Schools have the option to allow parents to notify them of a child’s future absence through MyChildAtSchool.
Access: The permission required to use the Absence Notifications page is found in the MCAS Module of Config > Setup > Roles And Permissions.
This guide will cover:
- How to enable parents to notify the school of their child’s future absence (school)
- How to notify the school of a child’s future absence (parent)
- How to manage Absence Notifications (school)
- How to review the outcome of an Absence Notification (parent)
1. How to enable parents to notify the school of their child’s future absence (SCHOOL):
Go to Config > MCAS > Attendance.
Tick the check box Allow Parents to Notify of Absence via MCAS? in the Attendance Code Type Settings panel. It will be unticked for all schools by default.
- When ticked, parents will be able to Report an Absence in MCAS.
- When unticked (default), the Report an Absence button will be hidden in MCAS.
2. How to notify the school of a child’s future absence (PARENT):
Parents will go to MyChildAtSchool > Dashboard > Attendance.
With the Allow Parents to Notify of Absence via MCAS checkbox ticked – Parents will click on the Report an Absence button.
This button is also visible in the MCAS > Attendance screen.
After clicking on the Report an Absence button – parents can enter details of the absence (for whole days only) and then press Send to notify the school.
- Student: Parents can select one or more students.
- Date From: Parents will be able to select today’s date or a date in the future.
- Date To: Defaults to the Date From. Parents will be able to select today’s date or a date in the future.
- Message: Parents will provide details of the absence.
- Attachments: Parents can attach multiple files up to 20MB each (PDF, JPG, Word, Excel, and XML) .
- Close: No action will be carried out and parent will return to the previous page.
- Send: Will send the Absence Notification to the school.
After selecting Send, a Confirmation popup will appear. Click Proceed.
A success message will appear:
The parent will receive a confirmation email when the Absence Notification has been sent successfully.
IMPORTANT: Please note, currently if a parent replies to the confirmation email, these replies will NOT be received or recorded anywhere in the MIS or MCAS.
Note: After selecting Proceed, the following alert will appear only if:
- An Absence Notification is in progress or has been approved for that student for that period:
- Or, if an Absence Notification is in progress or has been approved for one or more students when selecting multiple students for that period, the following message will appear:
3. How to manage Absence Notifications (SCHOOL):
Go to Modules > MyChildAtSchool > Administration > Absences Notifications.
Back in the school MIS, once a parent has sent an Absence Notification via MCAS it will be visible in the Absence Notifications page.
Columns in the Manage Absence Notifications table display the following:
- Received Date: Date/Time the Absence Notification was received by the school.
- Student Name: If the notification is for more than one student they will appear on individual lines.
- Contact: Student Contact that raised the Absence Notification.
- Date From: Date From on the Absence Notification, today’s date or a date in the future.
- Date To: Date To on the Absence Notification.
- Reason: Message on the Absence Notification. The first 100 characters will be displayed in the table. Users can hover over the Reason to view the full message on this page.
- Status: Status begins with Awaiting Review and users can either Approve or Reject the request.
- Awaiting Review – This will be the default status until the Absence Notification has been either Approved or Rejected.
- Approved: School has Accepted the absence and the parent has been notified in MCAS > Inbox.
- Rejected: School has Rejected the absence and the parent has been notified in MCAS > Inbox
- Attendance: This will display the student’s attendance % for the Academic Year to date as shown in the Attendance Dashboard.
- Actions: Attachment icon: Click on the icon to view any attachments uploaded by the parent in the Absence Notification. In here, school users can also upload, download or delete attachments.
Users can Export data from the table as a Copy, Excel file or CSV file. Users can select one or more students individually, or use select all then Export As.
From this page, you can review Absence Notifications with a status Awaiting Review.
Double click on the individual notifications, where you can:
- Accept an Absence Notification
- Reject an Absence Notification
- Resubmit an Absence Notification
- Accept an Absence Notification:
- Clicking Accept prompts the the user to assign an authorised Attendance Code from the dropdown and Confirm.
- A Confirmation popup will ask “Are you sure wish to accept the Absence Notification?”. Clicking Proceed updates the Status to Approved.
- The authorised Attendance Code will be assigned to the student in the Modules > Attendance > Manage Attendance screen.
- Parents will then receive a message in MCAS > Inbox notifying them of the approval.
- Reject an Absence Notification
- After clicking Reject, a Confirmation popup will ask “Are you sure you wish to reject this Absence Notification?’. Clicking Proceed updates the Status to Rejected.
- Parents will receive a message in MCAS > Inbox notifying them of the rejection.
- Resubmit an Absence Notification
- Rejected Absence Notifications will display the Resubmit icon in the Actions column.
- Clicking on the Resubmit icon creates a copy of the Absence Notification in the table, with the same data, in Awaiting Review status. This will enable users to review an appeal made by the parent without the need for the parent to send a new Absence Notification.
4. How to review the outcome of an Absence Notification (PARENT):
Parents will go to MyChildAtSchool > Inbox.
Parents will receive a message regarding Approved and Rejected Absence Notifications in the MCAS Inbox.