How to create an Absence Form

This refers to Moodle 3.11 from September 2022 onward

How to: Create an Absence Form

This activity helps with tracking student absence and reasons for absence without delay.

Adding an Absence Form to your module 

• Navigate to the module you want to change and click on the 'Turn editing on' button (top right) 
• Scroll down to the appropriate section for the form and click on the + Add an activity or resource hyperlink
• Select the 'Absence form' activity 

Absence Form settings explained

General

• "Absence form name": Title of the absence form (showing on the module content page)
• "Description": Instructions and information for completion of the absence form (showing in the absence form)
• "Send email on submit": Tick this box and provide an email address if you'd like to be sent an email notification when a submission has been made.
• "Email address": Email address to send absence form to if the "Send email on submit" has been ticked

Session filter

This enables you to link your Absence Form to a timetable you have created through the University timetabling system. By linking to a timetable the field where students would ordinarily complete with the details of the seminar missed will be a drop-down box instead of detailing all the sessions timetabled for the module.

• "Use timetable" - will show all sessions associated with the module
• "Limit sessions to" -  will show sessions you have noted in the University timetabling system as e.g. a lecture, seminar, clinical skills. This can be helpful is attendance on a course is mandatory and therefore a record of absence is necessary.

When you have finished on the Settings page. click on 'Save and return to module' at the bottom of the page then click on the 'Turn editing off' button  on your main Moodle page.

What a student will see

What information is included in the email?

When the student clicks on the 'Save Changes' button, if 'Send e-mail on submit' has been selected the following information will be sent to the email address set in the form:

• "Username" (picked up automatically by Moodle when a student notes an absence)
• "Session" (this is the class they noted they had missed)
• "Reason" (text entered by the student)
• "Notes" (additional notes added by the student)

There is also a URL link to the relevant Absence Form.

Tip: The email Subject shows the name of the Absence Form so you could include the module name or code as part of the Absence Form name to make it clear which form the email relates to.