Sort students by last name in the Homeboard schedule attendance panel

When teachers take attendance from the Homeboard schedule view (the panel that opens when clicking a class), students are always listed alphabetically by first name. There is no option to change this to last name.

Most schools organise their class lists, paper rolls, and reports by surname. Having the attendance panel sort by first name forces teachers to work against that convention every single roll call, which slows them down and increases the risk of marking the wrong student.

The fix would be to either respect the existing Homeboard sort setting (which already supports last name), or add a dedicated sort option to the schedule attendance panel itself.

Who is this feature for?
teachers
Platform
Desktop, Mobile Phone, Browser Extension
What problem would this new feature help your school solve?
When taking attendance from the Homeboard schedule view, students are listed alphabetically by first name with no way to change it. Many schools use last name as the primary sort for attendance rolls — class lists, paper rolls, and other systems all sort by surname — so teachers have to scan by first name instead, which slows down the process and increases the chance of errors.
How often does this problem happen?
Daily
Describe the impact on your school if this problem remains unsolved?
Teachers take attendance multiple times a day and are forced to work against their existing mental model of student ordering. It creates friction every single roll call and reduces confidence in Orah as a reliable attendance tool compared to simpler alternatives.
Please list any other tools or platforms that you know of that offer similar functionality.
Most school SIS platforms (e.g. Veracross, Blackbaud) default to or allow sorting by last name in attendance views.

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Upvoters
Status

Backlog

Board

General

Date

22 days ago

Author

Dennis Grice

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