Use this guide for the school office’s daily attendance tasks: checking the sign-in tablet, recording late arrivals, approving leave notes and following up on morning absences.
Daily office checklist
Each morning
- Check the Digital Sign-In Tablet is working.
- Review Permission to Leave requests and approve as appropriate.
- Review Please Check records against your attendance system.
During the day
- Check the tablet periodically and make sure late arrivals are signed in.
- Re-check leave requests every hour, or approve at the time of sign-out.
- Follow up on outstanding Please Check records.
- Remind parents to submit attendance updates through the app.
1. Check sign-in and record late arrivals
Each morning, check that the Digital Sign-In Tablet is switched on, connected and working. Make sure students can access it, and check it again periodically during the day.
Every student who arrives late must be signed in using either:
- The Digital Sign-In Tablet
- The browser sign-in system, where staff can sign the student in manually
Tablet not working? Staff can use the browser sign-in system to record arrivals.
If a student does not sign in, their late arrival will not be recorded. If you discover this during the morning attendance review, use the Mark As Late option below.
2. Approve Permission to Leave notes
Review Permission to Leave (PTL) requests each morning. Re-check every hour, or approve the request at the time of sign-out.
- From the Dashboard, open Attendance Overview.
- Click Permission to Leave.
- Review the requests.
- Approve requests individually, or select all the requests you intend to approve and click Approve.
Approve the note before sign-out. A student can sign out only once their Permission to Leave note has been approved.
How to approve Permission to Leave notes
3. Review Please Check records
Please Check helps you verify students who were marked absent at morning roll call.
- From the Dashboard, open Attendance Overview.
- Click Please Check.
- Check your attendance system to see whether each student was marked present in later classes. Also check whether they were taking part in a school activity.
- Select the student and choose the appropriate option below.
The student is present in class
Choose In Class – Cancelled > Mark As Present.
This cancels the Absence Request Form and sends an app notification telling the parent that the student is present.
The student arrived late but did not sign in
Choose In Class – Cancelled > Mark As Late.
This updates the attendance record and sends an app notification telling the parent that the student arrived late without signing in.
The student was on a school activity
Use this option if the student was taking part in a school activity, but their attendance was not updated in time and their parent received an absence notification.
Choose In Class – Cancelled > Mark as School Activity.
This lets the school respond to the parent with School Activity, explaining why the student was not in class.
The student is still absent in later classes
Use this option once you have checked that the student is absent and was not taking part in a school activity.
Choose Not In Class – Confirmed.
This confirms the absence and sends an app notification asking the parent to explain it.
Need to stop a Please Check without notifying the parent? Click Edit at the far right of the record and change the status to Aborted.
4. Direct parents to the app
Ask parents to submit attendance information through the school app.
During the changeover, some parents may still phone, email or send written notes. Remind them that attendance updates should be submitted through the app.
This keeps attendance messages together in one place and reduces manual tracking.
Support and training
Staff support
Call 01 886 9458
Email staffsupport@uniqueschools.ie
Parent support
Email support@uniqueschools.ie