Hello Airtable Community,
I'm in the process of transitioning from Google Sheets to Airtable to manage a dance school, with the aim of creating a more robust and streamlined system. I've successfully set up tables for students, classes, venues, staff, and periods (e.g., May 2024, June 2024). However, I'm encountering challenges with the attendance tracking system.
In our previous system on Google Sheets, attendance was tracked in a simple and user-friendly matrix format as follows for each month:
| May | 7/5 | 12/5 | 19/5 | 26/5 |
|------|----|-----|-----|-----|
| Student 1 | x | x | o | x |
| Student 2 | x | x | x | o |
| Student 3 | x | o | o | o |
For each subsequent month, we would simply copy the layout and update the dates, which were calculated automatically. This format allowed for easy visual and editing access to attendance.
In Airtable, I'm trying to normalize this data to improve the system's scalability and integrity. A normalized approach would ideally have records for each individual attendance date linked to student and class records.
ID_At | Class | Student | Date | Attendance |
1 | ClassTango | Student1 | 7/5 | x |
2 | ClassTango | Student2 | 7/5 | x |
3 | ClassTango | Student3 | 7/5 | x |
4 | ClassTango | Student1 | 12/5 | 0 |
5 | ClassTango | Student2 | 12/5 | x |
6 | ClassTango | Student3 | 12/5 | x |
7 | ClassTango | Student1 | 19/5 | x |
8 | ClassTango | Student2 | 19/5 | |
9 | ClassTango | Student3 | 19/5 | x |
10 | ClassTango | Student1 | 26/5 | |
11 | ClassTango | Student2 | 26/5 | |
12 | ClassTango | Student3 | 26/5 | |
However, this normalized data structure introduces two main practical issues for our administrative staff:
- **Lack of a comprehensive monthly view**: Staff need to switch screens to a pivot table interface to see the whole month's attendance, which is slow and cumbersome.
- **Inefficient new student addition**: In the normalized structure, adding a new student requires entering their name across multiple date records, unlike the single entry needed in Excel.
**Question**: Is there a way in Airtable to visually edit and display attendance information in a format similar to Excel's grid, which is both comprehensive and editable on a single screen? While the timeline view is close, it repeats the student list for each date and is not quick or easy to edit.
Any advice, templates, or customization tips that could help mimic the usability of our old system while benefiting from Airtable's features would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
