Introducing Seating Charts For Attendance

We're introducing the ability to take attendance through seating charts! This was a highly requested community feature so come get a visual overview of how this will hopefully make your life easier.Starting this month, teachers at all schools can take attendance via seating charts. This was one of the most popular feature requests in the community, and we were excited to roll it out to you during the last few weekly releases. Today, we wanted to give you a visual overview of how the feature works.

To get started, log in as a teacher and make sure you are in Faculty view. Go to Classes and select a class. Select View seating chart and a pop-out window will open.

If you haven’t created a seating chart for a class yet, you will see the option Create seating chart. Select it, then enter a Number of rows and Number of columns. The grid dimensions will update automatically when you click outside the number entry fields.



The top of the grid corresponds with the front of your classroom. Find student names under Unassigned students and drag them into place on the grid. Select Save and close when you are finished.

Now that you have created a seating chart for a class, you can use it to take attendance. Go to My Day and select Schedule & Performance. Find the class under Schedule. You will notice a new chart icon next to the name of the class. Select it to open the seating chart and take attendance for that class period. (Note: If you have not created a seating chart for a class, the chart icon will not appear.)



Use the drop-down menu beneath each student’s name to select an attendance code. By default, all students are marked Present. If a student has not been placed on the seating chart, they will automatically be marked Present.

If you select something other than Present, you can enter an attendance comment in the blank space below. This comment will be visible to you and school administrators.




When you have finished taking attendance for the class, select Save and close. You’re all set!

For future reference, you can always check the help topic Seating Charts for a refresher on how to use this feature. Let us know what you think in the comments.