Simple Attendance Tracker using Python

In many colleges, we have an attendance system for each subject, and the lack of the same leads to problems. It is difficult for students to remember the number of leaves taken for a particular subject. If every time paperwork has to be done to track the number of leaves taken by staff and check whether it is a lack of attendance or not, it involves a lot of time and is inefficient too. 

This article will bring a simple tracker & reminder system for attendance. The input to this system is an excel sheet containing the students' mail-id and their number of leaves in each class subject. For say, if a student will not be allowed to write the exam for a particular subject if he takes more than 3 leaves. This tracker will send out an email to the student when he takes the second leave as a reminder that only 1 more left with him on that subject. If he takes further leave, both the student and the corresponding staff receive emails regarding the lack of attendance. The only thing to do is just enter the subject code and roll number of the student absent from the class and the rest will be taken care of by this tracker system.

Python Modules Used

Install the following modules using pip or conda commands.

• openpyxl - To update and read from the excel sheet.
• smtplib & email   - To send out emails.

Dataset in Use:

The Excel sheet should contain the following data:

• Roll number
• Student mail ID
• Subject {1,2,........N}

For this article, consider three subjects and their codes as numbers for input: 

• Computer Intelligence (CI)----> 1
• Python ----> 2
• Data Mining (DM) ----> 3

Initially, the Excel sheet should look like this:

Gmail ID for sending mail

It is advisable to create a separate mail ID for use as the sender, as Google blocks less secure apps from signing in to Gmail. Certain permissions have to be given for sending the mail which is risky to do with a personal mail ID. If you do not give permissions you will end up with "bad credentials" error and will receive an email, as you see in the screenshot below:

To avoid these issues, follow the steps below:

• Sign in to your account.
• Click the profile icon in the top-right corner and click manage your google account.

• Go to the security tab and search for "less secure apps" settings.

• The less secure apps option will be turned off. Click on "Turn on access".

• You will see the following screen and click on the toggle button to allow non-Google apps use your Gmail account.

Now all the prerequisites are ready. A Python script has to be written for tracking. Let us do it step by step.

Stepwise Implementation

• Import required modules
• Initialize required variables and import the data file in use.
• Create a function to save excel on every update

• Create a function to track attendance: A function for checking the list of absentees against the threshold condition is required. The updates must take place to the variables declared outside the function as global variables. Thus, the following lines are written.

• This check() function takes three arguments:
  • no_of_days : A-List containing total.no.of. leaves of the students in the row_num parameter.
  • row_num : A List of roll numbers of today's absentees
  • b : Subject code

Example : 

If the parameters are [1,1,2,3] , [1,2,3,4] , 1

no_of_days : [1,1,2,3] - total number of leaves till date taken by each student in the next list.

row_num : [1,2,3,4] - roll numbers absent for today.

b: 1 - Subject Code : here Computer Intelligence

• Loop through the list of students (row_num) and for each student check the following conditions:
  • If total no.of.leaves == warning threshold
  • If total no.of.leaves > warning threshold
• Here, considering that a student will not be allowed to write exams if he takes more than 2 leaves. Thus, the warning threshold is 2. If a student takes 2 leaves, including today's absence, then a reminder mail has to be sent to him, else two mails stating the lack of attendance have to be sent such that one for student and the other for staff.
• Now, if total no.of.leaves == warning threshold - add the mail Id of the corresponding student to the list 'l1', otherwise, list 'l3'. If the student's mail ID is added to list 'l3', then the roll number should be added to the string 'l2' to send to the staff.
• Create functions for mailing: Two functions, namely mailstu() and mailstaff() are to be created. There can be a list of students to whom warnings are to be sent but only one staff member for that corresponding subject. Thus, two different methods have been written accordingly.
  • The smtplib and email.mime modules are used to send the mail in this script.
  • MIME emails are widely used now. They can be expanded as Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. They allow a combination of plain text and HTML in the body of the mail. The email.mime API provides functionalities to structurize emails from Python and also to add attachments.
  • The smtplib module gives the power to connect to a host via port. The ports are predefined for each domain and appropriate use of it helps to establish connections and send mail. The port number for yahoo is also 587, but the host will be smtp.mail.yahoo.com

• The final step is to write a loop that gets input from users until they say no more inputs.

The complete implementation following the above approach is given below.

Example: Simple attendance tracker 

Output:

1--->CI
2--->python
3--->DM
enter subject :1
no.of.absentees :2
roll nos :1 3
saved!
saved!
another subject ? 1---->yes 0--->no 1
1--->CI
2--->python
3--->DM
enter subject :1
no.of.absentees :1
roll no :1
saved!
mail sent to students
another subject ? 1---->yes 0--->no 1
1--->CI
2--->python
3--->DM
enter subject :1
no.of.absentees :1
roll no :1
saved!
mail sent to students
Mail Sent to staff
another subject ? 1---->yes 0--->no 0

Points to remember before executing:

• Active Internet connection is mandatory.
• Make sure the excel file is not open in a window, otherwise upon updating, "Permission denied error" will be displayed.