The Attendance Calendar screen is used to set the days that classes are in session, as well as set school holidays or in-service days. Setting up the attendance calendar correctly is imperative for attendance to function properly in Focus.
If your school uses a rotation schedule, the rotation days are also set on the attendance calendar. For Texas districts or other districts where the FTE period for attendance varies by day, the FTE period is set on each school day on the attendance calendar. Multiple attendance calendars can be set up for a school, which is especially useful for schools that have multiple rotation schedules or post-secondary schools where students have different school days.
Attendance calendars and/or calendar dates can be copied from one school to another. It may be useful to create a default district attendance calendar in one school and copy the attendance calendar and/or calendar dates to the rest of the schools using the Copy School feature.
A calendar is assigned to a student in the Enrollment record, while a calendar is assigned to a section in Courses & Sections.
School or district events are now set up in Users > Calendar.
1. In the Setup menu, click Attendance Calendar.
2. Click Create a new calendar.
3. Enter a Title for the calendar.
"Default" is the preferred calendar title for the calendar that will be used by the majority of schools.
4. To make this calendar the default for the school, select Default Calendar for this School.
One calendar must be set as the default. The default calendar will be selected by default when adding a new student to the school and when adding a new section of a course.
5. Select the dates for the first day of school and the last day of school.
6. Select the days that are typically school days. In most cases, leave Monday though Friday selected. Focus will auto-populate the calendar with Monday through Friday selected as school days.
7. Click OK.
The calendar is displayed. Green check marks are populated on the school days selected in the previous step.
8. For school holidays or in-service days, click the green check mark on the day to select it for editing, then click it again to deselect the check box. This removes the day as an attendance day.
9. Click Update to save the changes. Be sure to click Update before navigating to a different month or year.
10. Use the month and year pull-downs to navigate to a different month or year of the calendar.
The "Populate this calendar" link is used to populate dates on an existing calendar. This may be used if the calendar was rolled from one year to the next, and the dates need to be updated.
1. Select the calendar from the pull-down at the top-left corner of the screen.
2. Click Populate this calendar.
3. Select the dates for the first day of school and the last day of school.
4. Select the days that are typically school days. In most cases, leave Monday though Friday selected. Focus will auto-populate the calendar with Monday through Friday selected as school days.
5. Click OK.
The updated calendar is displayed. Green check marks are populated on the school days selected in the previous step.
6. For school holidays or in-service days, click the green check mark on the day to select it for editing, then click it again to deselect the check box. This removes the day as an attendance day.
7. Click Update. Be sure to click Update before navigating to a different month or year.
8. Use the month and year pull-downs to navigate to a different month or year of the calendar.
If your school uses a rotation schedule, rotation days can be automatically populated on the calendar. Then, rotation days can be manually tweaked as needed. Rotation days should be populated after holidays and in-service days have already been deselected on the calendar so that these days are skipped.
The profile permission "Edit Rotation Day" for the Attendance Calendar in Users > Profiles controls the ability to set the rotation days on the calendar. The district may give certain school users the "Edit Rotation Day" profile permission and not the general "Edit" profile permission for the Attendance Calendar, giving those users the ability to set the rotation days but not edit the calendar itself.
In Setup > System Preferences > Scheduling tab, ensure the preferences "Advanced Rotation" and "Rotation Day Label" are set correctly before populating the calendar with rotation days.
1. Select the calendar from the pull-down at the top-left corner of the screen.
2. Click Populate this calendar.
3. Click Rotation Days.
4. Select the first day of school and the last day of school.
5. Select the rotation day for the first day of school in the Block pull-down.
6. Click OK.
The calendar is displayed, populated with rotation days on the days school is in session.
7. To manually change a rotation day for a date, click the rotation day on the calendar to enable it for editing, and then select the rotation day from the pull-down.
