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Implementing tier two or three attendance

Tiers two and three of the attendance module include functionality to write session attendance marks taken in GO 4 Schools back into SIMS. This allows you to record your attendance in GO 4 Schools, but submit your census via SIMS. This will require a change in your GO 4 Schools feed system which we can assist with. When considering a date to start using GO 4 schools to record attendance, you may want to consider:

  • Are you changing MIS?
  • When does the license for your current mechanism for recording attendance expire?
  • Do your network team have plans to work on servers over the holidays which may affect the write-back of marks to your MIS?

Let us know your target date well in advance so we can give appropriate advice. You should have contingency plans in place should the transition be held up for any reason.

Cut-off point

The cut-off point will be the day the last set of attendance marks are entered into your MIS by staff. The cut-off point should be discussed and agreed within the school and all staff made aware, after this time the attendance module will be enabled and the GO 4 Schools feed system will no longer collect attendance data from the MIS. Attendance officers should also ensure that any necessary edits to attendance marks have been made in the MIS by this point.

Flush a full set of attendance marks

This will need to be performed at the end of the day before the attendance module is enabled (usually the cut-off date). This is generally performed by the network management team. See this article for full instructions. Once all of the historic marks have been sent and processed the module will be enabled. It is vital that we are able to contact the network manager and the person responsible for managing this change at the school during the flush through in case any problems occur. The availability of key staff should be considered when deciding the cut-off point and time. For instance, if the cut-off point is 15:00 on Friday and the feeds are re-sent after this time, will key staff be contactable up to and beyond 16:00, or until the task is complete?

Remote session: Checking the writing of attendance marks to your MIS

A remote session with our technical support team will be required to check that attendance marks recorded in GO 4 Schools are written to your MIS successfully. Ideally, this will happen in the morning of the first day of your use of the attendance module.

One of the configuration options during this session is the specification of the schedule for writing attendance marks back to your MIS. Most schools will specify a schedule along the following lines, but the schedule can be changed later if required:

  • Immediately after the closure of the AM registration period.
  • 60 minutes after the closure of the AM registration period to pick up any amendments.
  • Immediately after the closure of the PM registration period.
  • 60 minutes after the closure of the PM registration period to pick up any amendments.

Proxy information required

The functionality that writes back session attendance marks from GO 4 Schools to the MIS requires HTTP proxy information. If required we will need the proxy's address, user name, and password.