Troubleshooting
The issues schools report most often — and what they usually turn out to be.
Most support requests resolve to one of a dozen causes. Working through the relevant section below will usually get you there faster than waiting for a reply.
Attendance
A learner shows 0% attendance for the whole term
Nearly always an enrolment problem, not an attendance problem. Open the learner profile and check the fingerprint panel. If it says not enrolled, or enrolled but never distributed to a device, that is your answer — re-enrol them.
Scans are happening but nothing reaches DRAIS
Check Devices for the device's last-seen time. If it is stale, the device has lost its network connection; records are usually stored locally and arrive when it reconnects. If the device is online, look in Devices → Reconciliation for unlinked PINs — the scans are arriving but cannot be matched to a learner.
Attendance is credited to the wrong learner
The identity link is wrong. Use Correct Identity from the learner profile. DRAIS shows what will change before you confirm, moves the PIN to the right learner, and re-attributes the affected history. The original scans are preserved.
Arrival times are hours off
The device clock has drifted. DRAIS records the true arrival instant regardless, so your data is not wrong — but correct the device clock, and tell support if it recurs on the same device.
Learners marked absent who were present
Check the absence cut-off time in Settings → Attendance. A cut-off earlier than your actual assembly time marks late arrivals as absent.
Marks and report cards
Marks were entered but do not appear
Check the term. Marks entered while the wrong term was set as current are filed against that term. Look at Settings → Academic Years to confirm the current term, then check the term selector on the marks screen.
A report card shows old marks
Report cards are fixed copies taken at generation time — that is what makes a reprint reproduce the original. If marks have since been corrected, generate the report cards again to pick them up.
Aggregate or division looks wrong
Check which subjects are configured to contribute. Electives and religious education do not count toward aggregates by default, which is usually correct but occasionally not what a particular school intends. Review it in Settings → Grading.
A learner is missing from the class results
Confirm their enrolment is in that class for that term, and that they have not been marked as left.
The report card layout is wrong on paper
Print a single learner first. Check paper size (A4 versus letter) and that the design is published rather than still in draft — a draft is not used for printing.
Fees
A balance does not match the receipts
Open the learner's statement — every charge and payment is listed in order. The discrepancy is almost always either a charge applied twice by two billing runs, or a payment recorded against the wrong term.
An imported payment went to the wrong learner
This happens when a row was matched by name. Reverse the payment with a correcting entry and record it against the right learner. Both entries stay visible, which is correct.
A money location balance does not match the cash
Usually missing transfers. Cash banked at the end of the day must be recorded as a transfer from the cash location to the bank location, or the cash location keeps showing money that is no longer there.
Messages
Guardians are not receiving SMS
Check in this order:
- Message credits — Communication → Usage.
- Whether the rule is set to reviewed rather than automatic; the messages may be sitting in the queue.
- Quiet hours — messages generated inside the window are held.
- The delivery report, for failures against specific numbers.
One family never receives messages
Check the number on the learner record, including the country code. A number saved without it will never deliver.
Credits are being consumed faster than expected
Arrival alerts are usually the cause — one message per learner per day. Check the usage breakdown by message type, and check your template length: a message over 160 characters costs double.
Access
A staff member cannot see something they should
Check their role's permissions first, then check whether the relevant module is enabled. A disabled module is invisible to everyone, including Super Admins.
A guardian cannot sign in to the portal
Confirm the phone number on the learner record matches the phone they are using, and that their link has been approved rather than left pending in Parents → Link Requests.
Nobody can sign in as an administrator
Contact DRAIS support. This is why keeping two Super Admins is worth doing.
Records
Something has disappeared
Check Settings → Trash and restore it. This is the answer more often than any other single item on this page.
A learner appears twice
Merge them from Learners → Duplicates. DRAIS shows what will move before you confirm, and archives rather than destroys the record you do not keep.
Something changed and nobody knows who changed it
Check Settings → Audit Log.
Having these to hand turns a long exchange into a short one:
- What you expected to happen, and what happened instead.
- The learner or record involved — name and admission number.
- The date and term.
- A screenshot, including the whole window rather than just the message.
- Whether it affects one record or many.
Still stuck?
Reach the DRAIS team through the Contact page or the Support page. Support can see your school's configuration and, with your permission, look at the same screens you are looking at.