  Femtosecond transient soft X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) is a very
promising technique that can be employed at X-ray Free Electron Lasers (FELs)
to investigate out-of-equilibrium dynamics for material and energy research.
Here we present a dedicated setup for soft X-rays available at the Spectroscopy
& Coherent Scattering (SCS) instrument at the European X-ray Free Electron
Laser (EuXFEL). It consists of a beam-splitting off-axis zone plate (BOZ) used
in transmission to create three copies of the incoming beam, which are used to
measure the transmitted intensity through the excited and unexcited sample, as
well as to monitor the incoming intensity. Since these three intensity signals
are detected shot-by-shot and simultaneously, this setup allows normalized
shot-by-shot analysis of the transmission. For photon detection, the DSSC
imaging detector, which is capable of recording up to 800 images at 4.5 MHz
frame rate during the FEL burst, is employed and allows approaching the photon
shot-noise limit. We review the setup and its capabilities, as well as the
online and offline analysis tools provided to users.
