Setting up Current Day Attendance Exports - Meeting Attendance - Filter Method

Minimum version: BrightArrow Base 2 v23.01.31

The current day attendance export is used when a school would like to send automated messages when a student is absent and/or tardy. Exports are set up at district office and the same file can be used to import to many different buildings if needed. There are 2 basic current day attendance exports, meeting and daily. Because daily attendance is recorded differently than meeting attendance they require different exports. Here we will talk about setting up meeting attendance exports.

My Teachers only take daily attendance

Actually your teachers DON'T take daily attendance, they take meeting attendance once per day. Daily attendance refers to a specific type of attendance and teachers can't enter it from PowerTeacher. If the teachers are entering the attendance it's meeting attendance, even if it only happens once per day.

Filters

This export will respect the settings from the BrightArrow Settings area. For more information on how to change the settings read How to Change the Current Day Attendance Settings. Once the export is set up and scheduled all changes other than export time changes can be done from the settings area.

Setting up Meeting Attendance exports

The export should be set up in DEM from District Office. For information on getting to DEM read Getting to Data Export Manager (DEM)

1. Category = Additional Data Sets
2. Export From -> Select the PowerQuery that aligns with the filters you wish to use
   1. BrightArrow Attendance Meeting - from Filter 1
   2. BrightArrow Attendance Meeting - from Filter 2
3. Fields -> Select the checkbox next to "ATTENDANCE" to select all fields. Fields are already listed in proper order.
4. Click Next
   
5. No filters here, controlled by the settings page filters
6. Click Next
   Note: Before the next section becomes editable the entire template must run. This is not a quick process and the larger your district the longer this will take.
   
7. Export File Name -> Set based on which filter you are using so that we know which to import per your directions. Copy/paste the appropriate one from below
   1. attendance_meeting_current1.txt
   2. attendance_meeting_current2.txt
8. Line Delimiter = CR/LF
9. Character Set = UTF-8
10. Click Save Template
    
11. Name -> Set based on which filter you are using so that you and others know which filters are being used. Copy/paste the appropriate one from below
    1. BrightArrow - Current Attendance - Meeting Filter 1
    2. BrightArrow - Current Attendance - Meeting Filter 2
12. Click Save as New
    
13. Switch to the My Templates tab
14. Find the row for the new template and click the calendar button to schedule this template. If you do not see the calendar button or the Scheduled System Templates tab you don't have permission to schedule exports. For more information on that read Enabling DEM Schedulin
    
15. Days to Execute = Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri. These should match your normal school days. If your school is Sunday - Thursday then adjust accordingly.
16. When to Execute = pick a time 5 to 10 minutes before you want the message to go out. There needs to be some processing time for PowerSchool to generate the file and send it to us. If you want the message to go at 10:10am then export at 10:00am.
17. Send Output To = BrightArrow
18. Email Completion Report To (optional) = your email or an email to keep a record of if the export and file transfer was successful or if it failed. 
19. Click Save
    
20. Your export will go at the scheduled time and day(s). To send a copy now so that we can get started setting up the import of the file you can click the Send Now button which looks like the Play button from DVD player
21. Repeat 14-20 for as many times as you need to schedule this template. The template is set up district wide so you can schedule the exports for different times for different schools. Just let us know which time to import which school and we'll handle the rest.
22. If you scheduled the export multiple times you may want to go into the scheduled copy of the template and re-save with the time replacing the word (Copy). If you do use 24hr clock instead of 12 so that it sorts correctly in the list.
23. Let us know that the file is ready so that we can set up your import