Attendance tracking

Discover how to effectively manage attendance lists in Activity Messenger, including tracking arrivals and departures, sending messages, and managing groups. Use these tools to improve communication with your participants and their parents.

To access the attendance lists, click on Courses. Select All attendance lists, Today, or choose a "specific list."

When selecting an attendance list, you will see all the registered participants. For example, if you choose a list for Tuesday, July 2nd, you will see the registrations for that date.

Each activity or course has its own attendance list. You can rename the list, grant access to your staff, assign labels to it, and archive it.

The attendance tracking tool in Activity Messenger allows your staff (coaches, teachers, and camp counselors) to take attendance using a smartphone or tablet.

# Attendance lists

Arrival and Departure:

Mark the arrival and departure of participants. The arrival time will be recorded automatically. A second option for arrival and departure is available in cases where participants leave for lunch, for example.

Adjusting Times:

Click the arrival or departure button again to modify or remove the attendance.

# 

Detailed Information: Click on a participant to view additional information.

• Morning and evening childcare options
• Password for picking up the child
• Pairing with a friend
• Form completion
• Emergency contacts
• Medical information
• Responses to additional questions

Add Notes:

• Add specific notes for a participant. These notes will only be visible for that specific day.
• Add notes for the entire class. Notes for a specific day will only be visible for that day.
• Add notes for the course. These notes will remain for the entire duration of the course or session.

Groups and Filtering:

• Create and manage groups (e.g., beginners, advanced). Filter the list by group for easier management.
• Use the search function to quickly find a participant by their last name or first name.

# Communication with Parents 

From the attendance list, send messages by email or SMS to parents. Select the relevant participants or the entire group.

# Other features

Waivers and Permissions:

Check if the necessary waivers are completed by the participants, and share the forms with parents if needed.

Ticketing:

Use the ticket scanner feature to manage entries at ticketed events with Activity Messenger.

Adding Participants:

Add new participants to an attendance list, transfer participants from one course to another, and complete the necessary information.

Exporting and Printing Attendance Reports:

View, export, and print attendance reports for analysis or record-keeping.

# Access and permissions 

Go to the "All Attendance Lists" page to manage access.

Access Management:

Determine who has access to which attendance lists. Administrators can grant specific permissions to facilitators.

# "Today" functionality 

Daily Overview: The "Today" function compiles all registrations for the day. Use it for quick communications, such as canceling a class.

# Import your courses from an Excel or CSV file

Click the Courses menu and choose All Attendance Lists. Click (+) to import your lists. Follow the on-screen instructions.

The screen uses the Excel/CSV file import engine. Consult this document to obtain the format of the files and columns. You can use the following files as examples: Excel (.xlsx) and CSV (.csv).

# Export to Excel

You can export one or multiple attendance lists to Excel. Click on the bulk export menu and Export to Excel.

# Importing attendance from Excel/CSV

From the Classes menu, click on All attendance lists. Click on (+) to import attendance. Follow instructions.

Importing uses Activity Messenger's Excel/CSV import engine. Read those docs to find out supported columns. You can also download these samples to adapt your Student report exports: Excel (.xlsx) and CSV (.csv).

# Importing attendance from Amilia

From the Classes menu, click on All attendance lists. Click on (+) to import attendance. Click on the Amilia tab. You can import multiple activities from a program. Each activity will have its own attendance list. Each attendance list will have multiple attendance sheets - one per occurrence.

Attendance lists imported from Amilia are always kept in sync. Changes made in Amilia will automatically be synchronized. This includes new registrations, class schedule changes and even participant contact information changes.

# Importing attendance from Active Network

From the Classes menu, click on All attendance lists. Click on (+) to import attendance. Click on the Active Network tab. Follow instructions.

You will import an Excel file you previously exported from a Custom Report in Active Network. In your Custom Report, export the following columns:

• Primary P/G: First name
• Primary P/G: Last name
• Primary P/G: Cell phone number
• Primary P/G: Email address
• Participant: Name
• Participant: Date of birth
• Participant: Grade
• Season name
• Session name
• Session start date
• Session start time
• Session end date
• Session end time
• Session location

Activity Messenger will automatically detect a weekly recurrence looking at the session start and session end dates and times. You can then remove exception dates right before import.

You can download this Excel file to view a Custom Report sample: Excel (.xlsx).

