In September 2024 the University is introducing a new attendance management platform called Student Engagement & Attendance System, or SEAtS for short. It will provide a consistent approach to attendance capture, monitoring and reporting across UoM. 

No, PGRs will not be required to use SEAtS for the first phase of the SEAtS rollout.

You can find detailed information and support on our Engagement Analytics (SEAtS) Sharepoint site.

We’d love to hear from you, you can provide feedback via our feedback form.

Please use our request form to request access to the SEAtS system for Academic and View Only access profiles.

If you are an Student Service Support & Development Manager requesting access for an Administrator within a School, please send an updated list of your team, including any leavers, to attendance@manchester.ac.uk  to help us manage license numbers.

The first phase of SEAtS is still ongoing until ‘hypercare’, where we support SEAtS' introduction into the University, concludes. This will be determined by the volume of queries raised.  

Future phases are currently being scoped. We'll look at reviewing data and lessons learned from phase 1 and gathering requirements to include more courses.

To access either the QR or PIN code, please follow five simple steps:

1. Log into SEAtS at uom.seats.cloud
2. Choose the ‘lecture’ tab from the top bar.
3. Select the teaching activity you wish to take attendance for.
4. Click the QR icon.
5. Display the QR code, or PIN by clicking on the eye icon next to ‘PIN’.

Teaching staff should ensure that the QR code and/or PIN are clearly displayed during each teaching session. This can be done until the end time of the teaching session, and can be done by projecting onto a screen, inserting it into slides (see below question around timings for this), or by writing the six-digit PIN code on a whiteboard or similar. You may prefer to display the code at the end of the session to capture any latecomers and to reduce the risk of students being able to share the code electronically, as the codes are valid for the entire teaching session.

Great care has been taken in the design to keep this very quick and easy. This takes five simple steps and a couple of minutes to log in to SEAtS, find your teaching session and share the QR code and/or six-digit PIN. You can also choose to complete a digital register (for smaller sessions). You can access all of these in advance of your sessions. If you choose to share the PIN, it is as simple as writing the number on a whiteboard or sharing it verbally.

Digital registers are recommended for smaller sessions such as seminars (e.g. in sessions of less than 30 students). For larger numbers, we recommend sharing the QR code/PIN. The digital register can also be used if a student is unable to access the SEAtS app.

There will be no late threshold in this first phase, so as to allow teaching colleagues time to show a QR code/PIN at any period ten minutes prior to, and for the whole teaching session. We may include late thresholds in later phases once the system is embedded. It is also possible to manually mark a student as late, if desired.

The code is only valid for the teaching session. It is possible for students to send photographs of the code to students not present; however, the policy makes it clear this would be a disciplinary offence for both the sender and the receiving student, should they then use it to falsely register attendance. For smaller sessions, a digital register can be taken marking students present. We cannot prevent code sharing completely; however, the option to implement rotating codes is being explored for subsequent phases.

The scope of Phase 1 delivery includes full time, on campus undergraduate and postgraduate taught sessions that are on Syllabus+. If a course timetable is not on Syllabus +, it will not appear on SEAtSin September 2024 and an alternative register will need to be taken.

Yes, that's how the system is configured. Please remember that the volume of data you have access to is strictly confidential. Adherence to the terms and conditions of your employment, as well as the confidentiality and acceptable use policy you have signed, is mandatory.

SSW staff can remove students from the workflows on the basis of their DASS plan, which means they won’t receive automated comms should their attendance drop below the agreed threshold.

If a student is permanently removed from a workflow, however, SSW teams will lose visibility of the student’s attendance and there is a risk that it might not be picked up if they are struggling or need support. It is recommended that if a student is struggling with attendance they can be temporarily removed from the workflow, but this should only be done for a short period of time (2 weeks), and after that they should be consulted to see how they are and if they can be added back into the workflow.

Once a GTA is fully onboarded and has a staff email address they can complete this form to gain access.

It is not possible for a staff member without a UoM IT account to access to SEAtS as it depends on single sign-on authentication. If the staff member is leading a taught activity and needs to share a SEAtS PIN/QR code with students, the academic responsible for the course unit/activity will need to provide them with it in advance of the session.

If you forget to log in, you will be marked as absent for that teaching session.

The QR and PIN codes will be valid for the duration of your teaching session, and ten minutes prior. Your lecturer will show the codes during the session, so please make sure that you arrive on time in order to be able to check in without disruption.

All data from the SEAtS system will be kept internally within the University and will not be shared externally. Your data will be kept in line with our Data Protection and Information Security policies.