How to Record Attendance

As we are a student organization under the College of Computing, we are required to record attendance at our meetings. In the past this was done with paper attendance sheets; however, attendance is now recorded electronically through MyRoboJackets.

MyRoboJackets allows you to record attendance for both In-person and Remote meetings. Review the section below for your meeting type for complete instructions.

To record attendance, you must have a team lead, trainer, project manager, or officer role in MyRoboJackets. If you need access, please ask in #it-helpdesk on Slack.

In-person

Note: For in-person meetings in the shop or Student Competition Center, use the shop attendance kiosk to record attendance.

There are two ways to take attendance at an in-person meeting (that is outside the shop/SCC) using MyRoboJackets:

1. Using a physical (magstripe or contactless) BuzzCard reader connected to a laptop or phone
2. Using the MyRoboJackets Android app

Using a Physical Card Reader

1. Prior to your meeting, obtain a USB BuzzCard reader from the shop. Contactless (NFC) readers are preferred, but magstripe readers work fine as well.
2. At your meeting, go to https://my.robojackets.org/nova/resources/teams.
3. Find the team you want to record attendance for and click the view (eye) button to view it.
4. Scroll down to the Collect Attendance panel.
5. Important: Click in the text field under Swipe a BuzzCard or enter a GTID number. Ensure that this field is empty.
6. Connect the USB magstripe or contactless BuzzCard reader.
7. For each person you would like to record attendance for, make sure the textbox is highlighted, then swipe their BuzzCard. The name of the BuzzCard's owner will appear below the textbox.

If you need help, feel free to ask in #it-helpdesk.

Using the MyRoboJackets Android App

Note: MyRoboJackets Android is still in beta. You may encounter bugs or other crashes, and feedback is greatly appreciated. Please post in #apiary-mobile with all questions, concerns, suggestions, and general feedback. You may also use the Make a Wish form located in the Settings screen within the app.

The app also has a few requirements:

• Your phone must support NFC.
• Your phone must be running Android 7 (Nougat) or newer.

To record attendance using MyRoboJackets Android:

1. For the time being (as of September 8, 2021), access to the MyRoboJackets Android app is limited to pre-authorized users. While we work on getting the app publicly available on the Google Play store, please send a message in #apiary-mobile, and we'll grant you access to our internal test release track on Google Play.
2. Enable NFC on your phone before opening the MyRoboJackets app. Right now, the app will crash immediately if you open it with NFC disabled.
3. If you haven't already done so, install the MyRoboJackets Android app on your phone and sign in.
4. The first screen you'll see allows you to select a team or event to take attendance form. Follow the prompts to pick the appropriate team or event.
5. A new screen will appear that says "Tap a BuzzCard." For each person you want to record attendance for, touch their BuzzCard to your phone until you feel it vibrate and the screen in the app changes to "Processing..." See below for additional tips if you're having trouble. If the app won't recognize a BuzzCard or someone forgot their BuzzCard, tap Enter GTID manually and enter their GTID to record their attendance. If a valid BuzzCard consistently displays an error message, please reach out in #apiary-mobile so we can debug the issue.

MyRoboJackets Android uses near-field communication (NFC) to read data off of BuzzCards. Below are some tips to get consistent, successful BuzzCard reads:

• If you have a particularly thick case on your phone, try removing it.
• Use your preferred search engine to look up "<your phone model> nfc sensor location" to find out where your phone's NFC sensor is. You'll have the best luck with getting the app to recognize BuzzCards if you place the BuzzCard so it is touching your phone and centered over your phone's NFC sensor.
• If you've ended up in a "dry spell" and the app isn't recognizing any BuzzCards after recognizing some, try pulling away the BuzzCard for a few seconds, and then try again.

If you need help, feel free to ask in #apiary-mobile.

Remote

Note: The use of Remote Attendance Links for in-person attendance is strongly discouraged except as a last resort because it is likely to lead to lower accuracy attendance data. If you have no other way to take attendance at an in-person meeting, however, we suggest distributing a Remote Attendance Links to the people in the room only by not sharing the URL in Slack (a URL shortener such as [bit.ly https://bit.ly] would work well).

MyRoboJackets can create unique, short-lived links to allow you to record attendance at virtual meetings. If you provide a video call join link when creating the attendance link, MyRoboJackets will automatically redirect users to the video call after they click the link.

Follow these steps to create a remote attendance link (RAL):

1. Go to https://my.robojackets.org/nova/resources/teams.
2. Find the team you want to create a RAL for and click the view (eye) button to view it.
3. In the Select Action menu, select Create Remote Attendance Link, and then press the Play button to run the action.
4. If you have a Google Meet, BlueJeans, or Microsoft Teams video call join link, you can paste the link in the Redirect URL box.
5. Select an appropriate Purpose for the link.
6. Click Create Link. A new page will appear with the link(s) listed. If you provided a video call join link, be sure to copy the Auto-redirecting Link.
7. Share the RAL with the attendees of your meeting. If you are sharing an Auto-redirecting link, do not also share the video call join link directly.

Keep in mind these additional notes about RALs:

• RALs will expire after 4 hours by default.
• As the creator of the RAL, your attendance will be automatically recorded when you create the RAL.
• If you have multiple simultaneous meetings for your team, you can create as many attendance links as necessary.

If you need help, feel free to ask in #it-helpdesk.