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 & Parent Guardians on a daily basis. The Absentee Module reads absentees automatically from your Student Management System and sends communications to Parent Guardians of absent students each morning via email and/or text message (SMS). This communication allows Parent Guardians to submit the reason for absence. Returned forms are available within a student’s record. See below for the Absentee Flow:
Absentee Flow:
Absentee notifications
Absentee notifications are sent to Parent Guardians 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 Guardian Experience
SMS - Parent Guardians receive an SMS as per the notification schedule above.
Parent Guardians can respond in two ways
This SMS notification will present two methods for Parent Guardian to respond:
School’s Phone number - Parent Guardians will be prompted to ring the school and explain the absence.
Absentee SMS (Place holder image requires confirmation from DECYP)Form Link - Parent Guardians 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 - Parent Guardians receive an email with the Absentee Form Link.
Viewing Parent Guardian Response - All absentee responses will be stored in EdSmart. This can be accessed via the Parent Guardian Slip in EdSmart. Viewing Parent Guardian slips also enables school staff to update the Internal Absentee Code.
Select Parent Guardian Slips from the Navigation panel
The Absentee notification slip will display here
Responses Tab
Viewing options:
View a single student’s Parent Guardian response
Export a list of all Parent Guardian 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 Guardian response - This allows the user to update a Parent Guardian response on behalf of the Parent Guardian. This is required when the Parent Guardian 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 Guardian response.
Add/Edit the Parent Guardian response
Add a reason for update: e.g. Parent Guardian 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 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.