Taking attendance records who actually came to a training session. It matters more than a register: for a document course, marking a trainee attended completes their course, so the classroom session counts as their training. For quiz and practical assessment courses attendance is recorded but the course still has to be finished the usual way.
Where to find it: Training > Courses, open the course, Sessions tab, then Attendees (or Take Attendance on the day) on the session’s card.
Concepts
| Status | Meaning | Takes a place |
|---|---|---|
| registered | Booked; attendance not yet taken. Counted as Pending in the summary. | Yes |
| attended | Was there. Completes a document course. | Yes |
| absent | Did not come. | Yes |
| excused | Did not come, for an accepted reason. | No |
Quick start
- Open the course’s Sessions tab. On the day of the session its card shows Take Attendance; on any other day use Attendees.
- For each trainee click the tick (Mark as Attended), cross (Mark as Absent) or dash (Mark as Excused).
- Each click saves immediately and “Attendance status updated” confirms it.
- Click Export if you need the register as a file.
The attendee list
The Site Induction August intake above has Grace Lee and Hemi Walker marked attended and Farid Hassan excused. Enrolled: 2 / 10 (1 excused) counts the places taken, leaving the excused booking out. Once the session’s date has arrived, a summary shows Present, Absent, Excused and Pending counts. Each row has four buttons:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Mark as Attended (tick) | Sets the status to attended. Disabled when already attended. |
| Mark as Absent (cross) | Sets the status to absent. |
| Mark as Excused (dash) | Sets the status to excused and frees the place. |
| Remove from Session (bin) | Deletes the booking after “Remove this trainee from the session?”. |
Export downloads a CSV attendance report headed with the session title, date, time and location, then each trainee’s name, email, status and notes.
What marking a trainee attended does
| Course type | Effect of attended |
|---|---|
| Document | Completes the course. If the trainee has an open assignment on it, that assignment is completed. If they have none, a completed assignment is recorded for them. The completion counts everywhere a completion does: renewals, learning paths, training roles and prerequisites. |
| Quiz | Recorded on the session only. The trainee still has to take and complete the quiz in the Training Centre; sitting in the room is not proof they understood it. |
| Practical Assessment | Recorded on the session only. The course is completed when an assessor passes them — see Conducting a Practical Assessment. |
Marking someone absent or excused does not change their course assignment. An absent trainee’s training is still due; follow it up, or book them onto another session.
Availability and permissions
- Part of the Training module.
- Marking attendance and removing bookings needs Admin, Setup Admin User, Supervisor or Training Coordinator.
Things to know
- Attendance can be marked on any day, before or after the session. Take Attendance only appears on the day as a reminder; Attendees always works.
- Un-marking attended does not undo the completion. Changing a document-course trainee from attended to absent leaves their course completed. If it was a mistake, correct the assignment on the course’s Trainees tab.
- A trainee who had already completed the course can gain a second completed row on the Trainees tab when marked attended, recording this session’s training. That is expected: it is the newer completion that renewals are measured from.
- Excused on a session is not the same as excused from training. It only frees the session place. To waive a trainee’s course itself, a supervisor excuses the assignment — see Extending Due Dates and Excusing Training.
- Reinstating an excused trainee needs a free place. Excused bookings hold no place, so moving one back to attended, absent or registered is refused with “This session is full.” when the session has no room.
Related: Scheduling Training Sessions.