Excuses

Record the absence excuses guardians give, approve or reject requests, and take an excuse back when needed.

What it is for

When a guardian tells the school their child will be or was absent, the excuse is recorded here with its days, its reason and the name of whoever gave it. An approved excuse is applied to the days, so the absence becomes “Excused” and no notice goes out about it.

Who uses it

The page opens for whoever holds “View excuses”, to look only, or “Manage and approve excuses”, to work in it. In the built-in roles: Owner, Manager, Team member, Principal, Stage supervisor, Counselor. They are granted to any role under Settings → Roles and permissions.

Step by step

Press “Export Excel” to download the whole list, not the fifty rows on screen, under the filters and tab shown and with the page's own columns; the health reason “sick” and the office's note beside it are withheld from anyone without its key; “Print” prints the page under the group's letterhead, naming the school and the class you picked. An export is recorded as a count of rows.
Pick the school, the stage, the grade and the class above (each list holds only what is inside the one before it, and picking a class fills in the rest), then press “Add an excuse” and choose the pupil, the days and the reason, and type the name of whoever gave the excuse.
An excuse the office records is approved at once and applied to its days. If you want it as a request to review, tick “Record it as a request to review” and it waits for your decision.
Turn on “Tell the guardians” if you want a message naming the pupil and the days, without the reason, sent to the guardians recorded to receive messages for them.
When a guardian asks for an excuse from the family page, the bell tells you if you hold the key to manage excuses at the pupil's school; the notice names nobody. A count beside “Excuses” in the menu shows how many requests are not yet decided in your schools, and is not shown when there are none.
“Awaiting review” holds every request not yet decided, whatever its dates: press “Approve” or “Reject”. On “Reject” you choose the reason from your group's list, which its manager edits under “Settings → Lists” (it starts with: not enough documents, the dates do not match, outside the school's policy, other): the guardian who asked sees it on the family portal and it shows on the request's row here. The guardian who asked, alone and if recorded to receive messages, gets a message with the decision within a minute: “accepted”, or “not accepted” with the reason's word from the list, never a reason ticked “Health data”.
The reason lists (excuses, exit permits, custom statuses and excuse rejections) are edited by the group's manager under “Settings → Lists”. On the excuse, exit-permit and rejection lists a health value is ticked “Health data”, as “sick” is: only someone given the key for health reasons sees or chooses it, and no decision message names it; the tick cannot come off a value a record holds. A reason removed from a list stays on what it was recorded with and is offered for nothing recorded after it.
To correct an excuse in force, a request or an approved one, press “Edit” on its row: change its days, its reason or its note and save. If you change the days of an approved excuse it is taken off its old days and applied to the new ones.
To take back an approved excuse press the bin icon: the records of its days go back as they were, and it stays on the deleted tab where it can be brought back.

How it works

An approved excuse changes what was recorded for its days without losing it: an absence becomes “Excused”, a late arrival stays late linked to the excuse, and a present day is left alone. Each record's status before the excuse is kept so taking the excuse back restores it. A closed day is touched by an excuse only if you hold the key for changing closed days. Changing the days of an approved excuse takes it off its old days and applies it to the new ones, and a closed day is touched only by someone holding that key; the health reason “sick” and its note cannot be changed by someone who cannot see them. A request from a guardian no longer linked to the pupil cannot be approved and can be rejected. The reason “sick” is health data: only someone given the key to see health reasons sees or chooses it, and everyone else sees “Reason withheld” and not the excuse's note. Every action is logged with numbers and dates, without the reason, the note or the name of whoever gave the excuse.

On the page

The school, stage, grade and class (each list inside the one before it, and “All classes” goes back to every class), the period and the status. As your role's scope allows.
How many requests are not yet decided; press to see them all, whatever their dates.
The excuses: the pupil, the days, the reason, who gave it and the status, with “Approve” and “Reject” for requests, “Edit” for an excuse in force and the bin to take an excuse back.
“Add an excuse” records an excuse for a pupil of the chosen class.

Part of these flows

A pupil's year on one page

Questions

Why can't I see an excuse's reason?: Because it is “sick”, which is health data seen only by someone given the key for health reasons; ask the manager of the group if you need it.
Why can't I approve this request?: Because the guardian who made it is no longer linked to the pupil, or it has already been decided. You can reject it.
Why did a closed day not change despite the excuse?: Because changing a closed day needs the key for changing closed days; without it an excuse is applied only to days still open.
How do I delete a record in “Deleted” permanently?: From the “Deleted” tab: “Delete permanently” on the record, or “Delete all permanently” above the tab after typing the count, which takes every deleted record of the kind in all of {{customer.the}}, whatever the page's filter shows. It takes the “Permanent delete” permission, the owner's, and a fresh code from the authenticator app each time. A record other records still point to stays, and what holds it is named. A person's record has its personal data erased that night, and a row with no name stays in the records. The backups keep a copy for a few weeks, then it is gone.