Child attendance reporting

Whether using the Check-In system or a manual check-in process, ChurchSuite makes child attendance recording straightforward. As that attendance accumulates over time, powerful attendance reports will help you track key attendance metrics of interest. In this article, we explore the Attendance reports in the Children module's Reports section and also show you how you can view individual child and group attendance.

Attendance Date

The Attendance Date report displays a list of all team, children and visitors in attendance on a given Date on a group-by-group basis. The report shows all sessions for all Group Setups on the given date. This report is ideal for organisations that need to produce a hard-copy record of group attendance for safeguarding purposes.

Attendance Percentages

The Attendance Percentages report shows each child's attendance as a percentage for each group over a range of Dates. Filter the results by Groups, Tags and/or an Attendance % range. Order the results by child name or attendance %. If a child is in multiple groups, they will be included in the report for each of their groups, with their % attendance for each group.

Attendance Sessions

If you run multiple Check-In sessions for a Group Setup - perhaps where you repeat groups across your Sunday services - the Attendance Sessions report will be really useful. This report works just like the attendance Graph Generator but with the additional option of contrasting attendance at each session for the Group Setup. So you can easily compare your Creche check-in attendance at the AM1 service vs. the AM2 service.

Plotting this report over time will allow you to see attendance trends, perhaps identifying which groups within which services are growing and at what rate. It's an important indicator that will inform team recruitment for your children's ministry.

Attendance Summary

The Attendance Summary report provides a simple attendance register for all sessions within a fixed Number of weeks up to a defined date. You can filter the report to show specific Groups or all groups and children in particular Tags. Children with zero attendance and visitors during the date range can be excluded from the report. The results can be emailed, downloaded or printed. Hovering over any of the green attendance ticks will surface the group name and session the child attended. Note that the maximum number of weeks that can be reported is 12 weeks Ending on a defined date.

Graph Generator

The Graph Generator is a helpful tool for tracking the growth of your children and youth groups over time. The graph plots each meeting's attendance total and then links them together allowing you to see at a glance the attendance trends within your groups. You can even filter multiple groups' data (perhaps your youth groups) on the same graph, allowing you to compare growth and track patterns. The graph is also tailorable for whatever period you want, allowing you to take a wide-angle perspective over a longer period (e.g. a year) or a closer perspective, perhaps across a term or a teaching series.

Monthly Breakdown

The Monthly Breakdown report is a comprehensive report capable of providing headline metrics from your children's ministry as a whole or for a selection of Groups to plot. In its simplest form, this report displays the total number of attendees each month for a group in bar chart form and then plots the average weekly attendance by overlaying a line graph. When used to plot multiple groups, the graph displays each respective group's monthly totals in colour-coded blocks and also a combined total for the month.

The report can be filtered by calendar Year, allowing you to easily see attendance trends for your groups or entire children's ministry. Scrolling down the report page there is a breakdown showing the number of children contacts and visitors each month and the weekly average.

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No Attendance

Use the No Attendance report to quickly view a list of children who have not recently attended one or all of your Groups within a specified range of dates. N/A means that there is no "last attended" date for the child for the selected group. The report can be ordered by Groups or child Names and filtered for all groups, for a selection of groups or just those children within certain Tags.

From the report, you can then directly communicate with children and/or their parents/carers or download or print the report if you wish. You can also 'tag' all the children in the report results, perhaps to follow up with them further outside of the report - click Add to tag under the 'Add' button.

Viewing a child's attendance history

When viewing a child's profile within the Children module, there's a Recent Attendance summary under their Groups tab. Recent attendance is shown in the same way on a visitor's profile:

Clicking to View all attendance will show you a record of the child's full attendance, including dates, sessions and times when they were checked in and out, if appropriate.

Viewing a group's attendance history

Whether you add attendance manually from printed attendance registers or record attendance automatically through the Check-In system, all your groups' historic attendance data is retained within the system. Child attendance is maintained against each group even if a child leaves the church and is deleted from your Children module! As long as the group is not deleted (a destructive action) - you can archive groups) - historic group attendance data, including a list of names, is retained in the system indefinitely. Let's explore some of the places where group attendance is shown:

From the Groups section of the module, choose a Group Setup of interest. Click on the Name of one of the Groups you wish to see attendance for:

The group's Attendance tab shows recent attendance for the group in a graph, with inline group member attendance underneath. Use the filter to see the group attendance data of interest. You can use the navigation links on the left to other groups in the Group Setup.

Group attendance is maintained in the Attendance section of the module, with the most recent attendance first. Use the Search and Advanced Search to filter the list:

Click on an attendance entry from the list to view the attendance details of Children, Visitors and Team attendance for that group and date. Where the Check-In system added the attendance, timestamps show when each person was registered, checked in and checked out.

From this attendance view (above), and for Check-In sessions only, you can click through to the Session summary, which shows attendance for any other groups in the same session. You can also access this session summary from the Sessions tab when viewing a Group Setup.