Calculating the AbsenceMinutes and AbsenceFactor

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Last updated: Mar 20, 2017 by Former user (Deleted)

Synergetic uses AbsenceMinutes and AbsenceFactor calculations for students in the DEEWR export.
AbsenceMinutes are calculated for each day for each student to give an exact total of how long a student has been absent for the day.

Note: Different Absence Event Types can affect the calculation of AbsenceMinutes. See below for more information.

The calculated AbsenceMinutes are used to generate the AbsenceFactor, which is the AbsenceMinutes for the day divided by the total minutes for the day.

Note: Absence Event Types are only included in the AbsenceFactor calculations if the CountAsAbsenceFlag is selected for the Absence Type related to the Absence Event Type in the luAbsenceType lookup table.

See luAbsenceType lookup table and luAbsenceEventType lookup table in the System maintenance manual.

Determining the total minutes in a student's day
Synergetic individually calculates each student's total minutes for a given day based on the:

  • DayStartTime as the first period in the day that is marked for attendance.
  • DayEndTime as the last period in the day that is marked for attendance.
  • Timetable Group that is associated with the student's year level.

See the Attendance Entry flag on the Timetable Maintenance - Timetable Definition tab in the Curriculum manual.

Calculating the AbsenceMinutes for different absence event types

Absence Event Type

Calculated AbsenceMinutes

All Day Absence

Total minutes for the day, calculated as the difference between the DayStartTime and the DayEndTime.

Slips

Total for the period, calculated as the number of minutes between the StartTime and EndTime for the period that the absence is for.
See Timetable Maintenance - Timetable Definition tab in the Curriculum manual.

All other absences

Calculated based on the In/Out status in Absence Events Maintenance. If a student has:

  • an absence event with an IN status, such as from signing in, then calculation is based on:
  • the time they signed out until they signed in again
  • the start of the day until they signed in.
  • an absence event with an OUT status, such as signing out, then calculation is based on the time they signed out until:
  • the end of the day
  • they sign in again.
    See Absence Events Maintenance window in the Attendance and absence events manual.


Example AbsenceFactor calculation
For the timetable definition below:

  • the DayStartTime is 8:30 AM
  • the DayEndTime is 3:30 PM
  • the minutes for the day is 360 minutes.

For the absence events in the example below, Synergetic calculates the AbsenceFactor of the:

  • Slips by calculating:
  • AbsenceMinutes as the difference between 8:30AM and 9:30AM (60 minutes)
  • AbsenceFactor as 60 divided by 360 rounded to two decimal places (0.17).
  • SignIn by calculating
  • AbsenceMinutes as the difference between 8:30AM and 8:45AM (15 minutes)
  • AbsenceFactor as 15 divided by 360 rounded to two decimal places (0.04).
  • SignOut, SignIn, then SignOut by calculating
  • AbsenceMinutes as the difference between 9:30AM and 12:30PM (180 minutes)

plus the difference between 2:30PM and 3:30PM (60 minutes) which is 240 minutes.

  • AbsenceFactor as 240 divided by 360 rounded to two decimal places (0.67).