Importing Absence XML

Victorian Government schools producing AusVELS reports may import absence data for students in Prep to Year 10 via an Absence XML file obtained from CASES21.

This option is found via File > Import > Student Absence XML, which brings up the Import Student Absences window.

Attendance fields may be found in the following Standard Text Boxes sections in Quick Setup:

•	Primary Summary Fields

•	Primary Personal Learning Goals Fields

•	Secondary Personal Learning Goals Fields

QS Attendance Fields

In the case of Catholic structures, there is only one field – Attendance. When this is chosen, an Attendance assessment item is created in the relevant subject into which absence data can be inserted or imported via a CSV file.

Also, the appropriate report template will include the Attendance assessment item field.

However, Government schools have a choice of two attendance items in Quick Setup, as shown above:

•	Attendance (Typed) is identical to the Catholic Attendance item in function and use.

•	Attendance (Calculated) creates an assessment item in the subject but this contains a calculation in it, referencing a Student Custom Property which is also created by selecting this option in the Quick Setup window. The appropriate template is created with the field inserted.

These attendance custom properties – coded AVATT1 and AVATT2, depending on the semester – can then be used by a special import process available to Government schools whereby an XML file of student absence data may be extracted from CASES21 and imported into Accelerus for inclusion on the AusVELS reports.

These custom properties do not need to be created via the selection of the Attendance (Calculated) field in Quick Setup. When importing an Absence XML file from CASES21, the Attendance custom property is created if it does not already exist for the particular semester. In this way, if your school wishes to include attendance on another report, eg the front cover or a home group report, it may do so by inserting the custom property in any template, including layout and general templates, via Custom Properties under the Student branch of the Accelerus Fields pane.

•	Obtain an Absence XML file for the semester from your CASES21 administrator and store it in a location accessible to the Accelerus administrator's computer.

•	Be aware of where the absence data is to be stored and where it is to be reported, eg in assessment items and templates generated from the Quick Setup window, or whether the student custom property needs to be added manually to a template, eg a cover page.

•	In Accelerus, go to File > Import > Student Absence XML.

•	In the Import Student Absences window:

➢	Select the required one of the four format option buttons, that allow the absence data to be printed just as a number, or in two preset options, eg Absent for 2.5 days this semester, or you can specify your own format.

Four option buttons allow you to specify the way you want the comments to print on the report

➢	If you select the Specify your own format option, you will be presented with three fields where you may compose the required sentence for situations where the student has no days absent, 1 day or multiple days.

In so doing, you may click the dropdown arrow at the end of each field and select from the available fields, eg Given Name which will insert <Given Name> in the field.

If you choose the option to specify your own format, you can compose your own absence comments

➢	Click the browse button at the end of the Filename field and go to the location in which you have stored the Absence XML, and select the file.

➢	Click the Preprocess button to preview the impact before you import.

➢	Open any issue, warning and error branches to reveal the details for each student.

Before importing the absences, you can preprocess the file to see if there are any issues, errors or warnings

➢	Make any changes to the action to be taken for any listed issues, by clicking the appropriate dropdown list option in the right of the pane.

➢	When ready to to proceed, click the Import button.

The import process will search for the appropriate one of the custom student properties coded AVATT1 or AVATT2 and, if not found, will create one. The absence data, in the format selected, is stored in the custom property.

Schools that selected the Attendance field in the Quick Setup window will have that field in their templates, referring to the data in the custom property. Schools that do not, need to insert the custom property in the appropriate location in their templates.

Other absence data may be imported into Accelerus, via File > Import > CSV Files. This includes Catholic and Government schools wishing to import absences at the subject level, or into a student custom property.

In the case of absence, or any other data that needs to be imported into assessment items, you would use the Import CSV Files window, selecting the Results option therein.

Where the data is to be imported into a student custom property via a CSV file, you would select the Student option in the Import CSV Files window.

In both cases this data, obviously, needs to be available from another system that allows its extraction into a CSV file, and you must ensure the data in the CSV file format conforms to the requirements for the type of import, eg Results or Students.