This guide provides an overview of ManageBac+ account setup and daily use to track attendance, generate timetables and calendars. 

 

What’s involved in the Attendance Add-on Subscription?

There are two forms of attendance on ManageBac+: Homeroom Attendance and Class Attendance. 

Homeroom Attendance

Homeroom Attendance is recorded by Homeroom Advisors via Homeroom > Attendance > the programme.

• Does not require configuration of timetables or periods
• Can be updated by the student’s assigned Homeroom Advisor

Class Attendance:

If enabled on your school's account, class Attendance is recorded via Classes > selecting your class > Attendance. (Note: Your class might be called "Homeroom", but recording here will save Class Attendance)

• This is generally used if you record attendance more than once per day, or wish to record attendance in specialist classes
• It requires configuring attendance rotation (weekday or rotation cycle), periods and class timetables

Which is right for your school?

If you only take attendance once per day, it is recommended to enable Homeroom only in your PYP Attendance Settings and record all entries under the Homeroom tab.

 

Homeroom Attendance 

Via the Dashboard > Homeroom > Attendance, Homeroom Advisors will see their list of assigned students to mark attendance for. Students are filtered by year group programme and sorted alphabetically by Last Name.

Note: Homeroom is a customisable term within your school's Terminology settings, so this may appear as Homeroom, Advisory, Section etc. 

Click from the enabled attendance categories, such as P: Present, A: Absent, L: Late etc. (hover over the button to see the attendance category), to record attendance. Mark individual students, or select via the dropdown to Mark All As. Click the bubble icon to leave a comment.

 

 

Click the Calendar icon to view Homeroom Attendance records across terms and as a percentage.

On the right navigation panel you will be able to:

• View a Daily Homeroom Summary of today’s Homeroom Attendance
• Export to Excel daily, weekly and monthly attendance logs 
• View the time attendance was Last Updated

 

Homeroom Attendance Tips:

• Homeroom Attendance marked as Absent will be reflected in the student’s classes for the day, to give context to class teachers
• If Substitute Recording has been enabled within your Attendance Settings, Homeroom Advisors will not only see those students they are assigned to but also any student that is in a class that they are a teacher in.
• Attendance not recorded is automatically marked as Present at midnight on your school’s account. This means you can just focus on those who were not Present, and update accordingly
• If you do not find a student in your roster that you need to record attendance for, check if you are assigned as their Homeroom Advisor, either via the student’s profile or via the Year Group members tab as we will see later on this guide.  

 

Class Attendance

If Class Attendance is enabled on your school's account, you can quickly add attendance via Classes > select your class > Attendance.

Note: While your class might be named as a Homeroom, the Attendance tab here within your class is recording Class Attendance.

You will need to initially configure your class rotation and periods if an admin has not set this up for your class. Select the periods' boxes, and optionally enter a room location.

Click from the enabled attendance categories, such as P: Present, A: Absent, L: Late etc to record attendance. Mark individual students, or select via the dropdown to Mark All As. Click the bubble icon to leave a comment.

Class Attendance Tips:

• Students absent in their Homeroom will be indicated with a red X mark
• You will only be able to select a date according to your Class Timetable, that is, a day your class is due to take place on. For example, if your class is not configured for a period on a Thursday, if you select a Thursday in the calendar it will jump to the previous/next available date to enter attendance to avoid incorrectly entered attendance
• Attendance not recorded is automatically marked as Present at midnight on your school’s account. This means you can just focus on those who were not Present, and update accordingly

 

Account Setup for Attendance

Below are the recommended settings to review when configuring your account to track attendance. 

Pre-Setup

• P1.  Review Time Zone
• P2.  Review Academic Terms

Attendance Settings

• A1.  School-wide Attendance Settings
• A2.  Programme-Level Attendance & Holiday Calendars
• A3.  Primary Years Settings (For Schools running-primary)
• A4. Set Rotation Cycle (For Schools running rotation cycle) 

For Schools Tracking - Homeroom Attendance

• HR1.  Customise Homeroom Terminology
• HR2.  Assign Students to Advisors

For Schools Tracking - Class Attendance

• C1. Customise Lesson Terminology
• C2. Configure Periods 
• C3. Import Class Timetables 
• C4. Review Timetable Clashes

 

Pre-Setup Required

P1 Review Time Zone

Set your school’s timezone via Settings > School Settings > Name, Address and Logo > Time Zone.

