Attendance Types

BVCMS uses Organizations and Meetings to track individual’s participation (Attendance) in church activities. When a person attends a Meeting, the system will assign an Attend Type based on several factors. These factors are different for Members of Organizations and Visitors to an Organization’s Meeting. See the Meeting Page article.

For Members those factors are:

• Their Member Type in that Organization – Leader, Member, In-Service, Homebound, Volunteer
• Their Enrollment in another Organization that is offsite during that Meeting – Offsite
• Their Attendance in another Organization (in which their Member Type is VIP) during that Meeting  - Volunteer
• The type of meeting that is created. If the Meeting is a Group/Headcount Meeting , any Members who are not specifically marked Present, will have an Attend type of Group

For Visitors those factors are:

• Their Attendance pattern in that Organization – New Visitor, Repeat Visitor
• Their enrollment in another Organization in that Program – Visiting Member

Let's talk about Members and their Attendance in an Organization in which they are enrolled. All Members have a Member Type and Member Types have Attend Types associated with them. The Attend Type is set in the Lookup Table - Member Types.

• Leader Attend Type
  • Certain Member Types (such as Teacher, Director, etc.) are considered to be Leaders. Those with these Member Types in that Organization will have an Attend Type of Leader.
• Homebound Attend Type
  • Those Members who who normally cannot attend the class, but who are Members of the class in order to have a group that is responsible for ministering to them should be assigned a Member Type Homebound. This type has an Attend Type that is also Homebound. Their names will print on a roll sheet and can be marked present if/when they are able to attend.
• In-Service Attend Type
  • This is used for those who teach in one class and want to maintain a connection to another class. For example: a woman teaches a 1st Grade class at 8:00 and her husband is enrolled in an Adult class at 8:00. She would be enrolled in the Adult class with a Member Type of In-Service so that she will be included with the class for fellowship. Her Member Type in the 1st Grade Class would be Teacher. When she attends the class she teaches, she will be assigned an Attend Type of In-Service in the Adult class. In the Attendance History grid, she will have a 1 in the Other Attend column for her Adult class.
• Volunteer Attend Type
  • This Attend Type works very similarly to In-Service. However, in this case the person would have a Member Type of Member in their Adult (or primary) class and would have a Member Type of VIP or Volunteer in the class in which they occasionally serve. The difference between this and In-Service is that the volunteer normally attends their primary class, but once or twice a month, they serve as a volunteer in the nursery, for example. For the Meetings when they volunteer, they will have an Other Attend for their primary class and an Attend Type of Volunteer. This lets their teacher know they were on campus and serving elsewhere. Their Attend Type in the class in which they volunteer would also be Volunteer. The letter V will display in the Attendance String .

There are a couple of Attend Types that are not based on a specific Member Type, but on other factors. Those Attend Types are Visiting Member, Offsite, New Visitor and Group

• Offsite Attend Type
  • This is based on a person’s enrollment in an Organization that has an Attendance Classification of Offsite and has a Start and End date. When a person who is enrolled in an offsite Organization is also enrolled in another Organization that has meetings during the dates of the offsite Organization, they will be marked as having an Other Attend with an Attend Type of Offsite. The letter O will display in the Attendance String.  Example: Jane is enrolled in a Wed. night Discipleship Class and a Sunday Life Group. She is also going on a mission trip and will be gone on a Wed. and a Sunday. She will be marked ‘Offsite’ in both of the classes she will miss. NOTE: She should NOT be marked present in her Discipleship Class as the system will automatically mark her offsite.
• Visiting Member Attend Type
  • This is used when a person attends a meeting for an Organization in which they are not a member, but that is either at the same time (Schedule) or in the same Program as an Organization in which they are a member. Their Attendance String in the Organization in which they are a member will have an asterisk for that Meeting, the Attend Type for that Meeting will be Other Class and their Attendance History will indicate an Other Attend. Their Attend Type in the meeting where they visited will be Visiting Member.
• New Visitor Attend Type
  • This is the Attend Type that is given to a person who does not fit any of the other scenarios above…that is, they are a Visitor in an Organization, have not attended that Organization before, are not enrolled in other Organizations.
• Group Attend Type
  • If a Meeting is a Group/Headcount Meeting, every Member who is not specifically marked present is assigned an Attend Type of Group. This will not affect (either good or bad) a Member's Attendance Percentage.

So, this means that if you follow the procedures outlined above…that is, correctly using the Member Types (for an individual) and  Attendance Classification & dates (for an Organization)…then you should never have to mark a person present in a class unless they are actually in the class. That is to say, you would never mark a person present in one class if you knew they were attending another class, serving in another area or offsite on a Mission Trip or Camp. Their attendance would be recorded correctly in the Organization in which they are a Member.

Volunteer Attend Type:

 

Visiting Member - Other Attend in Same Program, Same Schedule:

 

Visiting Member Same Meeting Time Attend Type:

 

Offsite Attend Type in Multiple Meetings: