About attendance

You can use Campus Cafe to record and track student attendance.

For credit-based institutions instructors or others can use the attendance roster to mark students absent and/or confirm attendance was taken for the day.

For clock-hour institutions instructors or others can record the number of hours/minutes attended.

Campus Cafe also offers a way for students to record their own attendance.

In all cases, you can use reports to summarize hours attended and absences.

Prerequisites

• Create academic programs.

• Create and schedule courses and include start and end dates and meeting days and times.

Required permissions

Configure attendance 

Custom control ATTEND_VAL, in conjunction with permissions, allows institutions to determine how and when attendance is taken and shown.

1. Go to Admin > Custom Control.

2. In Search enter ATTEND_VAL.

3. Click the pencil.

4. Configure the Parameters:

   • Parameter Value 1: Enter Y to allow attendance to be taken only on days the course is scheduled to meet. This is typical.

   • Parameter Value 2:  Not in use.

   • Parameter Value 3: List of semester status codes separated by commas that indicate attendance shouldn’t be taken for a student while the code applies. For example, a student may not have attendance recorded while on a leave of absence.

   • Parameter Value 4: Enter Y to have Campus Cafe assume attendance was taken only if all enrolled students have clock hours entered.

   • Parameter Value 5: Enter Y to have course rosters show the current date for attendance rather than the entire week.

   • Parameter Value 6: Enter Y to allow attendance to be taken multiple times on the same day. Note if N is entered, course exceptions may not be created with overlapping times.

   • Parameter Value 7: Enter Y to show on the profile page the last date attended override field from the Enrollment History course detail. Enter N to use the course roster last date attended field.

   • Parameter Value 8: Enter Y to have Campus Cafe calculate, for online courses only, the hours the student is expected to attend (scheduled hours) based on their enrollment data rather than the hours on the course screen.

5. Click Save.

6. Go to Admin > Refresh Data Cache.

Define attendance notes

Attendance notes are a defined lists of options presented to the instructor to complement an absence or tardiness. Notes could include explanations such as excused absence or uniform infraction. An instructor may select one note per student per meeting period.

1. Go to Admin > STParm.

2. In Parameter Code enter ATINFR.

3. In Parameter Value enter a code to correspond for the note. For example, for Excused you may enter E.
   
   

   Open

   

4. Click Add.

5. In Description enter the note the instructor will see. For example, Excused.

6. Click Save.

7. Go to Admin > Refresh Data Cache.

Attendance date exceptions

Your institution's academic calendar may include days a course will not meet, such as a holiday. Recording these dates is important so Campus Cafe can generate an accurate list of meeting times and reports.

To reduce data entry, Campus Cafe offers multiple ways you can schedule these exceptions depending on if the exception applies to all your courses or just some.

Date exception for all classes

If attendance isn’t required for certain dates, such as during spring break, you can tell Campus Cafe not to collect attendance during these periods or consider these dates when calculating percent attended.

1. Go to Registrar > Attendance Date Exceptions.

2. Click Add an Exception for 1 or More Dates.

3. In Date enter the start date of the attendance exception.

4. In End Date enter the last day of the exception. If this is the same as the start date, leave this box empty.

5. Click Continue.

6. Click All Classes.

7. Enter an Exception Description. For example, Spring Break.

8. If you select (check) Exception Adds To Accumulated Time, the time for the exception will be added to students' earned clock hours in courses scheduled during the exception. If you don’t select this - which is the typical setting - the time marked as an exception won’t add to students' earned (accrued) clock hours and a make-up day can be scheduled. The makeup day's time will instead be added.

9. Click Add Exception Records.

Date exception for some classes

If attendance isn’t required for certain dates for certain classes, you can tell Campus Cafe not to collect attendance during these periods or consider these dates when calculating percent attended. You might encounter this scenario if, for example, you have multiple academic programs and they have different vacations.

1. Go to Registrar > Attendance Date Exceptions.

2. Click Add an Exception for 1 or More Dates.

3. In Date enter the start date of the attendance exception.

4. In End Date enter the last day of the exception. If this is the same as the start date, leave this box empty.

5. Click Continue.

6. Click Select Specific Classes.

7. Use the filters to narrow your results to only the classes that have the attendance exception and click View Classes. Note, you’ll only see classes scheduled to meet on the days you selected as an exception.

8. Select the classes to apply the exception.

9. Click Continue.

10. Enter an Exception Description. For example, Thanksgiving Break.

11. If you select (check) Exception Adds To Accumulated Time, the time for the exception will be added to students' earned clock hours in courses scheduled during the exception. If you don’t select this - which is the typical setting - the time marked as an exception won’t add to students' earned (accrued) clock hours and a make-up day can be scheduled. The makeup day's time will instead be added.

12. In Exception Start Time enter when the exception begins each day.

13. In Exception End Time enter when the exception begins each day.

14. Click Add Exception Records.

Exception for all meeting dates of a class

You may have some classes where attendance isn’t required. You can tell Campus Cafe to ignore these courses for attendance.

