Excused? column. 

If you prefer to mark all students as present and don't want to select each individual student in the class, there are two places you can accomplish this. One is from the Actions menu dropdown. Click on the menu and you will see the option to Mark All Present. 

Mark All Present

This feature allows professors to mark all students as present rather than indicating attendance for each individual.

Clear

Click this option if you would like to clear all of your selections from the screen. 

Mark Remaining Present

This check box is on the left side of the screen just below the grid and allows professors to mark all remaining students as “Present.”

Toggle Pattern/Comment

This button allows you to record comments about the student and his or her absence toggling between the attendance patterns and comments entered. Comments can also be entered on a per student, per incident basis. When you are all done, click Save Attendance. 

Adding a Progress Report

For each student in the class, the professor also has the option to add a progress report. Once the progress report is entered and saved, notifications can be delivered to advisors etc and inform them of the students current state. 

To Excel

This link exports all of the classes recorded attendance to Excel, allowing for quick and easy manipulation, printing, saving, etc.

Census

This link will direct you to a page where you can fill out the last day of attendance for those students who are no longer active in your course. This is commonly referred to as an Attendance Audit or Course Census.  Click the “Show all” link to enter a student’s Last Day of Attendance or mark them as a No-Show.

Note: Adding a Last Day of Attendance will no longer allow you to take attendance for a student.

View Attendance Information

Also, clicking the number of absences (the total number of absences is the number outside of the parentheses- the number of unexcused absences is the number on the inside of the parentheses) will generate a list view of all those student’s absences.

You can also select “Detailed View” to get more details about each of the absences for a student.