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Managing Late Arrival & Early Leave Reasons

Learn how to create, customise and manage the reasons available when students record a Late Arrival or Early Leave, including configuring MIS attendance writeback.

Overview

Late Arrival & Early Leave reasons control the options presented to students and staff when recording attendance events.

Reasons can be used to:

  • Simplify the check-in process

  • Match your school’s attendance policies

  • Map custom reasons to MIS attendance codes

  • Control how attendance writes back to your MIS

Schools can either use the reasons imported from their MIS or create their own custom reasons.

Please note: Reasons can be used with or without an MIS integration. Schools without and MIS can still create custom reasons, although they will not write back to an attendance system.

Imported MIS Reasons

If your school uses MIS Integration, Custr can import your attendance reasons as part of the synchronisation process.

These are imported alongside:

  • Students

  • Employees

  • Attendance reasons

Imported reasons reflect the attendance codes configured within your MIS.

Although imported attendance codes cannot be edited, you can create custom reasons that write back to the same attendance code.

This allows you to present simpler or more meaningful options to students while maintaining the correct attendance mark within your MIS.

For example:

Student sees

Writes back to MIS

Missed the Bus

L

Traffic Delay

L

Medical Appointment

M

Dentist Appointment

M

This allows multiple user-friendly reasons to write back to a single attendance code.

Creating Custom Reasons

Custom reasons allow you to simplify the options displayed during student check-in.

To create a custom reason:

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Settings

  2. Select Students

  3. Open Reasons / Writeback

  4. Select Custom Reasons with Default MIS Code

  5. Enter:

    • The custom reason

    • The attendance code (optional)

    • The reason type (Late Arrival, Early Leave or Both)

  6. Click Add Reason

Once created, the new reason will be available during student attendance.

Reasons Without MIS Integration

Schools without MIS Integration can still create and manage custom reasons.

These reasons are recorded within Custr but are not written back to an external attendance system.

This allows schools to maintain consistent attendance records even when operating without an MIS.

Preventing Attendance Writeback

Not every attendance event needs to update your MIS.

If you want Custr to record the attendance event without changing the student’s attendance mark, you can configure a reason that does not write back.

To create a non-writeback reason:

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Settings

  2. Select Students

  3. Open Reasons / Writeback

  4. Create a new reason

  5. Set the attendance code to Don’t Writeback

  6. Select the appropriate reason type

  7. Click Add Reason

The attendance event will still be recorded within Custr but no attendance code will be sent to your MIS.

Time-Based Attendance Codes

Time-based codes allow a single reason to write back different attendance codes depending on the time the student checks in.

This is commonly used for Late Arrivals where different attendance marks apply after a specified time.

For example:

Time

Attendance Code

Before 9:30am

L

After 9:30am

U

To configure time-based codes:

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Settings

  2. Select Students

  3. Open Reasons / Writeback

  4. Create or edit a reason

  5. Enable Time Based Code

  6. Add the required attendance codes and times

  7. Save your changes

Time-based writeback is available for both Late Arrivals and Early Leavers, although it is most commonly used for Late Arrival attendance.

Managing the Order of Reasons

Reasons can be reordered to control the order they appear during student check-in.

Many schools choose to place their most frequently used reasons at the top of the list, making the check-in process quicker for students and reception staff.

Late Arrival & Early Leave Questions

Reasons determine why a student is arriving late or leaving early.

Questions allow you to collect additional information during the attendance process.

Questions are configured separately for:

  • Late Arrivals

  • Early Leavers

They are attached to the attendance workflow rather than individual reasons.

For example, schools may ask:

  • Who is collecting the student?

  • Additional notes

  • Medical information

  • Collection arrangements

To configure questions:

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Settings

  2. Select Students

  3. Open Late Arrival & Early Leave

  4. Choose either Late Arrival Questions or Early Leave Questions

  5. Select existing questions or create new ones

  6. Save your changes

Recommended Settings

If your school uses MIS attendance writeback, we recommend enabling Reason Exact Match Required.

This prevents users from entering free-text reasons that cannot be matched to an attendance code, helping to reduce writeback failures.

For more information, see Recommended MIS Settings & Configuration.

Related Articles

Important Notes

  • Reasons can be imported from your MIS or created manually.

  • Imported attendance codes cannot be edited, but custom reasons can be mapped to the same attendance code.

  • Multiple custom reasons can write back to a single MIS attendance code.

  • Schools without MIS Integration can still create and use custom reasons.

  • Questions are attached to the Late Arrival or Early Leave workflow, not to individual reasons.

  • Reasons can be reordered to improve the check-in experience.

  • Time-based attendance codes are commonly used to apply different attendance marks depending on the student’s arrival time.

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