How to Take Attendance in Seconds (Period-Wise)

Why period-wise attendance

If you teach the same class more than once a day, one daily tick is not enough. A student can be present in the morning and missing in the afternoon, and your record should show exactly that.

SMS keeps attendance by period: each class, each period, each day gets its own register. That is the record parents and school offices ask for, and it is the record your reports are built from.

Open the register

Go to Attendance in the sidebar and open the session for the class and period you are teaching. The register lists every student enrolled in that class subject, so you never have to type names.

1. 1Open Attendance from the sidebar.
2. 2Pick the class subject and the date.
3. 3Pick the period. The register loads with every enrolled student.

Mark Present, Late, Absent, or Excused

Each student gets one status. Present and Late both count as attended. Absent means the student was not there. Excused means the student had an approved reason — SMS keeps excused students out of the absence count, so an approved leave never looks like skipping.

A blank row means not marked yet. A blank is not a zero and not an absence — it just means you have not marked that student.

• ✓Present — in class, on time.
• ✓Late — in class, but late. Still counts as attended.
• ✓Absent — not there, no approved reason.
• ✓Excused — approved reason. Kept apart from absences.

Save in one go

Mark the whole class, then save once. Two shortcuts speed it up: Mark all present fills every row, and Mark all absent does the opposite. Then change only the exceptions.

On a keyboard you can move between rows with the arrow keys and press 1 for Present, 2 for Absent, 3 for Late, 4 for Excused. On your phone, tap each row.

Fix a mistake the right way

Mistakes happen — the wrong row, the wrong period. Open the saved register and correct it. SMS asks for a reason for every correction and keeps a note of the change, so the record stays trustworthy.

Corrections are the reason attendance holds up when a parent asks. You can show what was marked, what changed, and why.

What the percentage means

Attendance percentage is attended periods out of recorded periods. Present and Late count as attended. Excused periods are left out of the maths entirely — they do not help or hurt the percentage.

If a student has no recorded periods yet, SMS shows no percentage at all rather than a misleading zero. See How Grades and Pass/Fail Work in SMS for the same careful treatment of marks, and the User guide for the full step-by-step.