Why don't we have registers today?

If you were expecting to have registers today, and you don't have any today on your Arbor MIS, you won't be able to take attendance!

This may be because you have set today as an inset or holiday day, or haven't set your registrations and classes to start on the right date. Read on to see how to resolve these issues.

Top Tip: Registers won’t appear on the Homepage for Teachers or on the Daily Attendance page, and they won't be accessible until the first day students return.

Step 1 - Check your New School Year Setup

When you return in September, you may miss classes if the new School Year Setup wasn't completed properly. Ensure your school has completed step 6 to create registers. You can see what you'll need to check here: 5 ways to check you're ready for the next academic year

If you didn't complete the New School Year Setup process during your last academic year, you will have to complete it now. Click here to see how. 

Step 2 - Check you have no registers

It may be that only a few of your teachers are unable to take attendance. Check if any registers exist by going to Students > Attendance > Registers > Daily Attendance. If you have set up your registers, you will see them here. 

Note: The Student Profile: Attendance: View All Students permission is needed to view this page. If you don't have permission, you'll need to ask an administrator to give you permission following these instructions.

If a staff member is unable to take the register for the class, they should be able to; you will need to enable this. Click here to see how.

If your Daily Attendance page is blank, see the next section.

Step 3 - Check your academic calendar

To view your academic calendar, you must have the "School: Academic Structure: View" permission. To make changes to the academic calendar, you need School: Academic Structure: Administer. If you don't have permission, you'll need to ask an administrator to give you permission following these instructions.

Confirm your attendance dates

If your Daily Attendance page is blank, check the time your registers should start. To do this:

• Go to School > School Structure > Academic Years
• Click on the academic year
• Check that your terms start and end on the right days
• Check that your holidays are set correctly
• Click School Days on the left to see which days are school days (and thus can have registers)

In the example below, the first day of the term is September 1st. However, as I have designated the 2nd and 3rd as inset days, the first day I can take attendance is the 4th of September. Therefore, if I expect to have registers on September 3rd, I need to change the inset days.

Amend your academic calendar

You may need to amend your academic calendar if no registers are appearing today because incorrect dates were set up for holidays or inset days.

In this example, inset days were scheduled for 2nd and 3rd September, but we've decided that students should have classes on these days.

To amend the academic calendar: 

• Click the red button on the right to Return to incomplete

• Click the item that you would like to amend
• Click Edit
• Make your change and click Save Changes or click Delete to remove an entry completely

In my example, I will amend the inset days. In the slide over, click Edit.

You can then take further actions such as changing the inset day to a different date or removing it entirely.

Having removed the unwanted inset days, my academic calendar now appears as follows.

Similarly, ensure your terms start and end on the right days, as registers are only created during term time for most courses. 

Step 4 - Check your timetabled sessions

If you don't have any scheduled registers, and your academic calendar is correct, this means you may not have scheduled your lessons to start on the correct date.

Permission you may need for this step includes:

• Teaching: Administer - Create, edit or delete timetable slots.
• Academic Structure: View - See courses and staff assigned as the academic leads

How to fix this for primaries

• Go to School > Programmes > Courses
• Make sure the Academic Year dropdown is set to the right year
• Click on the course or course module you are expecting to see registers for

• On the Course Overview page that opens, head to the Classes & Lessons section
• Check that the start and end dates are correct

In our example, I see that classes are scheduled to start on September 4th, but I need them to start at the beginning of the term (September 2nd).

To amend the dates:

• Click on the first scheduled class
• Click the Edit button

• Change the Effective Date to start on the right day
• Click Save Changes.

• Confirm your changes by clicking Yes.

The date will then change for the first scheduled class.

You must then repeat this process for each session in this class, then return to the This year Courses page to repeat this for all of your registration forms, or update your timetable slots in bulk using this methodology: Editing timetable slots in bulk

How to fix this for secondaries

• Go to School > Timetable > Timetable Administration > Timetable Slots
• Check the Effective dates in the table to confirm these are correct. 
  
  In the example in the screenshots, I can see that I have scheduled my classes to start on September 6th, but I actually need them to start at the beginning of the term (September 2nd).
  
  If they are not:
   
  • Select all the timetable slots to amend using the tickboxes
  • Click the Bulk action button and choose Edit Effective Dates.
    
    
     
  • In the slide over, change the effective dates to reflect your correct start date.
  • Tick the box to confirm your change
  • Click Save Changes.

Make sure you'll have meal registers today

If you have completed Step 2 or 3, you will have to open your meal registers manually. Meal registers open at 4 am each morning, so any new meals required after this time will not be automatically opened. 

For example, I have no registers showing today, and I realise this is because I have wrongly set my Easter Break to start today. I then changed my holiday dates using the process outlined above. As it is past 4 am, I know I now have to open my meal registers manually for today.

To do this:

• Go to School > Meals
• Click the green Open Register button at the bottom right of the screen 

The register will now be open. Repeat this action for each meal you have for today by clicking each tab at the top of the page and clicking the green Open Register button for each.

Step 5 - Check you've enrolled your students

If none of the above steps work, you may not have enrolled students in your Courses & Classes. 

There are multiple ways to do this:

• If you know a particular cohort of students will take all the same courses, you can automatically enrol them using Teaching Groups.
• Add automatic enrolments from a particular course, so anyone enrolled in the original course will automatically be enrolled on the other course.
• Bulk enrol students using an imported spreadsheet. Enrol your students in bulk manually. To do this, go to School > Programmes > Next Year Courses > Table View. Click on the course, then click the Enrol Students button.

You can see how to do each option in this article: Enrol students into lesson registers in bulk