This time will be used to:

• Issue daily and weekly digests and reminders
• Midnight on this Time Zone will be used as the checkpoint to automatically update empty Attendance values to Present each day 

P2 Review Academic Terms

Review existing academic years and terms via Settings > Academic Terms > select the programme. You can Edit the Academic Terms or Add Academic Year. 

Click Edit on the academic year if you need to adjust existing academic term dates to match your attendance calendar.

 

Attendance Settings

A1 School-wide Attendance Settings

Configure your school attendance settings via Settings > Attendance > Settings:

1. Configure your whole-school attendance settings - indicate whether attendance will be Available for Homeroom, Classes, or both.
2. Enable Send Homeroom Absence to Parents to automatically send notification emails to parents if their child is marked absent in Homeroom.
3. Enable Send Homeroom Attendance Daily Digests to Admins to receive a daily digest listing all students that were absent in homeroom. You will also receive a notification if all students are marked present.
4. Enable Send Weekly Attendance to Admins to receive a weekly digest notifying which students missed a specified number of Homeroom or Class periods.

Tip: For Primary Programmes, you can further limit attendance to Homeroom Only via the Programme-Level settings.

A2 Programme Attendance by Academic Year 

Click on the Programme-Level tab to configure the attendance settings for each of your school's programmes.

1. Select the Programme 
2. Select the Academic Year
3. Set attendance schedule to either Weekdays or custom Rotation cycle (e.g. 10 days)
   • Optionally choose to count Holidays in your Rotation
4. Select Categories that teachers can select from including Late, Health, Dress Code, etc.
5. Customise Categories to change colours and labels.
6. Holidays are also configured by programme 
   • Click on the dates within the calendar to configure your school holidays
   • To remove a holiday, click the date again 
   • Holidays and days off are marked in yellow not counted in the attendance total
   • Teachers will not be able to take attendance on these days

A3 Configure Primary Years 

Navigate to Settings > Attendance & Calendar > Programme-level > IB Primary Years:

Enabling Substitute Homeroom Advisor Attendance in PYP
It is possible to allow PYP class teachers to record substitute Homeroom Attendance. Tick the box to Enable Substitute Recording, which will allow any teacher assigned to the class to take Homeroom Advisor attendance. 

Students who the advisor is assigned to as their Homeroom Advisor AND all other students in the PYP class(es) they are a teacher in.

Restrict to Homeroom Only
If your PYP students sit in the same class all day, it’s recommended to use Homeroom only configuration to record the one attendance record per day.

Note: This setting will automatically be enabled for all teachers in PYP Next if enabled.

A4 Adjust the First Day of Rotation Cycle

Schools running a rotation cycle can click on the red number on the first day of each academic term. 

Once clicked, you will be able to select the rotation cycle start number that the term will start on.

 

This feature can be used for quick rotation cycle alignment at the beginning of each new academic term.

Tip: Remember to adjust your Term Dates via Settings > Terms first, and then configure your holiday calendar and rotation according to the days in the session. 

 

For Schools Tracking Homeroom Attendance

HR1 Customise Terminology

Via Settings > School Settings > Terminology, you can customise the Homeroom term relevant for your school.

Review:

• Homeroom Tab name
• Homeroom Advisory Title
• Additional Homeroom Advisor Title
• Additional Homeroom Advisors Title

HR2 Assign Students to their Homeroom Advisors

From your ManageBac+ Dashboard, go to Year Groups, and select the year group you want to work with. You will be able to manually assign students via the Members tab by clicking on each category’s Advisors tab.

You can manually assign students to Additional Homeroom Advisors via the Members tab > Homeroom Advisors tab.

You can bulk assign the same Homeroom Advisor to all students in the year group by selecting the Advisor for the first student the clicking on the drop-down arrow icon > Saving Changes.

You can bulk assign the same Additional Homeroom Advisor to all students in the year group by selecting the Additional Homeroom Advisor for the first student the clicking on the drop-down arrow icon > Saving Changes.

You can bulk assign students to different advisors via Members > Students > Bulk Assign Students.

For Schools Tracking Class Attendance

C1 Customise Lesson Terminology

Via Settings > School Settings > Terminology, you can customise the Attendance Lesson Period term relevant for your school.

