When you have days or partial days your vehicles will not be operating, such as holidays, two-hour delays, and early dismissals, you need to input them into CalAmp K-12 as calendar exceptions. This keeps your Planned vs. Actual data up-to-date and prevents the vehicles from being marked as late, early, or missing. In addition, notifications will be sent to Here Comes the Bus account holders, if you have that add-on module, informing them when the buses won't be running due to an exception.


You'll want to add a calendar exception to CalAmp K-12 as soon as you know that it's going to occur so that the live Comparative Analysis tools (the School Monitor, Route Monitor, and Yard Monitor — plus the Dispatch Monitor, if your school district has added that tool) will be updated with the offset times. For example, if a school day is going to be delayed two hours, as soon as possible, you should use the Calendar Exceptions feature to enter an offset of 120 minutes as an AM Delay.

Note: For more information about Comparative Analysis, see An Introduction to Comparative Analysis. For details about the Calendar Exceptions screen, see Navigating the Calendar Exceptions Screen.

To add a calendar exception, follow these steps:


  1. Click  >> Calendar Exceptions.
     
    The Calendar Exceptions screen will appear.
     
       
  2. Click  at the top right of the screen.
     
    The Add New Calendar Exception screen will appear.
           
  3. Type an explanation for the calendar exception in the Reason box, such as "Freezing Temperatures Forecast - AM Two-Hour Delay."
      
  4. Click the Date picker and select the date of the exception.
    Note: Alternatively, you can select the current date in the box and type in the date.
  5. Click the Reason Type drop-down arrow and select one of the following:
     
    • Canceled-Full Day: For canceling the entire school day, such as for a snow day.
       
    • Early Dismissal: For releasing the students early.
       
    • Holiday: For a scheduled holiday, such as Thanksgiving.
       
    • Late Opening: For delaying the start of the school day.
       
  6. In the Details area, for the Early Dismissal and Late Opening options, follow these steps:
    Note: If the whole day is canceled by choosing Canceled-Full Day or Holiday, you do not need to set up anything in the Details area. Cancel will be automatically selected in all three Time of Day Action drop-down lists. You can skip down to step 7.
    • Early Dismissal
       
      An Offset field will appear at the far right in the PM row.
        
      1. You can leave the AM and MID rows set to Normal.
         
        In the PM row, Action will be automatically set to Delay.
         
      2. To the right of that, in the Offset field, select the 0 and type the number of minutes the day will be reduced by — and include a minus sign before the number. For example, if the students are leaving an hour early, type -60.
         
    • Late Opening
       
      An Offset field will appear at the far right in the AM row.
        
      1. You can leave the MID and PM rows set to Normal.
         
        In the AM row, Action will be automatically set to Delay.
         
      2. To the right of that, in the Offset field, select the 0 and type the number of minutes the day will be delayed by. For example, if the school day is starting two hours late, type 120. 
          
  7. Click  at the top right of the screen.
     
    The exception will be saved and appear in the Calendar Exceptions list.

Warning: If you have multiple exceptions repeatedly that are the same, create a new exception for each occurrence. For example, if you have a two-hour delay on a Monday for which you create an exception and then have another two-hour delay on Tuesday, do NOT update Monday's exception for Tuesday; instead, create an all-new exception for Tuesday. You will need to keep both in CalAmp K-12 in order for your data to remain accurate.