Employee Attendance Register

A small company tracks attendance for 10 employees across one month. Taught live by Puneet Arora, this classroom case introduces students to Google Sheets navigation, data entry, essential functions (SUM, COUNT, COUNTIF, IF), professional formatting, and basic charting — all in a real HR context.

CONTEXT: HR department of a 10-employee company needs a structured attendance register for March. Manager wants to know present days, absent days, late arrivals, and bonus eligibility in a single sheet.

INSTRUCTOR DEMO — STEP 1: Create the sheet live. Columns: Emp ID (A), Name (B), Department (C), Days Present (D), Days Absent (E), Late Arrivals (F). Enter 10 employee rows with realistic values.

INSTRUCTOR DEMO — STEP 2: Use SUM to total present days across all employees. Use COUNT to count filled entries. Demonstrate the formula bar vs. cell display.

INSTRUCTOR DEMO — STEP 3: Use COUNTIF to answer — 'How many employees were absent more than 3 days?' Formula: =COUNTIF(E2:E11,">3")

INSTRUCTOR DEMO — STEP 4: Use IF in column G to flag employees as 'Bonus Eligible' (22+ present days) or 'Not Eligible'. Extend to all rows by dragging.

STUDENT PRACTICE — STEP 5: Students replicate the sheet independently. Instructor circulates. Students must complete formatting: freeze header row, bold headers, blue header background, alternating row colours.

INSTRUCTOR DEMO — STEP 6: Insert a bar chart — Present vs Absent days per employee. Add chart title, axis labels, clean colour theme. Embed chart below the data.

CLASS DISCUSSION: 'Where else in real work would this exact sheet structure be useful?' Collect 3–4 student responses before moving to Case 2.