Attendance timing

Options suggested by schooltool during conversation on 2nd September:
1. Use teacher attendance format
2. Show attendance grid as view only, to add student data you bring up a form for a specific day which has main column for attendance code, then if applicable (ie if student late or left early) then you have additional columns to fill in the time

Fran: I spoke to rising academies and they thought the way that teacher attendance works might actually be simpler... I'm not entirely convinced though. I have a call with them tomorrow morning so would you please send me through the option 2 mock up and I can talk that through with them.

Tom: Here's the current mockups: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByzBbLzpI0HfUjhSdnltaHJ5Ykk/view?usp=sharing

I can make you a version without the "returned" time, which is necessary for the case when someone leaves and returns. Perhaps that is much less common in your schools than here, but I don't know why that would be the case.

Fran: Ooh I like the simplicity of the pop up dialogue version. Does that mean you keep the current grid form and if Pl is entered then you add in the additional information? And presumably, you would have the option to fill in whatever combination was applicable, with the other fields being --. How would we ensure that this pop up form would be filled in? Would it not be possible to move off it without filling in?

Tom: We could require certain fields be filled in on the dialog. Probably either way we need a slight re-think of the statuses to handle the arrived late/left early scenario, and potentially, arrived on time, left, came back, left on time (and all the variations on that theme). These all don't need separate statuses or anything complicated, but we need to know what code should apply.

Fran: Scenarios on filling in time arrived, time left, time returns
1) Time arrived only filled in = Present - but late
2) Time arrived and time left filled in = Present - but late and left early
3) Time left filled in = Present - but left early
However, in the case of rising academies they are happy for the code to remain as "Present but late and / or left early" so in each scenario the code doesn't actually change so let's just keep it simple for now

Douglas: I think we need two additional settings, one for storing the default number of hours and a preference for the attendance codes that will trigger time usage. These settings could go on the same screen described in the "Flexible day attendance" blueprint. Or we could hardcode the values for now (this won't work if we allow users to set their own attendance score systems). These settings don't affect the estimate that much.

The dialog will be triggered when the user enters one of the codes specified above and will have a Submit button that will save all the previous edits in the journal (same way comments currently work in the gradebook). The dialog will have validation to match times against the preferences defined in the "Flexible day attendance" blueprint (time of arrival can't be before the start time for the period, etc).

When the cell is displayed in the journal these codes will have a tooltip that displays the relevant time fields.

Estimate: 10 hours.

Fran: Just wanted to double check that this pop up dialogue will be applying to teachers as well as students?

Douglas: Yes, it'll apply to teachers too.

Fran: *One question – how will the system know which code to use the pop up box for the time stamp?! We discussed whenever the code “Pl” is used that the box would pop up, however, given we now have flexibility to create the attendance codes, how will the system know this? *

Douglas: Ah sure, I wrote this in the Attendance timing blueprint (see above):

I'm adding a separate fieldset to the Attendance Options view:

Students number of hours: [ ]
Students timestamp trigger codes:

[ ] Present (P)
[X] Present but late and / or left early (Pl) [ ] Absent – sick (As) [ ] Absent – other reason (Ao) [ ] Absent – unknown (Au) [ ] Suspended – behaviour (Sb) [ ] Suspended – fees (Sf)

Teachers number of hours: [ ]
Teachers timestamp trigger codes:

[ ] Present (P)
[X] Present but late and / or left early – authorised (Pl-a) [X] Present but late and / or left early – unauthorised (Pl-u) [ ] Absent – sick (As) [ ] Absent – authorised (Aa) [ ] Absent – non-authorised (An) [ ] Suspended (S) [ ] Not timetabled (NT)

Codes will come from the score system preferences you just customized.

Fran: This is perfect - sorry I missed this before :-)