Accurate and timely data is key to the success of the Attendance Improvement Plus feature. This guide outlines when and how to send your attendance and calendar files to TalkingPoints.
⏱️ Attendance Data Export Timing
Frequency: Daily, at least twice, on all instructional days
Daily timing:
1️⃣ First file: After attendance has been reconciled in the morning and at least 45-60 minutes before you intend your school intends to send a message to parents/guardians to notify them of a student’s absence from school
2️⃣ Second file: After the school day is complete, sending a second file will update the TalkingPoints Attendance Dashboard, ensuring it stays aligned with any updates that were made in the SIS during the day.
Additional files (optional): If you would like your TalkingPoints attendance dashboard to be updated more frequently throughout the day, you can send additional data files. TalkingPoints can ingest as many attendance data files as your SIS can schedule.
Format: .csv, one row per student, per day
🤝 Why it matters: TalkingPoints attendance features aim to make communication about attendance easy for schools and equitable for families. The more up-to-date that attendance data is within TalkingPoints, the more accurate absence messaging will be!
📅 Calendar Data Export Timing
Frequency: Once per year, and any time your calendar changes
Deadline: Ideally 1–2 weeks before the school year begins. This data is needed before the attendance package can be turned on.
Format: .csv, one row per school-day combination
💭 Why it matters: Ensures accurate attendance trends and absence rates are shown.
🤔 Additional Considerations
File names of all daily attendance files or calendar files (first, second, and any additional sent) must be identical names or attendance will not be counted accurately.
TalkingPoints assumes students with no attendance data for a day are present.
Tardies and Excused Presents are not flagged as absences.
Any inputs in the “Attendance_event_reason” field that may appear even if a student has not yet provided a reason for absence are needed. Knowing those inputs will ensure that TalkingPoints provides accurate information about students who are absent and have not provided a reason (ie, “unexcused without a reason”).
Absence rates shown in the dashboard are rounded down to the nearest whole percent (except for rates below 1%).
How TalkingPoints Receives Your Files
TalkingPoints has two ways of ingesting data into TalkingPoints Connector: API or SFTP. At this time, only PowerSchool partners are able to send their attendance data via API. For all other Student Information Systems, the file will be received via scheduled SFTP.
PowerSchool partners: You will receive a custom plugin to enable our team to connect to your SIS and access the data we need to enable the Attendance feature. TalkingPoints Connector API Integration Guide
For all other Student Information Systems: Once your attendance file is configured and contains the fields above, you will schedule your SIS to send these CSV files on a regular cadence in a batched format to the TalkingPointsConnector SFTP server. See this article for more information: TalkingPoints Connector SFTP Integration Guide