Overview
The “Excuse Note” fields are file upload fields. The are found on the Absence Summary, Late Check In/Early Release, Absence Summary and Administration screens. Excuse notes are tied to the students daily, not period attendance.
If a student has an unexcused absence, the parent portal will display an alert. From the portal the parent can click on the alert to open the Absences screen. The Absences screen also displays the file upload in an “Excuse Note” column for parents where they can upload notes or photos of notes.
Excuse Notes and Portal Alerts
When a parent uploads an excuse note, the user with attendance edit access will receive an alert on their portal.
The user can click on the alert, which will then display the student’s attendance information, as well as the excuse note and the drop down menu allowing the user to select Pending, Approved, or Denied.
To remove the alert from their Focus portal alerts, the user should select Approved, and then Save.
Note: Marking the excuse note as Approved will only remove the alert from the user’s Focus portal alerts. It will not change unexcused absences to excused absences. Users will still need to make those changes in the attendance, as necessary.
If the excuse note is marked Pending or Denied, the user may include a note to the parent indicating why the note has not been approved.
Note: If the excuse note is left as Pending, the portal alert will remain on the user’s list of alerts until it is marked Approved or Denied.
To send a message to the parent about the excuse note, the user should click on Set Message, and a pop up box will appear. The user can send a note to the parent’s portal, explaining why the excuse note was not approved.
Once the user has written and saved the message, the parent will now be able to see an alert on their portal indicating that the note has been returned.
If the parent clicks on the portal alert, it will direct them to their child’s attendance showing that the note has been denied. If they click on View Message, they will see the message that the user sent regarding the status of the excuse note.