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May 13, 2016 12:57 PM
My teachers need to record all the dates when a student is absent. We do not need to record present, just absence.
We also need to easily count all of the time a student has been absent
One way to do it is for me to make an attendance table. The teacher can select a date and then link to the student table with all students who were absent that day/
Back on the student table side I can count how many dates were attached.
Is there a better way to do this??? One that would not me require me to create a completely separate table for attendance?
May 15, 2016 10:18 AM
I’m also wondering how this can be done
May 19, 2016 07:57 PM
Just curious as to why you wouldn’t want a separate table for attendance? This seems like a perfect one (student) to many (attendance) relationship. Just what a relational database like Airtable was designed to handle.
To answer your question, you could create a column for every day in your student table, but now you’re using Airtable more like a spreadsheet.
May 20, 2016 05:08 PM
Just looking to male sure there’s not an easier, cleaner way to do this
May 23, 2016 08:26 PM
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To relational DB fans (like me), it’s in a nicely structured one to many relationship. Airtable does a great job of hiding most of the messy stuff from you.
Jun 24, 2016 07:30 PM
I’m trying to find a good way to do this as well (for ballet classes). In a regular spreadsheet, I simply have a tab for each class I teach, with a list of students and a column for each date we have class. I mark the students present or absent. It’s really simple to set up and to use.
I’d like to transition to using Airtable because that way I can have contact information, injury history, and other information for each student recorded all in the same place, but I am having a hard time coming up with a way to track attendance across multiple classes that will be easy to use and view.
Jun 30, 2016 02:59 AM
Multiple classes sounds like views to me. :slightly_smiling_face:
Jul 07, 2016 04:18 PM
If you have students that take multiple classes, then I’d have a student table, a class table, and a student-class cross-reference table that assigns students to classes.
And to visualize them, @Tuur is right. You could have a view for class, but all of your data is nicely normalized so there’s no repetition.