Take attendance

Every meeting has its attendance list. You take it on the spot, from any device, and each mark is saved as you go.

When you can take it

By default, the list opens 30 minutes before the meeting starts and closes 24 hours after it ends. Your church sets those times in Notices and deadlines. A cancelled meeting has no list.

While the list is still open, even if the meeting has already ended, you can still correct the Who for tags of a meeting for the Whole church or Segmented, that is, who it was expecting. Once the list closes, they no longer change. Schedule meetings explains how.

If nobody has taken attendance at a meeting that counts, whoever leads it gets the Attendance to take notification in the bell, by default 6 hours before the list closes. It comes for encounters and for meetings of a type that counts; for a whole-church meeting with no type, only if it’s part of a series and attendance was taken on one of its four previous dates. Once a Quick count is saved, there’s no notification. If the person leading it can’t take it, the notification goes to whoever created the meeting. For an encounter, it goes to the people who lead the cell group.

Take attendance

1. Open the meeting and select Take attendance.

2. Mark each person as present (✓) or absent (✗). Each mark is saved instantly.

3. If you like, add a note to a person, of up to 300 characters.

4. When you’re done, mark everyone who’s still unmarked in one go: Mark the remaining # present, or Mark absent (see below). Both ask you to confirm.

At the top you see how many people are left to mark and the total present and absent.

On a phone

The list is designed to be taken from a phone, with one tap per person. The Avatars view shows people’s faces: tapping one opens their card, with their name, and there you mark them Present or Absent. The buttons to mark everyone else are stacked one below the other.

Mark the remaining people absent

Once you’ve marked the people who came, Mark absent marks the members who are still unmarked as absent.

Contacts stay unmarked: a visitor who doesn’t come back isn’t counted as absent. If you got someone wrong, change their mark while the list is open.

Unmarked is not an absence

Inperia only counts what was marked. An unmarked person doesn’t get an absence on their attendance, and doesn’t show up in Care because of it. That’s why it’s best to finish every list with one of the two marks at once: Mark present for everyone still unmarked, or Mark absent for the members still unmarked.

Find people

• The search box finds a person by name.
• In Filters:
  • Unmarked only keeps the people who don’t have a mark yet.
  • Absent only keeps the people who were marked absent: who to call afterwards.
  • Only people you lead keeps the people you lead directly, without the rest of your branch. That way, a leader takes attendance for their own people without going through the whole list.

How each person has been coming

Next to the name, the list can show a sign of how that person has been coming:

• First time: they hadn’t come to any meeting that counts yet.
• # weeks away: they haven’t come in a while, and they missed the last time.
• Missed # in a row: they missed several meetings in a row.

Only one sign shows per person, while the list is being taken. You see it if you have the View each person’s attendance permission, never about yourself. Each person’s attendance explains how it’s counted.

Quick count

When nobody writes down everyone who came, for example at a large service with visitors and children, the Quick count saves how many people were there: Adults, Children and Visitors.

1. On the list, select Quick count.

2. Enter the numbers you counted. Each one is optional: leave blank what you didn’t count, because blank isn’t the same as zero.

3. Select Save.

The count is recorded by whoever takes attendance for that meeting, while the list is open. It shows in the meeting’s panel, next to the attendance, and in Reports. It doesn’t add to anyone’s attendance, because it doesn’t name anyone. At the same meeting you can mark each person and also count the total.

Against earlier ones

Once a meeting’s attendance has been taken, its panel shows Against earlier ones: how many people came on average to the last meetings of the same type (up to 8) and the difference with this one. If the meeting has no type, it’s compared with the meetings in its series. An encounter is compared with its cell group’s encounters.

The average counts the people you can see, like the list.

Visitors and newcomers

• Add a contact creates, on the spot, the record of someone who came for the first time and marks them present, if the meeting accepts contacts and you can create them.
• The Visitors’ QR lets visitors register themselves from their phone, and they become contacts marked present. Visitors’ QR explains how.
• Add a visitor exists in a cell group’s encounters: Encounters explains how.

Who takes attendance

To take attendance, you need the Record who attended a meeting permission. Each role can also define, under Whose attendance does it take?, who it marks: for example, a leader only marks the people in their branch. Roles and permissions explains how.

If your marriage is confirmed in the app and you’re both at the meeting, you can also take attendance for your spouse’s people: switch from Your list to your spouse’s list, which carries their name. The same filter keeps only the people your spouse leads. Family and marriage explains how.

Each person’s attendance notes are only visible to whoever has the View the attendance note beside each person permission, and nobody sees the one written about themselves. Under the same rule, each note also appears below its mark on the Attendance tab of that person’s record: Each person’s attendance explains how.