1. Go to Registrar > Attendance Date Exceptions.

2. Click Add an Exception for 1 or More Classes.

3. Use the filters to narrow your results to only the classes that have the attendance exception and click View Classes. Note, you’ll only see classes scheduled to meet on the days you selected as an exception.

4. Select the classes to apply the exception.

5. Click Continue.

6. At the top of the screen click All Dates.

7. Enter an Exception Description.

8. If you select (check) Exception Adds To Accumulated Time, the time for the exception will be added to students' earned clock hours in courses scheduled during the exception. If you don’t select this - which is the typical setting - the time marked as an exception won’t add to students' earned (accrued) clock hours and a make-up day can be scheduled. The makeup day's time will instead be added.

9. In Exception Start Time enter when the exception begins each day.

10. In Exception End Time enter when the exception begins each day.

11. Click Add Exception Records.

Exception for a daily scheduled break

You can record an exception for a break that will occur every day, such as lunch break.

1. Go to Registrar > Attendance Date Exceptions.

2. Click Add an Exception for 1 or More Classes.

3. Use the filters to narrow your results to only the classes that have the attendance exception and click View Classes. Note, you’ll only see classes scheduled to meet on the days you selected as an exception.

4. Select the classes to apply the exception and click Continue.

5. In Date enter the start date of the attendance exception and in End Date enter the last day of the exception. If this is the same as the start date, leave this box empty. If the exception is for the entire semester, enter the start date of the semester for the start date and the last day of the semester for the end date.

6. Click Select Days in Date Range.

7. Enter an Exception Description. For example, lunch break.

8. If you select (check) Exception Adds To Accumulated Time, the time for the exception will be added to students' earned clock hours in courses scheduled during the exception. If you don’t select this - which is the typical setting - the time marked as an exception won’t add to students' earned (accrued) clock hours and a make-up day can be scheduled. The makeup day's time will instead be added.

9. Enter the Exception Start Time and End Time. For example, 12:00pm - 12:30pm.

10. Click Add Exception Records.

Make up day/time

If a class will meet outside its normally scheduled time and you want those hours to factor into student attendance, you must create an exception. For example, perhaps a class scheduled to meet Mondays from 9-10 has a class cancelled due to inclement weather and will meet one Tuesday from 9-10 to make up for the missed class.

1. Go to Registrar > Course Finder.

2. Click Add Course.

3. In Course Semester select the semester in which the course exception (e.g make-up day) is being scheduled.

4. In Course Number enter the full course code e.g. MTH101

5. In Course Section enter the section number. e.g. 01

6. In Course Exception enter a number or letter to identify the exception. e.g. A

7. Click Add.

8. On the Course tab enter the Begin Date and End Date of the exception (e.g make-up day).

9. On the Location tab enter select the day(s) of the week of the exception and its From and To times.

10. Click Save.

Understand the impact of semester status history

If your institution allows students to take leaves of absence during a portion of a semester when they are enrolled in class, you may want to exclude this time on leave from the the time the student is expected to attend class.

For example, if student Caroline D’Amico takes a two-week leave in the middle of the semester but otherwise has perfect attendance, the institution would consider his attendance rate 100%.

The attendance reports will exclude dates during which a student was on leave as noted by a semester status history applied to the student and configured as a leave of absence.

Create the attendance schedule (course dates creation)

Each night Campus Cafe evaluates your courses and creates attendance patterns for them based on their meeting dates and times. Campus Cafe runs this process nightly for the semester set in Reg. Control as well as any semesters with numerical codes +/- 100 from the semester set in Reg. Control.

You can manually trigger this process at any time.

1. Go to Registrar > Course Dates Creation.

2. In Semester select an academic period.

3. Click Submit.

Classes without scheduled days

If the course location tab doesn’t have any days of the week selected and the course dates creation process is run, the course will still have dates scheduled. Campus Cafe will first determine the day of the week corresponding to the course start date. Campus Cafe will then schedule a course date for the start date and one for the same day of the week for every week until the course end date. These records are ignored in the clock hour reports.

150% date attendance (clock hour only)

Your academic programs have expected time frames for completion. For example, students may be expected to complete a certificate in a year. However, students may fall behind, especially if they take an approved leave of absence.

To accommodate this, Campus Cafe has two settings, one to adjust a course's end dates to 150% of the expected program length for attendance purposes and the other to adjust the degree's 150% Date Override when a degree row is created.

If Custom Control ATTEND_150 is set to Y:  

1. When a course is created, either through the course copy function or add a course (if Custom Control CRSDATECPY is set to Y), then the end date of the course will be the program length 150% from the semester dates table.

2. The Course Roster will look at the degree's 150% Date Override (not the original end date) when determining if attendance may be taken for that student on that date. No attendance may be taken after the degree has ended.

3. All Clock Hour Reports will use the degree's 150% Date Override as the end date if 150% override date is filled out. If the 150% override is blank it will still use the degree's end date.  This means the default end date on the Clock Hour Report, as well as batch reports, will use that date. 

If Custom Control DEGREE_OVR = Y and ATTEND_150 = Y:  

When a degree row is created, the degree's 150% Date Override will be populated with the program length 150% from the semester date maintenance record. This only is true for degrees whose majors are clock hour majors.