Check-in at the door

Preparing beforehand

Create the Host users. Door staff log in with the Host role: they see events and check-in, and nothing else. No risk of the address book being exported from the reception tablet. See Users and roles.

Try it the day before. Open check-in on one of the devices you will use, scan a test QR code, search for a name. This is not the moment to discover the tablet's camera has no permissions.

Export the list. An Excel of the guests on the phone of whoever is coordinating. It costs ten seconds and one day it will save your evening.

Check the network. Ask whoever runs the venue what the wi-fi is called and how far it reaches. Plenty of venues have terrible coverage exactly at the entrance, which is where you need it.

Opening check-in

From the event page, with Live check-in. The screen is built for phones and tablets.

On first use the application downloads the guests onto the device: that is what makes searching instant instead of going over the network on every keystroke. On long lists the download takes a few seconds; if it is interrupted, start it again and it picks up where it left off.

Letting people in

With the QR code. If the event uses them, every confirmed guest got a personal one in their confirmation email. Open the scanner, point it, the system recognises the guest and records them. If the code has already been used it tells you: that happens with forwarded tickets, and it is exactly the check you want.

By searching a name. Type the first letters of the surname, or of the email. It is the normal route under a hundred guests, and the shortcut when somebody has deleted the email or their phone is dead.

Somebody not on the list. You add them on the spot: name, surname, contact, and they are in. No need to leave check-in.

On each guest you can record how many people actually came in, which is often not what was announced. The guest notes — allergies, access needs, "friend of the director" — are readable from here.

If you record an arrival by mistake, the action can be undone and the person goes back among those not checked in.

People or guests

The two numbers are different and answer different questions:

• Guests — how many rows are in the list.
• People — guests plus companions.

At the door, people is what counts: it is the capacity, catering and safety number. It is also the one anybody ringing you during the evening will ask for.

With slots

When the event has time bands, you can filter to the current one and see only who is expected now. There is also a check-in for a whole slot, for groups arriving together.

Somebody who turns up in the wrong sitting gets let in anyway: slots spread out arrivals, they do not turn people away.

Several devices at once

You can, and it is what busy entrances do: each station gets its own device and its own Host user.

Arrivals are recorded on the server, so the stations see each other. But keep in mind: the list downloaded onto a device is a snapshot from the moment of the download. If you add guests from the platform once the evening has started, the other stations will only see them after reloading.

When the network will not cooperate

It happens, more often than you would think. What to do:

1. Tether from a phone. A personal data connection nearly always beats the guest wi-fi.
2. Write it down. With no network at all, take the names and record them later. That is what the exported list is for.
3. Do not insist on scanning. If the codes will not read, search by name; if that will not work either, let people in and sort it out afterwards.

Check-in is there to know who came, not to work as a bouncer. A queue at the door ruins an event far more than a list to tidy up the next day.

After the event

Those checked in stay on the event and become the most valuable data you hold: who actually turns up is a different fact from who confirms, and you only see it by comparing the two numbers.

At the next edition, that difference is the best way to decide who to invite first.