# Importing attendance from iClassPro

From the Classes menu, click on All attendance lists. Click on (+) to import attendance. Click on the iClassPro tab. Follow instructions.

Importing from iClassPro uses Activity Messenger's Excel/CSV import engine. Read those docs to find out supported columns. You can also download these samples to adapt your Student report exports: Excel (.xlsx) and CSV (.csv).
 

# Importing attendance from Sport-plus

From the Classes menu, click on All attendance lists. Click on (+) to import attendance. Click on the Sport-plus tab. Follow instructions.

Importing from Sport-plus uses Activity Messenger's Excel/CSV import engine. Read those docs to find out supported columns. You can also download this sample to use as an example: Excel (.xlsx).

# Importing attendance from Skytech MIA

From the Classes menu, click on All attendance lists. Click on (+) to import attendance. Click on the Skytech MIA tab. Follow instructions.

Importing from Sport-plus uses Activity Messenger's Excel/CSV import engine. Read those docs to find out supported columns. You can also download this sample to use as an example: Excel (.xlsx).

# Assigning class to staff

Activity Messenger allows you to assign classes to specific staff. The permission level for coaches and camp counsellors is called Instructor. Read the permissions documentation to learn how to invite staff.

Instructors are limited to seeing classes that you assign. Click on the staff edit button. The class Settings popup appears. Select staff that can track attendance for this class.

# Tracking attendance

Each attendance list has one attendance sheet per occurrence or per day. Click on a list to access the sheet of the next occurrence.

Top left is the date of the current attendance sheet. You can click on the dropdown to access other days.

The cog button allows you to provide coaches and instructions with context about the class or activity. You can also modify the assigned staff.

Simply click on the check-in and check-out switches to track attendance. The system will record the date and time. Use the comment field if the child temporarily leaves for lunch or for an appointment.

Click on a row to expand it and access a participant's information card. You will find information about the contact owner, the second parent, emergency contacts, medical information and answers to extra questions. You also have access to the filled form.

# Changing the check-in or check-out date and time

If you need to modify the check-in or check-out date and time, you can do so by clicking again the toggle. A popup will give you that option. You can decide to clear the check-in or check-out time, or you can modify the date and time.

# Checking that a form was filled

If you use Activity Messenger's forms or waivers, you can select a form to check if it was filled for each participant. For example choose your COVID-19 screening form. You can even ask the system to check that it was filled the day of the camp.

An extra column Form filled will be added indicating Yes if it was filled, or No if it was not. Activity Messenger cross references the contact emails of the participant and his/her name. This covers the situation where mom is the main email on file yet dad filled in the form with his email. As long as dad's email is also on file, Activity Messenger will find a match.

Activity Messenger will display a question mark (?) symbol when the name of the participant does not match. You can easily access the PDF to double check.

# Pass or fail form questions

If you are running COVID-19 screening, Activity Messenger can flag forms that have not correctly answered all questions. It will write Pass or Fail in the filled form column depending on answers provided by the respondent.

Activity Messenger will compare answers with the Fail value in the configuration of the Radio button questions. If any answer matches the Fail value criteria, the check will fail.

For example, assuming your form contains these 3 questions, you can set their respective Fail values. To ignore the answer of a question, leave it blank.

# Vaccination check

Some provinces and states have implemented COVID-19 vaccination passports. Your organization may require that participants show proof of vaccination before attending a class. Activity Messenger allows you to track vaccination in Attendance lists.

Open an attendance list and expand a participant row. Under the Medical information, there will be a toggle called Vaccinated. Turn it on when you have verified proof of vaccination. That toggle will remain active for future occurrences of the class.

Activity Messenger shows a green syringe icon next to the participant that was vaccinated. With a glimpse you can quickly spot who is and who is not vaccinated.

# Tracking vaccination checks across multiple classes

By default Activity Messenger will track vaccination check per class. For example if a participant is in two classes, toggling Vaccinated in one class will not toggle in the other class.

You can change the behavior to apply across all classes. From the Classes menu, choose the "Vaccination check" option. A popup will allow you to change the setting.

# Deleting all vaccination checks

If you require deletion of vaccination checks, you can do so from the "Vaccination check" settings popup. Click on the Delete button. The deletion will be permanent. It will not be possible to recover this data.
 

# Send an email or an SMS

You can select one or multiple participants. Then click on Message to send them an email or a text message. You can decide to send the email to the account owner (main email on file), the participant (when the child has their own email) or all contacts on file.