Options for recording Non-Attendance
The main focus of the Upshot system is to record the work with individuals that you engage with, as such focusing on those that attend rather than those who do not.
We are aware though of a growing number of organisations that would like to be able to record 'Non-attendance' and so have outlined some options below, with pro's and con's for each approach.
Non-attendance refers to participants not attending a session that they were expected to attend. An example would be a 1:1 mentoring programme, if the attendee is aware of the session date and time and doesn’t show up.
Often, all that organisations need to understand from non-attendance is to see gaps in specific individuals across multiple registers within the same activity. If this is the case then either looking at the Sessions Grid in Upshot or the Attendance report export can in some instances show users the information required. Please note, this won’t differentiate people that have not attended for other reasons e.g. stopped attending the activity a long time ago etc.
The below images highlighting that certain attendees such as Dave Beckham have not attended sessions on the 12th and 19th of April, or Nikolas has not attended the Youth Club on the 10th of February.
The below details some other options that organisations have found helpful here:
Option - Session Notes
Session notes in Upshot provide a space to leave other information attached to the Register for a specific Session within an Activity. There are many possible use cases for session notes, in this instance the names of the attendees that were expected to turn up to that particular session could be recorded here. You could also use this space to record any reasons for non-attendance if anyone has provided this.
These session notes can always be viewed alongside a session from the Session List within a project.
For further reporting, they can be exported via the Attendance Report. The session notes would be presented in a cell in the export for each session they have been used on. Users should keep in mind that the ‘Session Notes’ feature is a free text box and so there will be limited reporting capabilities when the data is exported.
Pros:
- Easy to record
- Associated to the correct session
- Recent non-attendances can be viewed from the homepage or in the project
Cons:
- Limited reporting and a level of Excel competence required
- Can’t differentiate non-attendance with other general notes until clicked on to view
Option: Timeline Events
Each attendee has a Timeline in Upshot, in which you can record events that have happened regarding an individual. Each organisation has the ability to create custom events - in this case this can be used to make a record of someone not attending a session.
Name the custom Timeline Event 'non-attendance' (or similar) and create it either as a yes/no option, or alternatively as a single choice dropdown, providing your most common reasons and an option for 'other'.
Each time an attendee does not attend a session they were expected to, follow the below steps to record.
- Search for the attendees name in the search bar in the green toolbar.
- Click into their timeline
- Click on the 'Non-attendance' option from the list and select 'Yes' or the relevant reason if you have a dropdown list of reasons.
- Add any relevant narrative (e.g. the reason if they have provided it)
- Select the relevant project and activity
- Click save
This will allow you to report on the total number of non-attendances using the Timeline Events Report. If you outlined the reasons and created it as a single choice dropdown you will also be able to get insight into each of the stated reasons.
If there are multiple non-attendances to a specific session, a time-saving option would be to record these in bulk from the register page. You can see how to do this by viewing this short video here.
You will also be able to see any individual’s non-attendance record by pulling an Attendee Report from any profile.
Pros:
- More accurate reporting
- Quantifiable reporting
- Linked to attendee profile
Cons:
- More time consuming to record than session notes
- Unable to view non-attendees in the grid view
- Can’t associate to a specific session, most granular is activity. Usually the 'date' on the Timeline Event will be enough indication to the session, unless the same activity runs twice (or more) on the same day, in which case you wouldn’t be able to specify the session.
Option: Different 'Attendee Type'
Within the register in Upshot, it is possible to change the Attendee Type. By default all attendees are entered into the register as 'Participant', however this can be changed. If the organisation isn’t already using the other attendee type options, they could be used to represent non-attendance.
For example, you could use the attendee type 'Support: Other' as the option to mark non-attendance. When you run Statistics report, these people won’t be included in the participant number. The same with the Attendance report download, they will be marked in the attendance table differently than the “participant”.
Pros:
- Easy to manage all in one register.
- Doesn't affect reporting on actual attendance of 'participants'.
- Possible to run a report to just look at non-attendees.
- Clear to see who was a non-attendee in previous registers.
Cons:
- If attendee type isn't changed, data will be skewed (could be easy to miss)
- Can't rename the attendee type options, so the whole team will need to be made aware that 'Support: Other' will mean did not attend.
- If already using other attendee types (or planning on in the future) this won't be possible to use for non-attendance.
- Unable to view non-attendees in the grid view.
Option: Separate activity/abandoned session
Create a separate activity called 'Non-attendance' and keep this like a daily or weekly register for
those individuals. You can add those attendees to the register and then click submit.
Finally, click on 'Edit session' and mark it as 'Abandoned and not counted' so that it doesn't count towards your actual participation numbers.
This step to mark the session as abandoned and not counted is crucial to ensuring that your data remains accurate – if this step is missed the system will think you have delivered this session with those participants attending as normal and will count towards your data.
The Attendance Report can then be used to download these sessions and look at the participants and numbers. On the Attendance Report select your relevant filters, but make sure to change the Session Status to 'Abandoned Sessions' before downloading.
Pros:
- Accurate data recording
- Non-attendance saved as a register the same way attendance is recorded
- More detailed reporting
Cons:
- Can skew real data if not recorded properly – will show more sessions than has been delivered and more total attendances than you have actually had.
- Time consuming