Attendance Types

 

Attendance Types refer to the different people checking in. Attendance types define the parameters of the ‘class’ the user is checking in to, such as the age or grade range. You can assign an Attendance Type to a group or tag. An attendance type can only be associated with a single group or tag, but a single group or tag may have multiple attendance types assigned to it.

Each attendance type must have one or more frequency, which defines the specific time that the attendance type is active. The frequency/frequencies of an attendance type are separate from the kiosk’s schedule(s) and define when the attendance type is active on all kiosks. Frequencies are used by the Create Occurrences Agent to automatically create occurrences for any attendance types that do not already have existing occurrences for the specified times.

Create a New Attendance Type

1.          Click the Add link to create a new Attendance Type. For additional Attendance Types, click the Add New Attendance Type  icon.

2.          Complete all fields, as desired.

•Name – Enter a name for the Attendance Type. This displays at Check-In.

•Active – Select the Active check box if the Attendance Type is active. Check-In displays only active Attendance Types.

•Minimum/Maximum Age – Enter a minimum and maximum age for this Attendance Type, if desired. Setting age restricts so that only records that meet the set age are able to check-in. Setting the age range to 0-0 ignores ages. Setting the age range to any other range would require all records checking in to have a complete date of birth MMDDYYYY format. Use “.99” to end the age range. If your age range is 6 to 7 year olds, enter 7.99 to include ALL 7 year- olds. Enter “0.5” for 6-months old.

•Age Range Text – Enter the field name of the Age Range text, if desired. Examples might be “six-months of age” or “crawlers.”

•Minimum/Maximum Grade – Enter the minimum and maximum grade for this Attendance Type, if desired. You can use Age or Grade, not both.

•Minimum/Maximum Birthdate – Enter the birthday in MMDDYYYY format for situations such as classes for children of less than 6-months in age and children ages 6-months to 1 year of age.

•Check-In Theme – Select a theme. Leave it at [Use Kiosk Default] if you are not using a kiosk. Otherwise, choose which theme you want to use for this Attendance Type.

•Location Specific Occurrence – Select this check box if you want Arena to generate one occurrence for each Location selected for the Attendance Type (at the bottom of the page). Use this option if it is important to know where they checked in. It is also used in conjunction with room ratios to control the number of people in a room/location. If you do not select this option then you get totals across all kiosks when viewing Total Attendees.

•Weekend Service – Select this check box to indicate if the Attendance Type applies to weekends. Any Attendance Type with this checked populates on the Attendance Rate graph on the Person Detail page.

•Merge Occurrences for the Day – Select a day if you have multiple occurrences within the same day. The attendee total combines across all occurrences. If set to “none”, the attendance shows separately for every occurrence for the Attendance Type. If it is set to any day of the week, Arena merges all occurrences for the Attendance Type, for the week into a single representation on that selected day. For example, if an Attendance Type is set to Thursday and an occurrence is created for Friday, it shows as Thursday because Arena looks backwards.

•Link with Tag/Group Level/Specific Group – Select a Tag or Group, if desired. By selecting a specific Tag or Group, Arena records occurrences for your Tags or Groups. If you plan to use a Specific Group, you must choose the Parent Group under Link with Group Level. If using manual attendance for multiple groups or tags, it is not necessary to select a Tag or Group.

•Membership Required – Select this check box to require only Members to check in to the specified class/group. When using this option, records need to be inactive in the group or active and connected in the tag. If this is unchecked, the person needs to meet other criteria set for the Attendance Type and the person is added to the Group/Tag after checking them in. If this is marked, the Attendance Type is not available for Family Registration (visitors) (Self-hosted only).

•Secure – Select this check box if occurrences of this type are only available to non-centralized kiosks. This is only available for the Kiosk when in Non-Centralized mode.

•Gender Preference – Use this to limit records to a specific gender type.

•Pager Required – Select this check box if you are using pagers at time of Check-In or would like to identify people by a manually entered code.

•Room Ratios – Select this check box to open and close occurrences based on the number of people checked in for this attendance type.

•Leader Tag - This identifies people from Tags that are eligible to check in as leaders of the class.

•People per Leader – Enter the number of people who can check in for every leader who checks in.

•Minimum Leaders – Enter the minimum number of people that can check in before the class opens. If set to “0”, then the next class (if available) automatically opens, if one fills up.

•Maximum People – Enter the maximum people or define this value in Locations.

•Locations – Select the locations for this Attendance Type. Keep in mind Arena creates an occurrence for every location.

3.          Click the Update button to save your settings.

•Name – This column displays the Attendance Type links.

•Minimum and Maximum Age – These columns display the age range for the attendance types.

•Minimum and Maximum Grade – These columns display the grade range for the attendance types.

•Age Text – This column displays the age in a text format.

•Location Specific – This column displays a Check Mark  icon if the attendance type is only location specific.

•Weekend – This column displays a Check Mark  icon if the attendance type is for weekends only.

•Display Photo – This column displays a Check Mark  icon if the attendance type is to display a photo.

•Active – This column displays a Check Mark  icon if the attendance type is active.

•Merge Day – This column displays a Check Mark  icon if the attendance type merges occurrences for the day.

•Occurrences – Click this link to display all occurrences for the attendance type.

•Frequency – Click this link to display all frequencies, including shared, for the attendance type.

•Labels – Click this link to display label(s) associated with the attendance type.

•Reorder  icon – Click and hold the Reorder icon to change the order in which the attendance types display.

•Delete  icon – Click the Delete  icon to delete an attendance type. You can delete Attendance Types and Attendance Type Category that do not have occurrences.

4.          Repeat this process if you have other Attendance Types for this Category.

 

Frequency

Frequency is the time(s) that the Attendance Type is available for Check-In, and the actual meeting times of the Attendance Type. Make multiple classes available at the same time, location and kiosk using Frequency.

As you think about each check-in scenario, it is also valuable to know Arena can be setup so attendees can check-in to all Attendance Types available for the day at one time. For example if the same class is offered at 8:00am and 10:30am and it is optional to attend the class twice, you can make them both available at 8:00am. To accommodate this, you can create two different frequencies where the second class Check-In Start Time is the same as the first class as shown below. You can create multiple frequencies for an attendance type, if desired.

If the desire is to make Attendance Types (classes) only available at a specific time then you would set the Start Time only before the specific class.

 

Create a Frequency

1.          Click the Add link to create the first frequency for a type, or click the Add New Frequency  icon to add an additional Frequency.

2.          Complete all fields.

•Name – Enter the name for the frequency.

•Frequency – Select the applicable regularity for the Attendance Type. If you select Weekly, select the Day of the Week. If you choose Monthly, select Day of the Month. If you select One-Time, enter the specific date. For testing purposes, consider creating a Daily frequency. Create at least one Frequency for each Attendance Type to be available at the Kiosk. For the kiosk to properly function and record occurrences, make sure that the Frequency is accurate for the Type, and that the Schedule encompasses the Check-In times established for the frequency.

•Start/End Time – Enter the start and end times for the actual meeting or class. For testing purposes, consider 08:00am-05:00pm start/end times.

•Check-In Start/End Time – Enter the start and end times attendees can check-in for this Attendance Type.

3.          Click the Update button.