Attendance register questions

Question

I use the D2L/Brightspace attendance register feature for my in-person courses. Is there any way to set up the attendance register so it has a "freeze panes" feature similar to the gradebook spreadsheet? For example, a semester-long course would have many attendance days. If I want to check the attendance totals at the end of the attendance spreadsheet, I need to use the right arrow to move to the very end of the dates. However, once I get to the end, I can no longer see the names of the students for those attedance rows as the name column does not stay fixed while I scroll to the end. This is not the case in the gradebook, where the students name is always fixed in the first left column no matter how far I scroll to the end of the gradebook.

Thank you in advance for any advice!

Pamela.H.6466 · Answer

Thank you for a quick response! I should note that I don't export my attendance register to a CSV or Excel sheet. I utilize it directly through my D2L page.

I had hoped to submit this freeze panes idea to the PIE but am having difficulty accessing it. I am blocked from it, for some reason and was sent instructions on how to update my profile. However, the updates did not fix the issue. Bad karma - LOL?

Pamela

Camila.A.688 · Answer

Hi @Pamela.H.6466,

Thank you for reaching out to the Brightspace Community.  I can see how a “freeze panes” feature would make reviewing attendance much easier, especially in courses with many sessions.

At this time, the Attendance tool in Brightspace doesn’t support freezing the first column (e.g., student names) while horizontally scrolling. This is different from the Grades tool, where the learner name column remains fixed as you navigate across columns.

Since you’re already exporting the attendance register to CSV, the best workaround is to use the “Freeze First Column” option in Excel or Google Sheets after export, which will keep student names visible as you scroll across attendance dates.

If having this functionality directly within the Attendance tool would improve your workflow, I’d recommend submitting or upvoting this idea in the Brightspace Product Idea Exchange (PIE) so it can be considered for future enhancements.

Thank you,

Camila