8. Click Update. Be sure to click Update before navigating to a different month or year.
If your school uses a rotation schedule, rotation days can be manually set on the calendar if you do not want to use the "Populate this calendar" feature.
The profile permission "Edit Rotation Day" for the Attendance Calendar in Users > Profiles controls the ability to set the rotation days on the calendar. The district may give certain school users the "Edit Rotation Day" profile permission and not the general "Edit" profile permission for the Attendance Calendar, giving those users the ability to set the rotation days but not edit the calendar itself.
In Setup > System Preferences > Scheduling tab, ensure the preferences "Advanced Rotation" and "Rotation Day Label" are set correctly before populating the calendar with rotation days.
1. Select the calendar from the pull-down at the top-left corner of the screen.
2. For each school day on the calendar, select the rotation day from the pull-down.
3. Click Update. Be sure to click Update before navigating to a different month or year.
When more than one bell schedule is set up in Setup > Periods, the bell schedule can be set on school days in the Attendance Calendar. For example, your school may have one bell schedule set up for regular school days, and one set up for early release days. On the Attendance Calendar, the regular bell schedule can be set on regular school days, and the early release bell schedule can be set on early release days. The kiosk, mobile app, smart Portal attendance alerts, and attendance minutes take the bell schedule into account.
The profile permission "Edit Bell Schedule" for the Attendance Calendar in Users > Profiles controls the ability to set the bell schedule on each calendar day. The district may give certain school users the "Edit Bell Schedule" profile permission and not the general "Edit" profile permission for the Attendance Calendar, giving those users the ability to edit the bell schedule but not the calendar itself.
When "N/A" is selected on the calendar day, the bell schedule set on the section is used. When a bell schedule option is selected on the calendar day, the selected bell schedule option is used for all sections.
1. Selet the calendar from the pull-down at the top-left corner of the screen.
2. On each day that school is in session, select the bell schedule from the pull-down.
3. Click Update to save the selected bell schedule on the calendar day. Be sure to click Update before navigating to a different month or year.
1. Select the calendar from the pull-down at the top-left corner of the screen.
2. Click Edit/Delete this calendar.
3. Edit the Title or select the Default Calendar for this School check box as needed.
4. Click Save.
Deleting a calendar could cause lost data and affect many other areas of Focus, including attendance.
1. Select the calendar from the pull-down at the top-left corner of the screen.
2. Click Edit/Delete this calendar.
3. Click Delete.
4. In the confirmation message, click Delete.
For Texas districts or other districts where the FTE period for attendance varies based on the day, the FTE period can be automatically populated on the calendar using the "Populate this calendar" link and then manually tweaked as needed. FTE periods should be populated after holidays and in-service days have already been deselected on the calendar so that these days are skipped. The system preference "Attendance Period for FTE" must be set to "Varies by Day" in Setup > System Preferences > Attendance tab in order to set the FTE period on the calendar.
1. Select the calendar from the pull-down at the top-left corner of the screen.
2. Click Populate this calendar.
3. Click FTE Period.
4. Select the Start Date and End Date.
5. Select the FTE Period.
The selected FTE period will be populated on all school days between the start date and end date. If using rotation days, there will be an FTE Period option for each rotation day.
6. Click OK.
The calendar is displayed, populated with the FTE periods.
7. To manually change an FTE period for a date, click the FTE period on the calendar to enable it for editing, and then select the period from the pull-down.
8. Click Update. Be sure to click Update before navigating to a different month or year.
For Texas districts or other districts where the FTE period for attendance varies based on the day, the FTE period can be manually set on the calendar if you do not want to use the "Populate this calendar" feature. The system preference "Attendance Period for FTE" must be set to "Varies by Day" in Setup > System Preferences > Attendance tab in order to set the FTE period on the calendar.
1. Select the calendar from the pull-down at the top-left corner of the screen.
2. For each school day on the calendar, select the FTE period from the pull-down.
3. Click Update. Be sure to click Update before navigating to a different month or year.