Online Class Attendance Reports: Track Who Joined and for How Long

An online class attendance report lists every student who joined a live lesson, when they arrived, when they left and how much of that time they were connected. Educastic builds this report automatically for each session, lets you add a comment per student, export it to Excel and email a session summary to you and your students.

Taking a register online is harder than in a classroom. Students arrive a few minutes late, drop out when their connection fails and rejoin, or leave quietly before the end. An attendance report records all of that for you, so you can spend the first minutes of class teaching instead of calling names.

What is an online class attendance report?

An online class attendance report is a record, per student, of every time they joined and left a live online session. Paper registers only say present or absent. An online report also shows punctuality, dropouts and early exits, which tell you far more about how a student experienced the lesson.

What does the Educastic session report show?

The Educastic session report shows one row per student who joined the session, with these columns:

Times appear in your own time zone. The attendance percentage compares the time a student was connected with the span from their first join to their final exit. A student who dropped out twice gets a lower figure; a student who arrived late but stayed connected does not, so check Time of Joining for punctuality.

For a detailed timeline, View Log opens every join and leave event for one student, to the second. That is useful when a parent asks whether their child really missed part of a lesson.

How do you open an attendance report in Educastic?

You open an Educastic attendance report from the details page of a past session in your teacher dashboard.

1. In the sidebar, open Sessions.
2. Switch the list to Past and find the lesson.
3. Click View Detail on the session card.
4. Click Reports at the bottom of the session details.
5. Use View Log to see one student's timeline, or Edit Comment to add a note, then Save.

How do you export attendance to a spreadsheet?

Click Download at the top of the report to save the attendance table as an Excel file. The log window for a single student also has a Download button that saves that student's join and leave timeline.

A spreadsheet is the easiest way to combine attendance across a term. Paste each session into one sheet, one tab per class, and you can spot the student whose attendance slips week by week before it turns into a problem.

Can you email a session summary automatically?

Yes. Educastic can email a session summary when you leave a live session. Turn it on in My Profile > Settings > Reports and Certificates:

• Auto Report Send: sends the report automatically when you end the session. On its own, the summary goes to you.
• Show send report option on Exit: when you leave, a Send Report window lists the students who joined, and you choose whether to Send logs with each report before you confirm.
• With both switched on, the report goes straight to you and every student who joined.

The summary arrives as a PDF with the session details, your session notes and any tasks or to-dos from the lesson, plus the session's files in a zip. Each student gets their own report, with their join and leave log when Send logs is on. You can also choose a default report template design in the same settings section. When a transcript of the session is available, an overview of it is attached as well.

How should you use attendance data in your teaching?

Use attendance data to start conversations, not to punish. A few habits that work:

• Follow up on dropouts the same day. A student who left halfway through missed the second half of the explanation. Send them the recording or the notes before the next lesson.
• Write the reason in Comments. "Connection problems", "left early for a medical appointment" or "joined from a phone". In a month you will not remember which absences were explained.
• Look for patterns, not single sessions. One late arrival means nothing. Late every Monday may mean the class clashes with something else.
• Share facts with families. Join and exit times are neutral and hard to argue with, which makes conversations with parents easier.

Attendance only tells you who was there. To find out who understood the lesson, pair it with quick checks during class, like the ones in how to check for understanding in an online class.

What should you know before relying on the report?

Educastic records attendance for live sessions you run on the full Educastic whiteboard. A few points to keep in mind:

• A session appears in the reports only after at least one student has joined it.
• Session reports are not available inside the Google Meet add-on. Run a full Educastic session when you need attendance data.
• For a pre-recorded session, the report lists the students who bought it, the purchase date and their viewing history instead of join and exit times.

If you also record your lessons, students who missed part of a class can catch up; see how to record online classes.

Frequently asked questions

Does Educastic take attendance automatically? Yes. Educastic records each student's join and leave times during a live session and builds the report for you, with no register to fill in.

Can I export attendance to Excel? Yes. The Download button on the session report saves the attendance table as an Excel file.

Can students see the attendance report? The report page lives in the teacher's dashboard. Students can receive their own session report by email if you turn on the report options in your settings.

Does a late arrival lower the attendance percentage? No. The percentage measures time connected after the student first joined, so check Time of Joining for punctuality.

Do attendance reports cost extra? No. Educastic includes all of its teaching features in the free version.

Start tracking attendance in your next class

Run your next lesson on the Educastic online whiteboard, then open the session report afterwards to see who joined, when, and for how long.

Try session reports free