1. Click on the Setup Menu and select Attendance.
2. From the Attendance Menu select Categories. The program displays the Configure Attendance Categories window.
3. Click on the Add button to display the Add Attendance Category window.
4. The ID field cannot be edited. The program will assign a system generated ID to this category.
5. Click in the Name field and type a name for this category (limit 20 characters).
6. Click in the Abbreviation field and type an abbreviation for this category. Abbreviations are used on attendance reports, Quick Daily Attendance and the Detailed Daily Attendance windows.
7. Click in the Attendance Value field and assign a value to this category from 1.0 to 0.0. Present has a value of 1 and Absent has a value of 0, however you can use decimals, such as .5 or .75 as an attendance value. These values are used in attendance reports.
8. If your school does not track class cuts with this system, you do not need to use the field Ignore Class Cuts. If your school tracks class cuts and would like the program to reject cuts when a student has this attendance category, then click on the Ignore Class Cuts check box to enable it.
9. When Ignore Class Cuts is enabled, you must list the periods for which class cuts cannot be entered in the field to the right. Enter the periods in order separated by commas (i.e. 1,2,4,5,7). You must type each period individually. Do not type a range.
10. For a category such as Tardy or Dismissed where the periods may vary from student to student, do not enable Ignore Class Cuts. The periods can be entered for individual students when daily attendance is updated.
11. If you use class attendance you can make these categories available to that system also. To enable this category for class attendance, click the Include in Class Attendance box to mark it with a check mark.

Note: Class attendance can be used without categories. Users simply indicate that the student was not in class with no additional information.

12. If this category is used for class attendance you can choose to remove part of the attendance value for the day each time the category is selected. For example, if you mark a student absent from class for one period, the program will remove .125 of attendance value from the day value of 1.00. To use this option click on the box next to Update Attendance Value.
13. When teachers are processing grades in the grade book they can choose to include class absences along with the grade and print that information on the report card. If this is an absence category and should be included in total class absences on the report card, click the box next to Include in Grade Book.
14. If you would like to display a color on the screen whenever this category is used, click the Choose Color button and select the color needed.
15. Click OK to save the category.