edge can keep caregivers informed about their children's attendance in two ways: caregivers can report absences to the school through the edge mobile app, and the school can send caregivers automatic attendance summary emails on a daily or weekly schedule. Both capabilities are part of a feature that must be enabled for your school — contact support if you would like to use them.
edge can keep caregivers informed about their children's attendance in two ways: caregivers can report absences to the school through the edge mobile app, and the school can send caregivers automatic attendance summary emails on a daily or weekly schedule. Both capabilities are part of a feature that must be enabled for your school — contact support if you would like to use them.
Absence reporting by caregivers in the mobile app
Once the feature is enabled, school staff configure in-app absence reporting under Setup > Edit School Settings, in the section Absence Notifications by Caregivers in mobile app.
- Tick Enable to allow caregivers to submit absence notifications from the app.
- Enter the text caregivers see on the absence landing screen (for example, instructions on what information to provide).
- Enter the School Absences Phone Number and, if you want caregivers to be able to text the school instead, tick the option allowing text messages to that number.
- Choose whether caregivers must supply additional information with every absence.
- Optionally disable the Family Reasons and/or Other Reason absence types if you do not want caregivers to use them.
- Save the school settings.
This section is not available for Kōhanga Reo / ECE services.
Screenshot: Absence Notifications by Caregivers section in Edit School Settings
A related staff report, the Monthly Caregiver Attendance Report, is available for reviewing caregiver-reported attendance activity.
Attendance summary emails to caregivers
The school can also send caregivers an automatic email summarising their child's attendance. These emails are set up by the edge support team rather than through a school settings page — contact support to have them configured or adjusted. When discussing the setup, the following options are available:
| Option | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Schedule | Daily (covers that school day) and/or weekly (covers the current Monday–Friday week). The send time is part of the scheduled job set up by support. |
| Student group | The class or group whose students are included. An optional exclusion group can remove specific students. The group automatically rolls over to the matching group each new year. |
| Year level range | Limit the emails to a range of year levels (defaults to the school's full range). |
| Intro message | A customisable opening message. It can include the caregiver's and student's first names, and optional year-to-date or term attendance statistics (days present, total days, percentage). |
| Detail level | Summary, medium or detailed layout for the attendance grid. |
| Include percentages | Weekly emails can include a summary table of counts and percentages for Present, Late, Justified Absence, Unjustified Absence, Unmarked, Unknown and Truancy. |
| Which caregivers | Emails can go to caregivers flagged as legal guardian, notices recipient, either, or both (the default). |
| Staff copy | Teachers attached to the group can receive a combined summary email covering all of their students. |
| From address | Emails send from a no-reply address, or from the school's own verified email address if one is set up. |
What the email contains
Each caregiver receives one email per student, with a subject line like "School Name – Weekly Attendance Summary for Student Name". The body contains the school's intro message followed by a grid of the student's attendance codes for each period of each day in the window, colour-coded, with a key explaining the codes (Present, Late, Justified Absence, Unjustified Absence, Unknown, Truancy, Unmarked). Weekly emails can also include the counts-and-percentages summary table.
Which caregivers receive the email
For a caregiver to receive the summary, all of the following must be true:
- The student is in the configured group, currently enrolled, and within the configured year level range (and not in the exclusion group).
- The caregiver has the required flags on the student's record (legal guardian and/or notices recipient, per the school's chosen rule).
- The caregiver is not marked as denied access to student information.
- The caregiver has a valid email address recorded as a contact method.
If a caregiver reports not receiving summaries, check points 2–4 on the caregiver's record first — there is no separate opt-in for caregivers; eligibility comes entirely from the caregiver's flags and contact details.
Timing
Daily summaries cover that day's attendance; weekly summaries cover the current Monday to Friday. Emails are queued by the scheduled job and sent shortly afterwards by edge's email service. Make sure attendance is marked before the scheduled send time, otherwise students will show as unmarked in the summary.
Screenshot: Example caregiver attendance summary email with colour-coded attendance grid