Custom statuses, student self-marking, and attendance takers

MarkTrack's attendance bends to how your school actually runs. This guide covers the three per-school options that make that possible — custom statuses, student self-marking, and student attendance takers — plus the who-marked-it provenance that keeps every non-staff mark visible and correctable. Everything below is set per school and takes effect immediately.

Where these settings live

Go to Settings → Attendance and find the School Attendance Setup card. Each school is a collapsible row — click a school's name to expand it (one school is open at a time). You need admin access to change settings; teachers use the features once enabled.

The per-school setup panel

Expanding a school shows everything on one panel: its attendance mode (Per Class vs Daily — also shown as a pill in the collapsed row), the “Students mark their own attendance” and “Student attendance takers” toggles, and the school's status list with an add-a-status row at the bottom.

The School Attendance Setup panel for one school: the locked Per Class attendance mode notice, the self-marking and attendance-taker toggles, seven status rows including the custom Online, Recording Only, and Left Early statuses with their counts-as dropdowns, and the Add-a-status row at the bottom. — One school's panel: mode, both toggles, and every status.

Why the mode may be locked

The attendance mode locks as soon as the school has attendance recorded in the current period, so history can't be re-interpreted mid-year. It unlocks again in a new period with no marks yet. The mode itself is covered in the daily attendance guide.

1. Custom attendance statuses

Every school starts with four defaults — Present, Absent, Tardy, and Excused Absence (marked with a blue Default pill). You can add your own on top: “Online”, “Recording Only”, “Left Early”, or anything your school uses. Statuses are per school, so your weekend program and your full-time school can use different sets.

Add a status

Expand the school and find the Add a status row at the bottom of its panel.
Pick a color and type a label (e.g. “Online”).
Pick the “counts as” category — the base status the new one behaves as for attendance rates, absence alerts, and reports. Choose from Present, Tardy, Excused Absence, Excused Tardy, or Absent. “Online” typically counts as Present; “Left Early” might count as Tardy.
Set the order number (where it appears among the marking buttons) and decide whether it's student-selectable — whether students may choose it when self-marking.
Click Add Status.

The “counts as” choice locks once used

The base category controls attendance rates, absence alerts, and reports. Once a status has been used on real attendance records, its “counts as” can't be changed — that would silently rewrite history (the row shows “In use — category locked”). To reclassify, archive the old status and add a new one. The four defaults never change category.

Archive vs delete

A status that has never been used can be deleted outright. Once it has attendance records, it can only be archived — it disappears from the marking options going forward, but existing records keep their label and color, and you can Restore it later. Each row shows its record count so you know which case you're in.

2. Student self-marking

Turn on “Students mark their own attendance” for a school and students with their own login get a Mark your attendance card on their dashboard. It's trust-based: students record how they attended each of the day's scheduled classes, choosing from the statuses you marked student-selectable. By default that means today only, but you can open a backdating window so students can also fill in days they missed.

A student's Mark Your Attendance modal showing today's date, one card per class with colored status buttons including Online, a second class locked with a 'Marked by your teacher' note, and a footer explaining the teacher can correct anything they mark. — The student's self-marking view — today only, and a teacher's mark locks the class.

What students can and can't do

Today by default. Out of the box students can't backdate; the date is always today in your school's timezone. Set “Let students log earlier days” (next to the toggle) to a number of days and students get Previous day/Next day controls to step back within that window — never into the future, never past a locked term, and never onto a day their class doesn't meet.
Their own classes only, and only classes that meet that day.
Only student-selectable statuses. If you didn't mark “Absent” student-selectable, they can't self-mark absent.
Staff always wins. The moment a teacher or admin marks a student, that class locks for the student (“Marked by your teacher”) — and staff can correct any self-mark at any time.

Daily-attendance schools

If the school uses whole-day (daily) attendance instead of per-class, the student's view becomes a single “School Day” entry titled “Today's Attendance” — they mark once for the day.

3. Student attendance takers

Sometimes you want a responsible student to run the register — the teacher is out, or you simply delegate it. Turn on “Student attendance takers” for the school, then appoint a student per class.

Appoint a taker

Open the class's attendance grid (Attendance → pick the class).
Click Actions → Attendance Takers (the menu item shows a blue badge with the class's active taker count).
Choose a student. Only students with their own MarkTrack login can be appointed — the taker signs in to mark.
Optionally set a From / Until date window (say, just the week the teacher travels). Leave both blank for a standing appointment.
Click Appoint Taker.

The Attendance Takers modal for a class with no takers yet: an empty-state hint, a Student dropdown, optional From and Until date fields, and a blue Appoint Taker button with a note that parent alerts still fire only for staff marks. — Appoint a standing or date-windowed taker for the class.

The same modal lists everyone currently appointed — with their window (or Standing) and who appointed them. Admins can appoint on any class in their schools; teachers only on classes they teach. To remove a taker, click Revoke — it takes effect on their very next action.

The Attendance Takers modal open over the class attendance grid, listing two standing takers, Harun Khan and Adam Rahman, each appointed by the admin and each with a red Revoke button. — Active takers for the class — revoke anytime.

4. What the taker sees

The appointed student gets a “Take attendance” card on their dashboard that opens a purpose-built register: today's roster with the same status buttons staff use (including your custom statuses), and nothing else.

A student attendance taker's Take Attendance register for Year 4 Fiqh: one row per classmate with Present, Absent, Tardy, Excused Absence, Online, Recording Only, and Left Early buttons, and the taker's own row labeled 'you'. — The taker's register — their one class, today only, including their own row.

Their one class only, today only — the register includes the taker's own row, flagged (you).
Can't override staff. A row a teacher or admin already marked is locked to the taker (“Marked by a teacher”); staff can rewrite anything a taker enters.
No notes, no history, no exports — just marking.
Daily-mode “School Day” classes can't be delegated (that roster is the whole school).

5. Who marked each student — provenance

Whenever someone other than staff marks a student, the grid shows a small dot in the cell's corner:

Teal — the student self-marked.
Blue — a class helper (attendance taker) marked it.
Hollow ring — staff corrected a non-staff mark.

Plain teacher/admin marks show no dot — the grid stays clean. Click a dot for the full detail: who marked it, in what role, the exact time, and for corrections, which kind of mark was replaced.

The attendance grid with the who-marked-it popover open on a Present cell, showing the student's name and status, 'Marked by class helper' with the helper's name, and the exact date and time of the mark. — Click the dot: who, in what role, and when.

Privacy

Only your staff see who marked a student. Parents see no marker at all on the web, and in the mobile apps families get a neutral role label (“Class helper” / “Self-marked”) — never another student's name. Students reviewing their own history get a “Marked by me” filter and a note when staff corrected them.

Parent alerts stay staff-only

Alerts fire only for staff marks

A student self-marking absent, or an attendance taker marking a classmate absent, does not alert parents. The alert waits until a teacher or admin confirms the absence. This is automatic — no configuration needed.

Configuring the alerts themselves (statuses, email vs SMS, timing) is covered in the attendance alert guides in the Attendance category.

Take daily attendance — the grid itself, attendance modes, and class reports.
Absence requests — how families report absences ahead of time.
Set your timezone (and why it controls attendance) — what “today” means for self-marking and takers.