Keeping Raid Attendance

Keep Raiding Attendance Helps Lead

Any guild trying to build a raid team, I think, should try and keep an attendance record.  Mine looks like the screen clip here.

For my guild, I try to track the following kinds of information:

• Did they stay the whole raid period (leave early, join late)?
• Did they tell me they wouldn't make it or just not show up?
• Did they post it as away vacation?

This information can help you in many ways. 

• Recruiting - If I know what my attendance looks like, I can do a good job of knowing how many people I need and how hard I should be recruiting.   You should never stop recruiting, but I am talking about how much effort you expend as a result of where you are and your guild's need.
• Learning Player Dedication - With a good statistic you can start to know what the probability a certain player will attend (whether they tell you or not).   You can use this to decide if they are a good candidate for your Progression Mythic team or should stay more as a backup.   You start to see signs and patterns in behavior.  These are the kinds of things that people won't tell you. This information doesn't have to be used to judge players, but it does help you plan and planning will ensure the show goes on.
  
  Here are some samples of what I mean:
• Joe - Never signs up for raid, but has excellent attendance and if he's going to be away lets you know.
• Mary - Always signs up.  Always shows up.
• Fred - Will tell you he'll make it and won't.
• John - Only shows up on farm nights.  Claims excuses for other nights.
• Dealing with issues - Occasionally, an issue comes up where someone that has lackluster raid attendance argues that they deserve some thing (raid slot for certain boss, item that drops, etc.) based on being a consistent raider.   You can just point and say," really?"

Side Story: I like to jokingly compare this to my desk office at work.  I sit right across the hall from the men's bathroom.  No matter how hard I try not to pay attention, indirectly, you learn the bathroom habits of all the people that use it: who doesn't wash, who won't go in if someone else has a stall, who wants a particular stall, etc.   It isn't something I want to know, but I just can't help it.   Watching your attendance is the same kind of thing.  You will start to see patterns.

My Attendance Sheets

The system I use has evolved over time because if some aspect of it isn't working or if I am not using information in the way I originally intended, then it's time to redefine it make the information useful.

First, I created a Google Sheets on the web.  It works great because I can publish it as a fixed web page that the guild can see as well as a motivator and it just updates automatically.   Google also offers an only publish when you want option as well so you can work and then publish.   But, I prefer to just keep it out there.   People won't be staring at it as much as you will.

Down, I have names and across the dates.  In the cells, I put:

• 1 = Full attendance.
• fraction = partial attendance, present about 1/2 the raid, they get 0.5, etc.
• purple fill = they told me they'd be missing.
• orange fill = they told me they are away on vacation.
• N = they just joined the team and these previous dates were before their joining so don't use it to assess them.

With a little bit of Spreadsheet magic, I can tell you that of my 29 raiders, I have 10 that attend 85-90% of the time and I have 5 that are about 70% of the time and another 10 that are 50% of the time, etc.   I can predict the odds that I'll be short raiders.

The crudest check for odds of attendance is just sum the % attendance on people.  If they add up to a full team, you have good odds.  I have thought about creating a more definitive equation for determining odds of being short, but this has done well enough for me without getting to complex.

If you have a cool way of keeping attendance and how you use it, let me know!