This isn't a webinar. You'll have your laptop open, the Apps Script editor in one tab, and your real student-attendance sheet in another. By the end you'll have shipped — to your own school — a working morning automation.
What you'll build
A daily 9:30 AM trigger that:
- Reads today's attendance from your sheet
- Groups absentees by class
- Fires a parent WhatsApp message via the WhatsApp Cloud API
- Logs the run for your records
It's the same script $sendAbsenceAlerts() that ships on three of the schools I've worked with. We'll walk through it line by line, then customize it for your school's data shape.
Who it's for
- Principals, vice principals, and head admins who feel the office is drowning in repetitive comms work.
- IT coordinators at schools who've been asked to "do something with AI" and want a concrete starting point.
- Anyone comfortable enough with Google Sheets to write a
SUMformula — no programming experience needed.
What you need before the session
- A Google account.
- A test Google Sheet with attendance data (or our template — we'll share it).
- A WhatsApp Business / Meta developer account (we'll help you set this up during the first 15 minutes if you don't have one yet).
What you'll leave with
- A live attendance automation running in your own account.
- A copy of the template sheet, the script, and the parent-message template.
- 30 days of email support to debug whatever breaks when you go live.
- An honest answer to "what should we automate next?" based on your school.
Class size is capped at 15 so everyone gets actual help. Recordings are provided but the live session is where the real value is.