Arbor and Inventry Integration

[SeeFights]

Hi

 

mainly need to vent as I am at my limit here with this. The attendance team wanted a smoother operation for signing in students that are late. We use Inventry already so figured we'll go with them as their integration so far has been great. Jesus christ did it open a can of worms with Arbor.

 

So LA's and Governments only look at your AM and PM register, not each individual period. so for us our AM register closes at 09:00AM. Anyone coming in between 08:30 and 08:59 is put down as an L (Late) anyone coming in after 09:00AM till about 13:00 is put down as a U (Late but after registration) and anyone after 13:00 is down as an O (unauthorized). So it was taking up too much time for attendance to constantly look at late entrances and record their mark on Arbor so they wanted it to be automated, enter Inventry. Inventry has a sign in function that can actually write back to Arbor.

So we buy this function and I was in the middle of setting it up. Basically the way inventry works is when a student scans their finger, Inventry will look at the "signed in time" and compare that time to two things; one, any rules you have in place for Inventry and two, Arbors Periods times. So lets handle the first one;

We have 2 rules. If they sign in between 08:30 and 08:59 put them down as L and if they come in after 09:00 write them down as a U.

 

This works as intended, student comes along signs in and Inventry records their time and puts them down as a L or a U depending on that sign in time. GREAT...AWESOME GOOD JOB.

 

it then looks at Arbor...instead of writing that sign in Mark to the AM Registration it finds the period that the sign in time takes place during (eg if the student signs in at 09:05 thats in the middle of period 1 which takes place between 08:50 and 09:50) it then writes that mark to that period. meaning on Arbor they missed their AM register...but where late to period 1. Which one paper yeah its true but not at all how it should work. the AM register is their Form time. here where I work thats 20 mins of kids calming down and the school only wants to record the mark from that period instead of just extending the roll call time to include P1.

I am at my wicks end...people with power creeps and thinking they are better because their job title has "admin" in it and mines just "IT Tech". God forbid someone actually knows what to do.

 

Anyone got any suggestions on how i can make this work the way they want, its driving me nuts.

[mavhc]

Is arbor's api available? I can only see an sdk

[RichP]

We've been with Arbor for 5 years now and know this as a long standing problem.

 

I've even met with the development teams at both Inventry and Arbor, clearly explaining the issue and proposing solutions. Still nothing has changed.

 

The issue lies primarily in the fact that, unlike some other well known MIS, Arbor doesn't have a field for AM/PM that the API can write to. AM/PM is simply calculated from the available lesson marks. You are correct in the way it writes back marks, and if you've not come across it before, you'll see that a student arriving between lessons or breaks gets no mark written back to Arbor at all!

We just work from a printed list of lates from Inventry and use the bulk edit to update it on Arbor. Hardly a seemless integration, but at least a reliable process.

 

Sadly, it seems to affect most of the sign in systems that integrate with Arbor. We've looked at changing but if really question the sales people they admit it won't work the way it's expected to work.

 

[SeeFights]

17 hours ago, RichP said:

you'll see that a student arriving between lessons or breaks gets no mark written back to Arbor at all!

thank fully our lessons start as the previous ends so we havent seen this issue yet, but will September onwards F*CK

 

 

17 hours ago, RichP said:

AM/PM is simply calculated from the available lesson marks.

Yeah they are called like "Roll Call" marks or something. you can set the roll call mark to take from AM Register so in our case their morning Form and also P1.

 

17 hours ago, RichP said:

I've even met with the development teams at both Inventry and Arbor, clearly explaining the issue and proposing solutions. Still nothing has changed.

Useless c*nts.

[SeeFights]

On 04/07/2025 at 15:41, mavhc said:

Is arbor's api available? I can only see an sdk

sadly not, it is something to do with how arbor has things set up. they dont traditionally have a set AM/PM variable they have something called a "Roll Call" mark, as a SIMS to Arbor school we set this "Roll Call" mark to just be their AM/PM Form registration but we have kids that come in at 8:30 to the late entrance and this marks them down as late even though they are Present. they are only late as of 08:50 and late after registration which is after 09:00.

[simple.tech]

On 04/07/2025 at 15:17, SeeFights said:

Anyone got any suggestions on how i can make this work the way they want, its driving me nuts.

hey, just jumping in on this! It sounds like the issue is that any marks recorded in Inventry within the AM period eg. 8:00 AM until 12pm. Needs to be written in just the form/reg group. Do you know if Inventry have a Reporting Engine/SDK/API that can be used? I have taken a look at the Arbor SDK and can see that it is possible. I would be more than happy to whip you up a quick script (FOC) to push any marks from Inventry to Arbor. If that would help you?

