Attendance List

A daily attendance tracker for Windows. Record who came, who didn't, and why — then export it to Excel.

Download

Get the latest build from the Releases page.

File	Use it when
AttendanceList-Setup-x.y.z.exe	Most people. Installs it properly, adds shortcuts, and updates itself from then on.
AttendanceList.exe	Portable — one file, no install, keeps its data beside itself. Good for a USB stick.

First launch: Windows shows "Windows protected your PC" because the app is not code-signed (a certificate costs several hundred dollars a year). Click More info → Run anyway. You only do this once.

Updating

The app checks GitHub for new versions when it starts. When one exists a banner appears — click Update, and when it finishes, Restart now. Your data is untouched.

You can also check any time from Reports → Check for updates.

Using it

Today

The screen you use each morning.

• Everyone is listed. Click Present, Late or Absent.
• The reason box appears only for Late and Absent, and suggests reasons you have used before as you type.
• Mark everyone present sets the whole list at once — then correct the few exceptions. This is the fastest way to do a day.
• The arrows next to the date let you fill in a day you missed.

Everything saves the moment you click. There is no Save button.

Keyboard — much faster than clicking once you have more than a few people:

Key	Does
↑ ↓	Move between people
P	Present, and move to the next person
L	Late, and jump to the reason box
A	Absent, and jump to the reason box
⌫	Clear that person's status

Employees

Add, rename and remove people.

• Add several takes a whole pasted list, one name per line.
• Remove hides someone from the daily list but keeps all their history — use this when somebody leaves.
• Delete erases the person and their records. It asks first.
• A guest is someone recorded for one day who is not a permanent employee. Make employee promotes them.

History

Search past records by name, date range or status, then export.

• Excel produces a colour-coded .xlsx (green present, amber late, red absent) with filters already switched on.
• CSV for anything else.
• Click any row to see that person's full history and attendance rate.

Reports

Attendance rate per person, the most common reasons for absence, and:

• Full report — one workbook with three sheets: Records, Summary, Reasons.
• Back up now and Save a copy for keeping a copy elsewhere.

Where your data is kept

In a data folder next to the app:

AttendanceList.exe
data\
    attendance.db      all attendance records
    backups\           automatic daily backups (last 14 kept)

Updating never touches that folder. Data never leaves the computer — the app contacts GitHub only to check for a new version.

To move everything to another computer, copy the whole folder.

If the app sits somewhere Windows will not let it write — C:\Program Files, a locked-down share — it falls back to your user profile automatically rather than failing. The installer handles this for you; it only matters for the portable version.

To share one list across several PCs, set the environment variable ATTENDANCE_DATA_DIR to a shared network folder on each machine. Best with one person editing at a time — SQLite over a network share does not handle simultaneous writers well.

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Development

Requires Node.js 20 or newer.

npm install
npm start

On a Mac you can also double-click run-on-mac.command.

Run the tests:

npm test

They run under Electron's own Node so the native better-sqlite3 binding is loaded with the same ABI the app uses — passing under the system Node while failing when packaged is the worst kind of green build.

Use a throwaway database while developing:

ATTENDANCE_DATA_DIR=/tmp/attendance-dev npm start

If your editor exports ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE (VS Code does), npm start runs the main file as a plain Node script and no window appears. Clear it: env -u ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE npm start.

Layout

Path	What it does
src/main/main.js	App lifecycle and the window
src/main/db.js	SQLite schema and every query
src/main/exporter.js	CSV and Excel output
src/main/updater.js	GitHub release checks via electron-updater
src/main/ipc.js	The only channels the UI can call
src/main/paths.js	Where the database and backups live
src/preload/preload.js	The renderer's entire view of the outside world
src/renderer/	The interface: styles.css is the design system
tests/db.test.js	Storage and export tests

The renderer runs with contextIsolation on and nodeIntegration off. It has no filesystem or Node access; everything goes through the named channels in preload.js.

Releasing a new version

The Windows build happens on GitHub Actions — a Windows runner is needed to produce a Windows binary.

1. Bump version in package.json.
2. Commit.
3. Tag and push:

git tag v2.0.1
git push origin main --tags

Actions runs the tests, builds the installer and portable exe, smoke-tests the result by actually launching it, and publishes a Release. Everyone on an older build is offered the update the next time they open the app.

Use Actions → Build Windows app → Run workflow to build without releasing; the artifacts appear as a downloadable zip.