Why is cover not flagging?

This article explains why cover may not be flagging for staff absences in the school system. It outlines steps to ensure that absences are recorded correctly, checks if cover is required for events or lessons, verifies the absence end date, and addresses issues with timetabling. It also provides solutions for managing long-term cover needs.

If you have recorded an absence for a member of staff, the events or lessons may not flag as requiring cover in School > All Staff > Cover. This may be for a few reasons:

Step 1 - Check an absence has been recorded

An absence is required to trigger a cover requirement. You can see further details here: Lessons or events for staff on trips aren't flagging as needing cover

Step 2 - Check whether cover is required

• If it is an event (not a lesson) that is not flagging as needing cover, check it has been set to need cover: Set events as cover required or not required
• If it is a lesson, check that it has not been marked as not requiring cover. If it has been, you'll see it on the cover page in the Cover Not Required tab. You can set it to require cover again if needed.

Step 3 - Check the staff absence

Go to School > All Staff > Absences and check the end date. Here you can see that Arthur does not have an end date for his absence.

When there is no end date for a staff absence, cover is generated each day cover is required plus the next good school day (excluding weekends and holidays in your academic calendar), rather than for the full duration of the absence. So the School > All Staff > Cover page will only show their lessons or events needing cover for today.

In this case, you can either:

• Use alternative methods for long-term cover, such as swapping the teacher out for a Supply teacher.
• Go into the cover section to assign cover each day.
• Add an estimated end date to make cover requirements generate for the full duration of the absence. You can always amend this date if needed later.

Step 4 - Check when the events requiring cover were timetabled

You may find that cover will not flag if the timetable slots were created after the staff absence was added. For example, if you logged the staff absence then added additional lessons.

You will need to remove the staff absence and re-add it to flag the new lessons as requiring cover.

If you have multiple cover requirements to refresh, we can refresh these for you. Contact the Arbor Support Team if supported by Arbor and reference code 1004, or contact your Support Partner if not supported by Arbor with full details of what needs to be refreshed.