Reporting on Attendance Fines

This guide outlines how to report on Attendance Fines in Arbor. The guide covers filtering the table on the fines page, using the custom report writer to report on fines, and setting up alerts for students nearing fine limits using custom groups.

This guide is a part of a series of three. The guides in this series are:

• Attendance Fine Features
• Issuing and Waiving Attendance Fines
• Reporting on Attendance Fines

Filtering the Attendance Fines page 

The table on the Students > Attendance > Absentees > Attendance Fines page lets you report on fines, the students the fine applies to and the status of the fine in one place.

The table has the following columns:

• Created on - the date the fine record was created. This does not have to be the same date as the absences, if the absences causing the fine were added later than they occurred, for example.
• Student - the student the fine applies to
• Year Group - the year group the student is a part of
• Registration Form - the form group the student is a part of
• Absence Period - the rolling 10-week period in which 10 unauthorised absences for roll call sessions were recorded to trigger the fine
• Fine Status - the status of the fine
• Fine Decision Date - the date on which a fine's status was last changed
• Notes - Any notes that were left when logging a decision on a fine

The table displays one academic year at a time, and defaults to showing all students in the table. You can change this using the filter above the table:

• Click the green Change button in the top-right corner (the little pencil)
• Use the Academic Year dropdown to specify the academic year
• Use the Students dropdown to narrow down the students in the table
  • You can select multiple different options to combine them
  • You can select groups (like year groups and form groups) or individual students
  • Easily find options in the list by typing into the drop-down box

Reporting on Fines in the Custom Report Writer

There are two attendance fine-specific columns in the custom report writer: Count of Unactioned Attendance Fine Records and Unactioned Attendance Fine Details.

These columns can be added to reports with the report focus Students. You can find more on adding columns to reports and report focuses here: Creating bespoke reports

These columns have the following functionality:

• Count of Unactioned Attendance Fine Records – shows how many unauthorised absence records a student has in the previous 10 good school weeks that are still unactioned (not linked to a fine or still pending).
• Unactioned Attendance Fine Details – shows the date, roll call, and mark for each unactioned record.

The date range for these columns cannot be changed; they always reflect the 10-week rolling attendance fine period.

Use the Count column to monitor students close to a new attendance fine, and check the Unactioned Fines Details column for specifics.

For instance, if a student has had sporadic unauthorised absences recently and you suspect they might be close to a fine, the Count of Unactioned Attendance Fine Records column shows how many absences they already have on their way to reaching the fine threshold of 10 in the rolling 10-week period.

Setting up alerts for students nearing a fine 

If you would like Arbor to alert you when students are nearing enough absences to warrant a fine, or if you want to be alerted when students have a concerning number of unauthorised absences in the last 10 good school weeks, you can set up a Custom Group with an automatic membership criterion and alterts for joiners.

To set up a custom group that automatically adds members based on unactioned absences that count towards fines:

• Go to Students > Enrolment > Ad Hoc > Custom Groups

• Click the green Add new custom group button in the top-right corner

  On the slide over:

  • Give your group a name
  • Set Contains students to Current (All or None will not work)
  • Set Contains guardians and Contains staff to None
  • Click the green Create custom group button
• Go to the Setup tab
• Use the Add criterion on field... dropdown to select Count of Unactioned Attendance Fine Records
• Click the green Add membership criterion button
• Set the threshold for adding a student to the group on the slide over
  • Use Greater than or equal to in the top dropdown to set a threshold for the number of absences after which you want to add the student to the group.
  • Use the bottom drop-down to specify the exact number. For example, 8 for students who are nearing a fine, or 10 for students who have just reached the threshold
  • Click the green Add Membership Criterion button

To add notifications to your custom group for new students joining the group:

• Go to the Setup tab
• Go down to the Custom Groups Alerts Setup section

• Click on Custom groups alerts - Not set up

  On the slide over:

  • Set the Alert about the dropdown to Joiners
  • Set who should be alerted in the Alert Staff field
  • Set how staff should be alerted (email, homepage notification or both) in the Alert via field.
  • Press Save Changes

This concludes our series of guidance on Attendance Fines. The other guide in this series is: Attendance Fine Features