Smart Attendance Management System

My first-ever coding project — built during my 1st year at Bennett University. This QR code-based attendance system won the intra-college hackathon organized during our college fest, and became the inspiration that got me hooked on building things with code.

The Story

As a first-year student, I noticed how inefficient the manual attendance process was — teachers calling out names, students marking proxies, and the whole thing eating into lecture time. I wanted to fix that with something simple: scan a QR code on your phone, and you're marked present.

This project was my answer. Built it from scratch learning Python, Flask, and Tkinter along the way. It wasn't perfect, but it worked — and it won us the hackathon. That win is what made me realize I wanted to keep building software.

How It Works

Teacher launches Tkinter GUI
        │
        ▼
  Login / Sign Up (MySQL)
        │
        ▼
  Flask server starts on local network
        │
        ▼
  QR Code auto-generated with server URL
        │
        ▼
  Students scan QR on their phones
  (any device on same WiFi network)
        │
        ▼
  Attendance form opens in browser
  (enter name + email)
        │
        ▼
  Record saved to SQLite database
        │
        ▼
  Teacher views attendance list on dashboard

Features

• QR Code Scanning — auto-generates a QR code pointing to the Flask server's local IP address, students scan with any phone camera
• Teacher Desktop App — Tkinter-based login/signup GUI with MySQL authentication
• Password Recovery — security question-based password reset flow
• Web-based Attendance — Flask server serves an attendance form accessible to any device on the local network
• Attendance Records — view all submitted attendance entries in a table
• WiFi QR Code — also generates a QR code for connecting to the WiFi network
• Local Network — runs entirely on the local network, no internet required

Tech Stack

Technology	Purpose
Python	Core language
Flask	Web server for attendance form
Tkinter	Desktop GUI for teachers
SQLite	Attendance record storage
MySQL (PyMySQL)	Teacher authentication database
qrcode	QR code generation
wifi-qrcode-generator	WiFi connection QR code
Pillow (PIL)	Image handling

Project Structure

Smart-Attendance-management-system/
├── hello.py              # Flask server — attendance form, view records
├── login_page.py         # Tkinter login GUI with MySQL auth
├── signup_page.py        # Tkinter signup GUI with security questions
├── credentials.py        # MySQL connection config
├── employee.db.py        # SQLite database initialization
├── qr.py                 # QR code generator (WiFi + site URL)
├── site.png              # Generated QR code image
├── templates/
│   ├── index.html        # Home page — login + view attendance
│   ├── add.html          # Attendance submission form
│   ├── success.html      # Confirmation page
│   ├── view.html         # Attendance records table
│   ├── delete.html       # Delete record form
│   ├── delete_record.html
│   ├── style.css
│   └── images/
│       └── logo.png      # Bennett University logo
└── Python College Project 1sem/
    └── Presentation files

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.x
• MySQL server (for teacher authentication)

Install Dependencies

pip install flask pymysql qrcode pillow wifi-qrcode-generator

Setup MySQL Database

Create a database and table for teacher registration:

CREATE DATABASE student;
USE student;
CREATE TABLE teacher_register (
    id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    f_name VARCHAR(50),
    l_name VARCHAR(50),
    email VARCHAR(100) UNIQUE,
    question VARCHAR(200),
    answer VARCHAR(200),
    password VARCHAR(100)
);

Update credentials.py with your MySQL credentials.

Run the Application

1. Start the teacher GUI:

python login_page.py

2. After login, the Flask server starts automatically and a QR code is displayed

3. Students scan the QR code on their phones to open the attendance form

4. Teacher views attendance through the web dashboard

What I Learned

This was my introduction to:

• Building GUIs with Tkinter
• Web servers with Flask
• Working with databases (both SQLite and MySQL)
• Networking basics (local IP, ports, QR codes)
• Integrating multiple systems into one project

Looking back, the code is rough around the edges — but it was the starting point for everything that followed.