Chronic absenteeism remains a significant challenge for schools and districts, directly impacting student success. To help address this, TalkingPoints is introducing the Attendance Improvement Plus add-on package.

A key feature of this package is the dedicated Attendance Inbox, which enables schools to separate attendance-related messages from general school communications. This helps attendance staff easily notify families of absences and to engage in two-way conversations to understand and address absenteeism challenges.

Administrators can control who sends and receives attendance messages, and attendance staff with the appropriate permissions can choose to send communications from the Attendance Inbox, their personal inbox, or from the school inbox depending on the need.

Families receive attendance messages in a dedicated thread and can respond via text in their home language, making communication more accessible than calls or emails.

By making attendance conversations easier and more interactive, this feature helps schools work collaboratively with families to improve student attendance.

When will the Attendance Inbox be available?

This feature will be available as part of the Attendance Improvement Plus package for back-to-school 2025.

Who will have access to the Attendance Inbox in the school product?

The Attendance Inbox feature will be available in all school sites within the district once the Attendance Improvement package is enabled for a district partner.

All messages exchanged with families from the Attendance Inbox will also be visible to administrators with message oversight permissions at both the school and district levels.

What will families experience?

One of the advantages of the Attendance Inbox is that it allows schools to create a dedicated thread for attendance-related communications with all family contacts, SMS and Family app users.

What are the key differences communicating through the TalkingPoints Attendance Inbox vs. other attendance communication tools?

The TalkingPoints Attendance Inbox offers a more accessible and interactive approach to attendance communication. Unlike traditional tools that rely on phone calls or emails, families can report absences via text messages in their home language, making communication easier and more convenient.

Additionally, while many attendance systems focus on one-way notifications, the Attendance Inbox—along with other features of the Attendance Improvement Plus package—supports two-way dialogue. This allows schools to not only inform families about absences but also engage in meaningful conversations to understand and address attendance challenges together.

Where can partners access the attendance Inbox? And who has access to it?

The Attendance Inbox can be found in the ‘Messages’ module within the school product.

How does it work?

School-level users with permission to send and receive attendance messages will be able to access the Attendance Inbox tab in the ‘Messages’ module and to select ‘Attendance’ as the sender name in the ‘From’ field when composing a message to families.

Partners can use custom roles to grant this permission to additional staff members.

How does the Attendance Inbox work with the other Attendance Improvement Plus package features?

The Attendance Inbox enhances other Attendance Improvement Plus features by streamlining communication. Automated absence messages are sent to families from the Attendance Inbox, allowing all family responses to be managed and addressed in one place. Additionally, users with appropriate permissions can set up a series of automated messages emphasizing and reinforcing attendance best practices, another new feature of this package.

How do custom roles apply to the Attendance Inbox and what recommendations do you have to set up a custom role for attendance clerks?

A custom role is defined as a set of flexible permissions granted to a user that are defined and managed by the district and control which features that user can access within the product.

The benefit of custom roles is that partners can customize their roles to suit their exact district needs. Below is a suggested starting point for partners creating a custom role for Attendance clerks. These roles are based on the most common school and district requests gathered in early product testing.

Within the TalkingPoints district product, a school-level role can be created for Attendance clerks. The permissions marked with ‘yes’ are strongly recommended; those with ‘optional’ are at the partner’s discretion based on the expected responsibilities of their attendance clerk staff.