Taking Attendance in Seating Chart Mode

In addition to the traditional “list view” for taking roll, OnCourse offers “seating chart mode” which allows teachers to take attendance on their online seating chart complete with student pictures.

Important Note: Seating chart attendance is only available for teachers who have already set up a seating chart in any attendance eligibleclass (which for most K-8 teachers is just homeroom).

To set up a new seating chart, open the Grade Book and click the Seating Chart button.

Taking Attendance

Log into OnCourse and navigate into the Attendance tool from the tabs across the top of the screen.  This will open the attendance “List View” for the current day (if you take attendance in multiple class, select it now.) To move into seating chart mode, click the View Seating Chart button (shown below).

Important Note: Student placement cannot be re-arranged from within the Attendance tool. To make changes to this seating chart, return to the Grade Book and click the Seating Chart button.

In Seating Chart View, attendance can now be taken for each student. Please Note: if you have more than one seating chart created for this class, you can switch between them by using the drop-down menu highlighted in red above.

To take attendance,

   1. Review each student icon; their attendance status for that day will display below their name. By default, most schools set all students to “Present” automatically.

   2. Click on any student icon to open a pop-up menu that holds each attendance option.

   3. Select the appropriate attendance code and excused code from the drop-down menus.

   4. If your school has activated comments, use the Comment box to leave any detailed notes.

   5. When marking this student is complete, either click on the next student or click anywhere on the grid to close this pop-up menu.

Important Note: If a student has not been placed on the seating chart grid, their name will still appear on the right side of the screen.

Attendance can also be taken from this list, simply click a student’s name to launch their attendance menu.

Saving Changes

Any unsaved attendance records will appear with a red triangle next to them.

When all changes have been made, click the Save button.

Each record will now display a green check (see below) to show that they have successfully saved.

To return to “List View” at any time, click the View List button on the toolbar.