Video walkthrough

This video walks through Orah's Attendance Settings page, covering General Settings, Alert Settings, Reasons, and Roll Settings:

Overview

The Attendance Settings page is your central command center for configuring all attendance tracking, roll call systems, and related features in Orah. It provides comprehensive control over how attendance data is collected, processed, and managed across your school. The page has the following sub-tabs :

General Settings → Configure data source first
Alert Settings → Configure notifications
Reasons → Set up reason codes before alerts
Roll Settings → Set up roll call procedures
Attendance Policies → Set late and absent thresholds
Concerns → Track and action the alerts that have been raised

🧭 Navigate
Staff Menu → Supervise → Attendance → Settings

1. General Settings (Data Source)

Configure your primary attendance data source and tracking methods

Choose between Orah internal data or SIS integration
Set roll call timeframes and daily attendance policies
Manage attendance mode settings

2. Alert Settings

Set up automated notifications for attendance issues

Configure absence and tardiness alerts
Set attendance pattern detection rules
Manage notification recipients and methods

3. Reasons

Manage attendance reason codes and SIS mappings

Create, edit, and delete reason codes (AE, AU, TE, TU, etc.)
Map Orah reason codes to your SIS (Blackbaud, Veracross, Synergetic, FACTS) — see Reason code to SIS mapping below
Import/export reason code lists

Reason code to SIS mapping

On the Reasons tab, each Orah reason code is mapped to a reason in your SIS, and that SIS reason carries its own roll state — Present, Late, Absent-Excused, Absent-Unexcused. The mapping, not the roll code the teacher chose, decides what your SIS records.

To check or change a mapping:

Go to Supervise → Attendance → Settings → Reasons.
Find the Orah reason code you want to check.
Look at the SIS reason it is mapped to, and the roll state that SIS reason represents.
Update the mapping if it points at the wrong state, then save.

Worked example

Your school has a reason code called Late arrival - traffic. It is mapped to a SIS reason whose roll state is Absent-Excused rather than a lateness state. A student arrives 10 minutes into first period, the teacher marks them Late, and the reason is applied — but in your SIS that student shows as Absent-Excused for the period, not Late. The daily attendance figure then counts an absence the school never intended to record.

The fix is on the mapping, not on the roll. Re-map Late arrival - traffic to a SIS reason whose state is a lateness state, and future records will land correctly.

☝🏽 If a tardy is showing as an absence in your SIS, check the reason mapping first. This is the most common cause. Changing the mapping affects records created from that point on — records already sent to the SIS may need to be corrected there or re-synced.

4. Roll Settings

Configure roll call systems and workflows

Set up roll call types (Class Attendance, Daily, Automatic)
Configure roll call permissions and workflows
Manage roll call history and reporting

5. Attendance Policies

Set the thresholds at which a student's lateness or absence counts as an issue

Set Late and Absent thresholds by year level
Use the preview to confirm how a policy applies before saving
Policies feed the daily attendance figures shown across Orah

6. Concerns

Track and action the concerns raised by your attendance alerts

Review every concern an alert has opened, in one list
Assign, comment on, and close concerns
Set the default status a new concern opens with, from Alert Settings