Audience: Schools/DECYP team
Absentee Overview
EdSmart’s Absentee Module is your tool to automate and streamline the administration of absence notifications and responses between schools & parents on a daily basis. The Absentee Module reads absentees automatically from your Student Management System and sends communications to parents of absent students each morning via email and/or text message (SMS). This communication allows parents to submit the reason for absence and anything else you need. Returned forms are available within a student’s record. See below for the Absentee Flow:
Absentee Flow:
Absentee notifications
Absentee notifications are sent to parents guardians to view as an Email and or SMS based on the communication channel preference set in the Student Management System. See below for schedule details:
Absentee Notification schedules | Setting in UI |
---|---|
Slip notifications | 9:00AM, 9:30AM, 10:00AM… 3:00PM |
Frequency | Every 30 minutes, starting at 9:00AM and finishing at 3:00PM |
Total number of notification sent in a day | 13 Notifications. |
Absentee Module Restrictions
Notification schedules and absentee configurations are preset at the head office and cannot be altered at the user level. If you attempt to access these settings, a message will indicate that changes are not permitted on your account.
Additionally, you might see a message stating that absentee slips are not enabled. Please be assured that this is a standard notification and does not impact the functionality of the absentee slips. The feature is active and available for use as per the system's configuration.
The Parent Experience
SMS - Parents receive an SMS as per the notification schedule above.
Parents can respond in two ways
This SMS notification will present two methods for parent to respond:
School’s Phone number - Parents will be prompted to ring the school and explain the absence. Absentee SMS (Place holder image requires confirmation from DECYP)
Form Link - Parents will be presented with a Form URL which will direct them to an EdSmart form requiring submission of the unexplained absence. See image below:
Absentee Form
Email - Parents receive an email with the Absentee Form Link.
Viewing Parent Response - All absentee responses will be stored in EdSmart. This can be accessed via the Parent Slip in EdSmart. Viewing parent slips also enables school staff to update the Internal Absentee Code.
Select Parent Slips from the Navigation panel
The Absentee notification slip will display here
Responses Tab
Viewing options:
View a single student’s parent response
Export a list of all parent responses into a CSV file (this export can take upto 15 minutes and will be emailed directly to the user’s email address.
Edit the parent response - This allows the user to update a parent response on behalf of the parent. This is required when the parent rings the school to provide absentee reasons. Within the responses page (see below):
Select the Edit Button - this displays a the form for the school staff to add/edit the parent response.
Add/Edit the parent response
Add a reason for update: e.g. Parent called the school
Attendance Type:
Explained - Sickness/incapacity
Other Reason
Enter Other reason: Holiday
Intended Return date: Select the date from the date picker
Acknowledge on their behalf
Save Response
Adding a Internal Absentee Code - Staff can edit a Parent Guardian absentee response with an internal Absentee code within the platform. To do so:
Edit Response
Select from the list of Internal absentee codes
As per DECYP guidance transfer these codes to Edupoint to ensure records are matched.