The event is over, sixty people showed up, and you want Altru to reflect that before you run the post-event report. Clicking into each registrant one at a time is not a good use of your evening, so you go looking for the bulk option. It exists, but it’s not always where people expect it, and some staff never see it at all.
Here’s where to look, why it may be missing for you, and how to use it without creating a cleanup problem.
Short version
Attendance in Altru is tracked on the event, against each registrant. The bulk “mark all as attended” action belongs to the event’s list of registrants, not to an individual constituent record and not to a report. Open the event itself, go to the area that lists who registered, and look for actions that apply to the whole list rather than to a single row.
Exact labels and placement can shift between Altru releases, so if you don’t see it, don’t assume it was removed. Check the event’s registrant list first, then check your permissions (below), then ask Blackbaud support to confirm where it sits in your current version.
Why you might not see it
You’re looking in the wrong place
The most common miss is starting from a constituent record or a query. A constituent’s record will show their registrations, but bulk actions only make sense in the context of one event, so that’s where they live. If you landed on a registrant from a search, back out to the event.
Your role doesn’t include it
Altru hides tasks and actions that your system role doesn’t grant. If a colleague can see the option and you can’t on the same event, that’s almost certainly a security setting, not a bug. Your Altru administrator can compare the two roles and add the right event permissions. It’s worth deciding deliberately who gets this one, since it changes many records at once.
It’s a different kind of “attendance”
Events and registrants are not the same as daily admission tickets, timed tickets, or program and group sales. Those track usage through scanning or redemption, not through event attendance. If you’re trying to record that a school group arrived or that tickets were used, the event registrant tools won’t help, and you’ll want to look at how your ticketing area handles redemption instead.
Using it without regret
Bulk marking is fast, which is the point, and also the risk. A few habits keep it honest:
- Mark the no-shows first, or instead. If ninety percent attended, it’s tempting to mark everyone and fix the exceptions later. “Later” often doesn’t happen. Pull your check-in list, note who didn’t come, and handle those before or right after the bulk action.
- Do it the same day. Attendance data is most accurate while the check-in sheet is still on someone’s desk. A week later nobody remembers who left early or never arrived.
- Know how to reverse a single registrant. Before you rely on the bulk action, open one registrant and confirm you can change their attendance back individually. Test this in a sandbox or on a small internal event if you’re unsure.
- Check guests, not just registrants. If your events allow registrants to bring guests, confirm whether the bulk action covers guests in your setup. Look at a few guest records afterward rather than assuming.
Why the data is worth getting right
Attendance feeds things people care about later: donor stewardship (“thanks for coming to the preview”), follow-up lists, and any query or smart field that counts events attended per constituent. If everyone is marked attended by default, those numbers stop meaning anything. A development officer who sees “attended” on a major donor’s record and thanks them for a night they skipped will notice.
A simple check after each event: run a query on the event’s registrants and compare the attended count to your door count or check-in sheet. If they match, you’re done. If they don’t, you know before the thank-you emails go out.
Quick answers
Can I mark attendance from a query or batch?
Not in a way we’d recommend guessing at. The supported bulk path is on the event’s registrants. If you need something broader, ask Blackbaud support whether an import or batch option fits your version.
Someone was marked attended by mistake. Is that permanent?
No. You can change an individual registrant’s attendance. Add a note if the change matters for reporting.
Can I move the option somewhere more convenient?
Page layout in Altru isn’t something administrators can rearrange. What you can control is who sees it, through system roles, and how your team is trained to find it.