[simple.tech]

Just a follow up to this. I can implement mark calculation as follows:

AM Period - (write to period starting 8:30)

8:30-8:59 - L

9:00-10:00 - U

 

If you are interest feel free to send me a PM.

 

[SeeFights]

On 01/09/2025 at 21:42, simple.tech said:

Just a follow up to this. I can implement mark calculation as follows:

AM Period - (write to period starting 8:30)

8:30-8:59 - L

9:00-10:00 - U

 

If you are interest feel free to send me a PM.

 

Hi Man/Woman/Person

 

Thanks for the offer but after extensive research its because Arbor is a$$. It doesnt have a generic AM/PM registration that the LA normally look at. It has a more calculated approach where the Head of a school can say like "hey the AM register is actually the first 2 periods" and Arbors calculated AM mark will look for the best result from these two periods.

 

In my cohort our AM Register ends at 8:50 however our calculated Arbor mark goes to 9AM which is causing issues with Inventry. Its awesome when SLT want you to implement something but yet dont follow a standard set by other schools.

[simple.tech]

That is understandable with a quick google of their help centre it looks like you can request the best mark option to be changed to the first mark. I’m not sure if that would help you out in this situation.

[SeeFights]

3 minutes ago, simple.tech said:

That is understandable with a quick google of their help centre it looks like you can request the best mark option to be changed to the first mark. I’m not sure if that would help you out in this situation.

Tried it. I got met with "speak to your SLT/Admin for changes"...

 

No Luck

[ITGuyNW]

We have Inventry and SIMS/School Synergy. Abandoned the late sign in for students a while ago. Simply not fit for purpose.

[bobsmith]

Lates worked fine for us using Inventry combined with Bromcom.

 

Any odd discrepancies can always be overridden once you've written back - but 99% of students never required it.

[I_just_work_here]

Our MAT moved all academies to Arbor over the last 6 months, but I'm surprised I've not heard a lot of complaints about the integration woes. Our sixth form cannot sign in as they normally do before Period 1, as Inventry cannot write the mark with no active lesson. It also cannot write back to the 'roll call' mark so anyone signing in late after Period 1 ends gets the unauthorised mark (as roll call AM ends after this time, and I believe trust policy prohibits the change)

 

InVentry and Arbor Integration – Arbor Help Centre

[RichP]

It's still not resolved for us. I spoke to Inventry and Arbor at BETT this year. Inevitably they blamed each other...

Arbor were more willing to listen, the issue affects most sign-in system as I understand it, but I've not had any contact from them yet.

 

I've not seen the help centre article before, but it does explain that it doesn't work as you might expect it to!

[SeeFights]

22 hours ago, I_just_work_here said:

Our MAT moved all academies to Arbor over the last 6 months, but I'm surprised I've not heard a lot of complaints about the integration woes. Our sixth form cannot sign in as they normally do before Period 1, as Inventry cannot write the mark with no active lesson. It also cannot write back to the 'roll call' mark so anyone signing in late after Period 1 ends gets the unauthorised mark (as roll call AM ends after this time, and I believe trust policy prohibits the change)

 

InVentry and Arbor Integration – Arbor Help Centre

same problem we have just whole school...not just sixth form

[SeeFights]

21 hours ago, RichP said:

It's still not resolved for us. I spoke to Inventry and Arbor at BETT this year. Inevitably they blamed each other...

Arbor were more willing to listen, the issue affects most sign-in system as I understand it, but I've not had any contact from them yet.

 

I've not seen the help centre article before, but it does explain that it doesn't work as you might expect it to!

i think the issue is that if the schools bell times followed inventrys internal times the system would work because to inventry period 1 is 8:30 -- 9:30 etc but because we dont live in a perfect world and we have schools that dont follow these timings and Arbor (not against them) lets schools pick and choose times for periods it creates this inbalance. Honestly, I blame Inventry.

 

If Inventry simply added a customizable function to say "this is P1, this is P2 etc" then the system would work beautifully with Arbor but from speaking to Invetry, it seems like a system they have tacked on in the last min just to check a box and make some money.

[Devaleth]

Just to throw a datapoint out to you as to "who is to blame", coming from a Bromcom school using InVentry it only touches our session marks, not lesson marks and works how you'd expect for L's and U's. We could even have got it to set an "M" for medical mark if a student came mid-morning from a medical appointment.

 

There's no world where I would want InVentry touching lesson marks because there is no guarantee that after a student enters the building and signs in using InVentry that they make it to the lesson.

[RichP]

I think that's the main issue that Inventry has. Arbor doesn't have a session mark, it just calculates it from the lesson marks. SIMS and Bromcom have a seperate field that Inventry can write to using the API. Arbor's API can only change lesson marks as there isn't anything else!