How to Create a Watchlist

Note: All pages below are subject to having the relevant Roles and Permissions.

Use a Watchlist to notify people (for example parents and/or students) when certain events take place. For example in Attendance all N codes recorded for AM Registration, or Detentions awarded for that day.

In this guide:

Choose the Students or Groups of Students
Operational Settings for Attendance and Behaviour
Delivery Settings

Note: Watchlists are used to search for Attendance Codes/Meaning, Behaviour Events or Actions and Detentions Awarded or Scheduled on the Specific Day you are running the Watchlist.

To start, from the left Menu go to Config > Communication > Watchlists.

This will open the Watchlists page, select New.

Search for Students or Groups of Students

Select either the Individual Students or the Class or Tutor Group option. Then either begin typing the name and select from the given dropdown list or click on the Magnifying Glass to open the Student or Group Selector.

Tip: In order for all Current Students to be included in the process, including Students that may be added on roll in the future, choose Year Group from the Group Type drop down in the Group Selector list, click Find to refresh the list to just show Year Groups

Then click to choose all the Year Groups you need. These are dynamic Groups that update overnight to include any new Students.

In the example below we have chosen Year Groups 7-13

Click Done to add the Groups.

Then move onto the Operational Settings panel.

Operational Settings

Select the relevant field on the dropdown list to Monitor By.

The different options in Monitor By work as follows:

Attendance Code – You will be prompted to select which Attendance Codes you would like the Watchlist to monitor. The Watchlist message will be sent when a Student receives one of the selected Attendance Codes. You can also choose a threshold, so for example the Watchlist message will be sent when the Student receives 2 consecutive Absence Codes.
Attendance Meaning – You will be prompted to select which Attendance Meanings you would like the Watchlist to monitor. The Watchlist message will be sent when a Student receives an Attendance Code attached to one of the selected Attendance Meanings. You can also choose a threshold, so for example the Watchlist message will be sent when the Student receives 2 consecutive Unauthorised Absence marks.
Behaviour Events – You will be prompted to select which Events you would like the Watchlist to monitor. The Watchlist message will be sent when the any of the selected Behaviour Events are assigned to a Student.
Behaviour Actions – You will be prompted to select which Actions you would like the Watchlist to monitor. The Watchlist message will be sent when the any of the selected Behaviour Actions are triggered.
Detention Awarded – This will send the Watchlist message on the day that the Detention is created for the Student. Note: This option works on a day-by-day basis and will not monitor previous days, so if the Detention is awarded after the final run of the Watchlist for that day then it will not be picked up on the first run on the next day. This is something to take in to consideration when setting the Schedule for your Watchlist.
Detention Scheduled – This will send the Watchlist message based on the day that the Detention is scheduled to take place. You can choose to send the message X number of days prior to the day that the Detention is scheduled for, alternatively if you set it to 1 day it will monitor just the current day.

Select an option from the Monitor By dropdown list.

Note: When selecting Behaviour or Detention options from the Monitor By dropdown list there will be fewer selections to be made.

Once you have selected the Periods to Notify On, and Enabled Days, complete the relevant checkboxes.

Threshold for number of consecutive periods – choose from 1 or more to define, leave at zero to turn off.

Allow Repeat Send Option: if this is enabled then the chosen method of communications will be sent multiple times in the same period for the same event. As an example, if you are using an SMS to notify of absence and the Watch List is then processed again for the same period, the system will send out another SMS to the same Contact for the same absence. If this is Disabled, the Contact will only receive one SMS per absence/event, regardless of the amount of processes.
Watch Each Period Independently: This will determine whether or not the list will watch each period independently, so if multiple periods have been selected and this option is ticked the system will search for students who have been absent for all or any of the periods. If unticked then the system will search for students who have been absent for all of the periods (this is only applied to Consecutive Periods).
Ignore Present Students: Checking this will ignore all Students that are Present. So if a student is marked as N for AM but then marked as Present for Period 1 it will ignore this student.
Notify On Return: When ticked and in the example a parent has been sent a message stating their child is absent and subsequently a teacher gives the child a present mark in the lesson after, it will resend another message to the parent to say that now returned hence “Notify on Return”

Then choose who to notify, the Contact and/or the Student.

Delivery Settings

A Message will be sent based on the options and Contacts selected in the Delivery Settings panel.

Then select the Process option, which by default is set as Manual. If Manual is selected you will let need to Process the Watchlist when required.

Selecting Automatic will ask you to enter the Schedule Settings.

First, select the time you would like to Start monitoring. Then, if you would like this to Repeat throughout the day, tick the Repeat Task box and select how often you would like the Task to Repeat throughout the day and for what length of time from the Start Time you selected.

Next, select if you would like the watchlist to run Every Week, if you would like it to run every week select 1 from the dropdown.

So for example if you would like the Watchlist to run every 20 minutes between 09:00 and 19:00 Monday to Friday every week, you would set up the Schedule as per the following image.

Note: Please Do Not set the Schedule to run for 24 hours from the Start Time as this can lead to inaccuracies in the messages sent, ideally you would have the watchlist running only when you need it (for example throughout the school day). We would also recommend that you Repeat the Task no more frequently than every 10 minutes as this can affect the performance of your system.

A Summary of Progress panel is displayed at the bottom of the page and will give an overview of the options you have selected for this Watchlist.

When finished click the Save button, this will open a Save Watchlist pop-up, where you can add a Name and a Description for the Watchlist, complete this and Save.