Attendance message wordings

Write the text of the absence, lateness and arrival-after-absence notices in your own words, for one school or the group, and submit it to WhatsApp for approval.

What it is for

The platform sends attendance notices by a default text. Here you write your own for each status: absence, lateness, or arrival after an absence notice. A notice uses it by itself, and you see it move here from a draft, to submitted, to approved on WhatsApp.

Who uses it

The page opens for whoever holds “View attendance message wordings”, to look only, or “Manage Pupil affairs settings: shifts, message wordings and reason lists”, to work in it. In the built-in roles: Owner, Manager, Team member, Principal. They are granted to any role under Settings → Roles and permissions.

Step by step

1. Press “Add a wording”, choose the status, then the school or “Every school of the group”.
2. Type a name your team knows, and the message text in Arabic, and in English if you wish.
3. Press the variable buttons to put them in the text: the guardian's name, the pupil's name, “your son / your daughter” with the name, the date, the class, the school, and the minutes late (in a lateness wording only). You see the message as it arrives on a phone, with invented examples for a girl or a boy. Do not start or end the text with a variable, and do not put two side by side: the page tells you as you type.
4. Press “Save the wording”: it is submitted to WhatsApp for approval if WhatsApp is connected, otherwise it stays a draft.
5. Check its state in the “WhatsApp” column. If WhatsApp refuses it, change the text and save again; a new version is submitted.
6. To stop a wording press the bin icon; the notice falls back to the group's wording or the platform's text, and you can bring it back.

How it works

A notice picks its status's wording by itself: the pupil's school's first, then the group's, then the platform's text. There is only one wording for each status in each place. Every change to the text is a new version submitted to WhatsApp, and WhatsApp uses it only once approved; until then the platform's text goes. In text messages your text is used as you wrote it. Do not write an absence's reason or health data in the text: it goes as written to every guardian. The audit log never keeps a wording's text, only its status and place. “The guardian's name” is the name of whoever the message goes to, not the pupil's, so the pupil has a variable of their own: do not write “your son” followed by the guardian's name. “Your son / your daughter” with the name picks the word by the gender recorded on the pupil's file: “your son” for a boy, “your daughter” for a girl, and where no gender is recorded «ابنكم/ابنتكم» (son/daughter) and then the name (“your child” in an English text message). The minutes late are written with their unit (“12 minutes”), so do not add a word for minutes after it; where none was recorded it reads “some time”. The names in the preview are invented, not a real pupil's. The WhatsApp templates page sets which template each of the platform's purposes goes by, in its “Purposes” section.

On the page

• The school and the status. The wordings of the schools your role's scope covers, and the group's.
• Which template each purpose goes by is set on the WhatsApp templates page, in its “Purposes” section.
• The wordings: their status, place and text, where each stands on WhatsApp, and the edit button and the bin.
• “Add a wording” opens a new wording for a status and a place.

Questions

Why did the page say WhatsApp would refuse my text?

Because it has something WhatsApp refuses: it starts or ends with a variable, has two side by side, or has too many for its words. It is saved for text messages to use; change it to submit it to WhatsApp.

Why does the notice still go by the default text?

Because WhatsApp has not approved your wording yet, or it is deactivated, or the pupil's school has another wording for this status.

What does the notice say when the pupil's gender is not recorded?

It says «ابنكم/ابنتكم» (your son/daughter) and then the pupil's name; an English text message says “your child”. Record the pupil's gender on their file for it to say “your son” or “your daughter”.

Why is the “minutes late” button grey?

Because the minutes late exist only in a lateness notice; the button works in a wording for the “Lateness” status alone, and the page says so if you write it in another.

Why can't I add a wording for the whole group?

It needs a grant over the whole group; someone granted over one school adds wordings for their school only.

Why did a notice written before the WhatsApp templates were approved not go out?

Because WhatsApp delivers a message the school starts only through a template it has approved. SchoolOS's own templates (the attendance notice, the message and the optional message) are reviewed and approved on the “WhatsApp templates” page with “Approve and send all to Meta”, and then wait for the state “Approved”. A notice written before that is not sent, and no text is sent in its place: the messages report shows “No approved template for this message”, and it is not sent again by itself once the templates are approved.

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.