Flexible Schedule Attendance

Flexible Schedule courses allow students to check-in and check-out for attendance at various times throughout the day; and is the recommended option for courses in which students have independent schedules, such as clinicals or externships.  When a Flexible Schedule course is created, days (attendance sessions) are auto-scheduled throughout the end date of the course, each student can check-in and check-out anytime between 12:00 AM and 11:59 PM; and a 'MaxPerDay' can be set for the course to ensure each student's time earned does not exceed a designated limit per day.

 

Setting Up a Flexible Schedule Course

Your CourseKey Customer Success Manager can assist with configuring an Attendance Method for using the Flexible Schedule Attendance setting in courses at your school.  This will include the following configurations:

• MaxPerDay: The maximum amount of time per day a student can be awarded for synchronous attendance.  It can be any time greater than 1 minute and less than 24 hours. Students will not be awarded more than this time unless an adjustment is made by a school administrator.
• FlexWindow: The length of the grace period for a student to check out after they've reached the MaxPerDay.
• UseAttestation: If enabled, students must follow the attestation workflow to confirm the accuracy of their timestamps when checking out of attendance.
• AllowStudentBreaks: If enabled, students can self-report a break when confirming their timestamp.
• MidnightShift: Use Midnight Shifts when flex attendances are expected to cross midnight, into the next calendar day. When enabled, whenever a student remains checked in at midnight, the system will automatically check students out of the current session and back into the next.

An Attendance Method with the Flexible Schedule Attendance setting must be selected when creating a Flexible Schedule course via the Add Course button, CSV file upload, or through the integration with your SIS.  When the course is created, days (attendance sessions) are auto-scheduled throughout the end date of the course.

 

Attendance List

Once the course is created, an Attendance List is available for each day (attendance session) between the start date and end date of the course.  In the time column you'll see 'Flexible Schedule' rather than a designated start and end time.  At 12:00 AM each day, the attendance becomes 'Active'. 

 

Absent Students

At the start of the day, students will begin in the 'Out' column so they will not be penalized if they are not scheduled that day.  If a student misses a scheduled session, an instructor/administrator can mark the student as absent by selecting the radio button in the 'Absent' column for that student.

 

Adjustments

Individual and bulk adjustments can be made with the adjustment wizard for Flexible Schedule courses; however, there are different options available since the typical schedule does not apply.  When opening the wizard, you'll see two options, 'Adjust Record' and 'Mark Absent'.

 

Adjust Record

Select Adjust Record to enter the student(s) check-in/out times.  This option works similar to the 'Override' adjustment for scheduled courses.  If an adjustment is made for an individual student, you'll see any current data and you can edit as needed.  For bulk adjustments, entering in a check-in/out time voids and replaces all current data for the selected students.

 

 

Mark Absent

In the adjustment wizard, students can also be marked 'Absent'.  This has the same outcome as marking the student Absent in the radio buttons on the Attendance List.

 

Updating the Course End Date

The end date of a Flexible Schedule course can be updated by editing the course information or through the integration with your SIS.

[NEW: 26-Jan-2023] When the end date of a Flexible Schedule course is updated, days (attendance sessions) are auto-scheduled or archived accordingly.

Extending the Duration a Course

When the duration of the course is extended:

• Days (attendance sessions) are auto-scheduled only if the new end date is extended on or after the current date.  New attendance sessions are scheduled using the 'Check-in Settings' established when the course was created, and which are detailed in the Course Info page.
• If the new end date is before the current date, there is no change to the course schedule.

 

Shortening the Duration a Course

When the duration of the course is shortened:

• Completed attendance sessions and their related student attendance records are not impacted.
• Scheduled attendance sessions throughout the new end date are not impacted.  If the new end date is on or before the current date, any future scheduled days (attendance sessions) are auto-archived.
• If the new end date is after the current date, future scheduled days (attendance sessions) after the new end date are auto-archived.
  

Editing the Course Schedule

To edit the scheduled dates of a Flexible Schedule course, select the gear icon in the top right corner of the Attendance page, and then choose one of two options: Edit Attendance and Delete All Scheduled Attendances. 

There are a few things to note when editing the course schedule:

• Additional days (attendance sessions) can be added at the start or end of previously scheduled dates, independently from the start/end date of the course.
• Future sessions can be archived, but completed sessions cannot be archived.
• The schedule for the course must not have any missing days.  (For example, you cannot have a day in the middle of a week without any available attendance.)

 

Edit Attendances

The Edit Attendances option allows adding additional days (attendance sessions) to the course schedule given a date range, and independently from the start/end date of the course.  On this page you'll also see the option to edit the 'Maximum time awarded per day'.  If this value is changed from the original value, please note it will only apply to future attendance sessions as the MaxPerDay cannot be adjusted for completed sessions.

 

Delete Scheduled Attendances

The Delete All Scheduled Attendances option allows archiving any future scheduled days (attendance sessions).  You’ll be asked to confirm that you want to delete all scheduled attendance sessions.