Better Without It™ Program Guide

Working with Groups

In this guide: finding the right group, enrolling a student, creating sessions, taking attendance, adding notes after a meeting, and pulling the whole attendance picture for a report.

Once a student is active, this guide shows you how to get them into a group and keep track of their meetings. Groups are where your programs run, at real locations and times. Everything you need lives under four simple tabs: Roster, Sessions, Attendance, and Notes, with View attendance and Export in the header when you want the whole picture at once.

Step 1 · Open the Groups area

Your student is active and ready, so it's time to get them into a group. Switch to the Groups area. In our example, the list shows the group BWI @North (1), along with its program, location, schedule, and status.

The Groups area listing the group BWI @North (1) with its program, location, schedule and status

Step 2 · Open the right group

Click into BWI @North. The header (1) shows when and where it meets and whether it's still running. Everything else is organized into four tabs (2): Roster, Sessions, Attendance, and Notes.

The group header showing the schedule and status (1), above the Roster, Sessions, Attendance and Notes tabs (2)

Step 3 · Enroll the student on the Roster

On the Roster tab, click Enroll participant (1) and search for your student. Pick their case, set the enrollment date, and click Enroll. They join the group right away, showing in the list with a green Active status and a sessions progress bar.

Only students whose case is New Student or somewhere in the active stretch will come up in the search. A graduated or closed case won't, which is usually the answer when someone you expect isn't there.

The Roster tab, with the Enroll participant button at the top right (1)

The Enroll participant window: search for the student, pick their case, set the enrollment date, add an optional note, then enroll

The Roster listing each participant with a green Active status (1) and how many sessions they have attended (2)

Step 4 · Create a session

Each meeting lives on the Sessions tab. Create one for every gathering (1), with a date, and you'll have a clean record of every session your group holds.

The Sessions tab listing each meeting by date, with the Add session button at the top right (1)

The Add session window: pick the date the group is meeting, then add it

Step 5 · Take attendance

During the meeting, open the Attendance tab, pick the session, and mark who showed up (1): Present, Absent, or Excused. Click Save (2) and each student's progress bar moves. Only Present counts toward it, so an excused absence keeps the reason on record without advancing the student.

The Attendance tab: mark each student Present, Absent or Excused (1), then save (2)

Back on the Roster, each student's progress bar (1) reflects the attendance you just saved

Step 6 · Add notes after the meeting

Once a meeting wraps up, return to the Sessions tab, open the ⋯ menu on that session, and choose Add notes (1). That way there's always a clear picture of how it went.

The session row's menu, open to show Edit date, Add notes (1), and Delete

The session notes window with the note written in, and Save notes (1)

The Sessions tab: a session that has a note shows a green View link in the Notes column (1)

There's a note for each student too

The note above is about the whole meeting. The Notes tab holds one for each student as well — how that student did on that day — and lets you follow one student's notes across every meeting. The full walkthrough is in Notes.

Step 7 · See every meeting at once

Taking attendance tells you about one meeting. View attendance, in the group header, shows you all of them together: a row per student, a column per meeting, a letter in every cell. P for present, A for absent, E for excused.

The roster gives you a number. The grid shows you the shape of it: which weeks a student missed, and whether they missed them back to back.

• Dates (1) sets how far back you look. Shortcuts cover the last 4, 8 or 12 weeks, or all time. It opens on the last 8 weeks.
• Current participants only (2) hides students who finished BWI or withdrew, leaving the students you're still meeting with.

The attendance grid: a row per student, a column per meeting, and P, A or E in every cell

A row of A's often means an empty tick box

Saving a session records a mark for every student enrolled by that date, not only the ones you ticked. Leave someone unticked and they're saved as absent. Once a student is marked Completed they stop being counted, so meetings after that show a dash.

Step 8 · Export it for your report

When a funder, a school, or your board asks for numbers, use Export in the group header. Both downloads are spreadsheet (CSV) files that open in Excel or Google Sheets.

• Download roster CSV (1) gives you a row per student: case type, enrollment date, status, sessions attended, and sessions on record.
• Download attendance matrix CSV (2) gives you the grid from Step 7, meeting by meeting.

Current participants only shapes both files. The date range only applies to the attendance grid, so a roster download always covers everyone the tick box lets through.

The Export menu, with Download roster CSV (1) and Download attendance matrix CSV (2), plus a date range and a Current participants only tick

These files list students by name

Send them only to people who should see student names, and keep the file somewhere safe.

→ Next: Graduation

Quick reference

Group tabs: Roster · Sessions · Attendance · Notes

What you do on each tab

Tab	What you do there
Roster	Enroll participants (add a student)
Sessions	Create a session (a meeting)
Attendance	Mark who attended each session
Notes	Write up the meeting, and each student's day — see Notes

In the group header

Button	What it gives you
View attendance	The whole grid on screen: every student, every meeting
Export	Roster CSV, or the attendance grid as CSV

Attendance marks: P present · A absent · E excused

Participant status: Active (and later Completed, covered in Graduation).