 

C2 Configure Attendance Periods per Programme

Via Attendance & Calendar > Periods > the programme, customise the number and duration of Periods for the academic year. 

1. Select the Academic Year. 
2. Select if you want to Customise attendance periods by day or rotation cycle.
3. Indicate if you want to Start the period count from 0.
4. Enable Differentiate periods by Grade level if you want the period's configuration to be specific to each grade level. Once enabled, you can then select the Grade to configure the attendance for each grade level.
5. Select the number of Periods for each day and set the times for those periods. Tick Custom Periods for blocks of time in the schedule where no classes are taught. Names for Custom Periods are free to set as text and can have a background image from a preset list of images. 
6. You can also Copy Period Configurations from days in the week or rotation cycles. The Green checkmarks will indicate the days where Period Configurations have been saved after Saving Changes. 
7. You can also Copy Period configurations from previous academic years per academic programme.

C3 Import Class Timetables

For schools using ManageBac+ to track attendance, lesson periods with locations can be bulk imported via Classes > See all Classes > Class Manager > Import Timetables.

Step 1: Click Download our CSV template.

Step 2: Complete the required fields:

• Class ID (must be unique to each class)
• Academic Year
• Rotation Day
• Period Number
• Location (optional)

Step 3: Save the file as a CSV.

Step 4: Click Choose File to upload your file, then click Next.

There should only be one row for each day. For Weekdays (Column B), Monday is day 1, Tuesday is 2, Wednesday is 3, etc. For Rotation Days, simply add the rotation day number (e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc.).

 

Tip: Use the Existing Timetable Export as a reference for current class rosters. Navigate to Classes Manager > Export Timetables.

Reference the Import Format sheet at the bottom.

 

C4 Review Timetable Clashes

Upload the CSV and review the timetable before clicking Proceed to complete the import.

Classes cannot be successfully imported if the class ID does not match exactly what is listed as the class ID in ManageBac+.

Reference the Class IDs for the whole school via Classes > See all classes > Export to Excel. Fix any Class IDs that do not match the Class IDs on your account and click Upload new CSV to retry.

Tip: 

- Double-check existing Class IDs via Classes > Manage Classes
- Timetables can be bulk imported or updated individually via the specific class

 

Homeroom Attendance

Recording Homeroom Attendance

Via Homeroom > Attendance > the programme, Homeroom Advisors will see their list of assigned students to mark attendance for.

• If the student’s Parent has submitted an Attendance Excusal, it will show here. You can also view a Homeroom Summary and the time that attendance was last updated
• Download Daily, Weekly or Monthly Attendance Records and Contact details via Export to Excel
• Teachers can select from the labels enabled such as Present, Absent, Late, Field Trip etc., as well as leave a comment
• View attendance across days in the week, or select a particular day from the calendar

Note: 

• Homeroom Attendance marked as Absent will be reflected in the student's classes for the day, to give context to class teachers.

• If Substitute Recording has been enabled within your Attendance Settings, Homeroom Advisors will not only see those students they are assigned to, but also any student that is in a class that they are a teacher in.

• Attendance not recorded is automatically marked as Present at midnight on your school’s account. This means you can just focus on those who were not Present, and update accordingly.

 

Update an Assigned Advisor

Via the student's profile > Edit Profile, you will be select the advisor from the Homeroom Advisor dropdown.

 

Review Advisors by Year Group

Navigate to the Year Groups > select a year group > Members > Homeroom Advisors.

Select the advisor from the Advisor dropdown.

 

Review Advisors in Bulk

Navigate to the Year Group's Members > Students > Bulk Assign Students.

 

Class Attendance & Timetables 

Dashboard UX

The Dashboard Design enables you to quickly access and gain an overview of what is most important in your Classes and Year Groups.

The Classes overview makes it easier to access your classes and keep track of your attendance.

 

Recording Class Attendance

Via Class > Attendance, teachers can mark attendance for the current day. Search for a particular Student or Mark All As. 

Update Historical records by selecting the date on the Calendar.

If the student was Marked as Absent in their Homeroom, or their Parent has submitted an Attendance Excusal, it will show here.

 

Managing Class Timetables

Set or Update periods and days as needed via Attendance Settings. Double-periods or classes that repeat are possible

Teachers can define their rotation days by indicating the specific days and periods on which their class meets. Enter class locations or Zoom links for online classes.

