If a parent reports incorrect attendance for a student and the overnight sync has not fixed it, there are a few common configuration issues that can cause the data to appear out of date or wrong in the portal.

Use this guide to check:

Batch API cache expiry.
PM registration settings.
Out of school vs registration record ordering.
Date ranges for sync.

If everything looks correct and the issue persists, please contact the support team.

Check iSAMS Batch API Cache Settings

When an iSAMS Batch API key is created, the default API Key Cache Expiry is 24 hours.

This means:

Some updated attendance data will not appear in the API feed (and therefore in the portal) until up to 24 hours later, even if the overnight sync has already run.

Recommended cache setting

We recommend reducing the cache expiry to 4–6 hours. This allows:

Attendance changes made in iSAMS during the day to be available via the API
Those changes to then be picked up by the overnight sync

If the cache is currently set to 24 hours and attendance seems slow to update, ask your iSAMS administrator to:

Edit the cache expiry for the specific Batch API key used by the portal
Set it to 4–6 hours

For more detailed steps, refer to your internal guide or vendor documentation on How to edit the cache for a single iSAMS Batch API Key.

2. Check Afternoon PM Setup

With an iSAMS API connection, the portal needs to know when to take the PM registration.

By default:

The portal uses a setting that assumes PM starts at 12:00 (midday).
The first registration after 12:00 is treated as the PM registration and displayed as such in the portal.

If your school’s PM registration time is not aligned with this (for example, PM registration is at 13:30):

The wrong lesson/registration may be used for PM attendance in the portal.

If your PM registration time is different

You have two options:

Ask us to change the PM time
- Raise a new case online.
- Reference the title of this article: “iSAMS API – Attendance data not updating correctly”.
- Include your actual PM registration time, so support can adjust the configuration.
Use the PM registration endpoint instead
- You can ask the support team to configure the portal to use the dedicated PM registration endpoint (GetRegistrationPeriods) from iSAMS.
- This uses the PM registration field directly rather than inferring it from a time.

3. Check Out Of School Vs Registration Status Updates

On days where a student has:

An out of school record (e.g. authorised absence), and
A registration status

…the portal decides which one to show based on the last updated timestamp.

Whichever record (out of school or registration status) was updated most recently is the one the portal will display.

If you expect the out of school record to show

If you expect to see the out of school code in the portal, but a registration status is showing instead:

Check which record was updated last in iSAMS.
If necessary, edit and resave the out of school record (even if you’re not changing the code).
This should make the out of school record the most recently updated and therefore the one displayed in the portal.

📌Note:This situation is relatively rare, but worth checking when you see unexpected codes on days where both record types exist.

Check The Date Range For Manual And Overnight Sync

The portal’s overnight and manual attendance syncs use a default date range of 30 days.

This means:

Only attendance data within the last 30 days is updated during these syncs.
Changes made in iSAMS more than 30 days in the past will not be picked up automatically.

If you need to update older attendance data

If attendance data outside the last 30 days needs to be updated in the portal:

Raise a new case online.
Reference the title of this article: “iSAMS API – Attendance data not updating correctly”.
Provide details of:
- The student(s) affected.
- The date range that needs to be updated.

Support can then adjust or run a specific sync for those dates if applicable.

If Attendance Still Isn’t Updating

If you’ve checked all the above and the attendance data is still not updating correctly:

Confirm:
- Batch API cache settings (ideally 4–6 hours).
- PM registration configuration.
- Out of school vs registration record timestamps.
- Whether the dates in question are within the last 30 days.
Then contact the support team:
- Raise a new case online.
- Reference the article title: “iSAMS API – Attendance data not updating correctly”.