What Happens When the Internet Goes Down During Attendance?
The first question every Ugandan head teacher asks about digital attendance is the right one: what happens when the network goes?
Mobile data drops. Power goes off. A rainy morning slows the network to a crawl. Any attendance system sold to Ugandan schools has to assume this will happen — on a busy morning, at the worst possible moment.
The one rule: the gate must never stop
If three hundred pupils are waiting and the scanner stops working, the gatekeeper will open the gate and let everyone in unrecorded. From that moment the day's record is useless. So the first test of any system is simple: does it keep scanning with no internet at all?
How offline scanning works
A well-built system keeps a copy of the school's pupil list on the gatekeeper's phone. When the network drops, scans are stored on the phone with the exact time they happened. The gatekeeper keeps scanning as normal. When the connection returns, the phone sends the stored scans to the school's record.
GatePass keeps scanning when the network drops and sends the arrivals later with their real times — try it free for a term.
Start freeWhy the original time matters
The most important detail is the timestamp. A poorly built system records the time the scans reached the server — so thirty pupils who arrived between 7:10 and 7:40 all appear to have arrived at 8:05, when the network came back, and are marked late. A good system keeps the time each pupil actually passed the gate.
What the gatekeeper sees
The gatekeeper should know the phone is offline, without being alarmed by it. A quiet indicator is enough. If the phone stays offline for a long time, the office — not the gatekeeper — should be told, because they are the ones who can fix a data bundle or a router.
What parents experience
While the phone is offline, arrival notifications wait. When the scans are sent, parents are notified. It is a short delay, and the time in the notification is still the real arrival time.
Questions to ask any supplier
- Can the gate scan with the internet switched off completely?
- Is the arrival time kept from the moment of the scan?
- Who is told if a gate phone stays offline?
- Does it run on an ordinary phone we can charge anywhere?
Common questions
How long can the gate stay offline?+
The phone keeps storing scans until it reconnects; they are then sent with their original times.
Do we need Wi-Fi at the gate?+
No. Mobile data is enough, and the gate keeps working when it drops.
Ntale Livingstone
Founder, GatePass
I started GatePass because no parent should have to phone the school to find out if their child made it there. I write here about what really happens at the gate, in the register and at home, and what we're building to fix it.