 

Managing Student Timetables

Generate PDF Timetables for students via Classes > See all Classes > Classes Manager > Generate Timetables.

This will create a ZIP file stored on the right-hand side. You can download and share PDFs with Students via email or message.
The ZIP will be organised according to Grade Level and Student Name.

Alternatively, Students can directly find their own live or PDF timetable when logged in to ManageBac+.

 

Managing Teacher Timetables

Use the Global Search at the top of the page, enter the teacher’s name and select the teacher.

Click Timetable from the top-navigation panel of the teacher's profile:

• Scroll through for weekly schedules
• Send an email to the teacher for a specific class
• Click the Export Timetables to PDF to download their timetable

 

The Attendance Manager

Recording via the Attendance Manager

The Attendance Manager allows administrators and teachers with permission to access the tab and to record daily attendance without going into the classes or homerooms themselves.

Via Homeroom by Advisor or Classes by Programme. Filter for the Grade level and attendance status

Export Whole School Attendance and Emergency Contact Forms

Track Attendance completion status and send reminders to Advisors who have yet to record.

Bulk Update students and view records by Day, Weekly or Month

 

Managing Attendance Records & Reports

View Term and Yearly Records of all students across Academic Years.

Review and Adjust records prior to generating Report Cards.

 

Grant Manager Permissions

The Attendance Manager allows administrators and teachers with permission to access the tab and to record daily attendance without going into the classes or homerooms themselves. This permission may be useful for Administrative Assistants or HR officers that record attendance daily for a wide range of students. 

Grant Attendance Manager Permissions in Bulk

You can configure attendance permissions by navigating to Settings > Security & Permissions > Teachers & Advisors > Individual Permissions.

Note: This grants the user full access to view and update attendance records for all students across all programmes and grade levels, past and present. 

Grant Attendance Manager Permissions Individually

You can also grant a user certain permissions by navigating to their profile directly > Edit Profile > Access & Permissions

Tick Attendance, Save Changes.

Note: This grants the user full access to view and update attendance records for all students across all programmes and grade levels, past and present. 

 

Involving Your School Community

Student View

Student View via Timetables:

Check period and locations or contact Teachers to notify lateness

Export Timetables to PDF or browse future schedules

View Class and Homeroom Attendance tallies.

Live Statuses shared to Students to encourage timely presence.

 

Display Attendance on Report Cards

Via Reporting > Templates > select your template > Attendance.

Select to display:

• Homeroom Attendance and/or Class Attendance
• Configure which labels to include or exclude (i.e. Present and Absent only)
• Optionally display Attendance Percentages
• Select from Term or Yearly Attendance Records
• Configure on the Cover Sheet or Summary page

 

Multi-lingual Parent Portal

Providing parents with a local language interface.

Each parent can set individual language preferences, with support for:

Chinese | Arabic | French | Japanese | Spanish

 

Parent View

Parent View via Dashboard:

Parents can browse live Attendance status and view any comments.

Parent View via Timetables:

Via their Dashboard, Parents can View and Export Timetables as PDFs and view Class Attendance tallies

Statuses are reflected in real-time to Weekly Timetables with Key Contacts listed for the next steps.

 

Attendance Excusals

Submitting an Attendance Excusal:

Via the Dashboard, Parents can click Submit Attendance Excusal.

This will allow them to indicate the days when their child will be absent, and it will allow them to provide a reason (e.g. a 10-day camping trip). After clicking Submit, it will be shared with the assigned Homeroom Advisor and emailed to ManageBac+ Administrators.

 

Receiving Attendance Excusals

When parents submit an attendance excusal, administrators will receive a notification.

Administrators can view the attendance excusals for Homeroom and Classes via the Attendance Manager.

 

Digests

Homeroom Attendance Daily Digests can be configured, sent to Administrators

Further, enable notices to automatically warn parents that their child has been marked as Absent in the Homeroom. 

 

Self-Service Resources

Useful links: 

• Assisting Users Access to ManageBac+ (Sending Welcome E-mails or Change Passwords)
• Configuring Attendance Settings
• Configuring Class Timetables / Rotation Days
• Recording Homeroom or Class Attendance
• Recording Attendance via the Attendance Manager
• Receiving Attendance Excusals