Event check-in

It's great to see who's signing up for your events but do they attend? Or, have you ever wanted to take an impromptu register of attendance at one of your events but then the moment passes? Event check-in will help you!

Overview of intended functionality

Event check-in can be initiated by Calendar module Users from within ChurchSuite and by designated event overseers from within My ChurchSuite. And, if using the ChurchSuite app on a smartphone or tablet, users and overseers can even scan each signup's check-in QR codes accessible through their sign-up confirmation using the app's in-built QR scanner. For busy events, multiple devices can run event check-in simultaneously - 'check-ins' are updated in real-time so a check-in recorded on one device is immediately reflected on other devices.

As an alternative to QR-scanning, you may prefer to view a list of event sign-ups and tick names off the list as they arrive. Event check-in isn't just for sign-up events - you can take an impromptu register of attendance of contacts and children for any event with a confirmed status.

During check-in, the optional check-in confirmation message displays all the event sign-up details, including details of tickets, payments and event question responses, making the on-the-door user experience easy to administer. And for Pay on arrival tickets, or where a check-in has unpaid tickets, there's an option to Mark Paid an unpaid ticket as part of the Check-In process on the door.

All the check-in attendance data (who, when and by whom) is recorded in real-time against the event on the Check-Ins tab. The same event management features for Sign-Ups are also provided for Check-Ins so you can easily Communicate with checked-in attendees after an event, perhaps assign a Key Date or Tag or add them to a Flow.

For events set as Sign up to the sequence - like an Alpha course, where people sign-up to all the dates of the sequence - you can run check-in for each sequence date, which builds into a helpful table of attendance over time.

From the Check-Ins tab, you can filter communications based on attendance, perhaps to those who attended more than a certain number of dates in the sequence, those who attended all dates, or perhaps just those who attended on certain dates.

Using event check-in

There are no special settings needed to use the event check-in functionality. Check-in can be run for any past or future event in the Calendar module with a Confirmed status: either by a Calendar module User from the event "View" page, select Go to event check-in...

...or by designated event Overseers from the My Events section within My ChurchSuite on the event's "View" page, selecting Check-In.

Overseers can only access this Check-In button for events within the last 7 days - if the event is older and attendance still needs to be added, it will need to be added by a Calendar module user within ChurchSuite.

Whether working within a browser or from the iOS or Android ChurchSuite app, the Check-In Page is launched. The check-in page is essentially a register of sign-ups that can be ticked to check people in. When working with long lists of sign-ups you can use the Search bar to search by signup name - as you type in the search the list filters matching sign-ups. And for events with multiple ticket types, the Tickets filter can also be used to further filter the list. You can further customise the check-in experience from the Settings menu. For example, by unchecking Show checked in the list only displays those not yet checked in, so the list gets shorter as you check people in. Similarly, turning off Confirm check-ins which will prevent the pop-up check-in confirmation from showing when there's a need to process long queues more quickly.

When enabled in Settings, the Confirm check-ins pop-up shows details of each signup's ticket, payment details and event question responses. Where there are "pay on arrival" tickets or unpaid tickets, the Confirm check-ins pop-up includes the option to Mark Paid as part of the Check-In process - each person's on-the-door payment processed in this way is recorded back against the event in ChurchSuite. Note that this is a manual payment workflow for processing on-the-door payments, perhaps in cash. It's not possible to process on-the-door card payments - these can only be processed at the point of signing up for the event.

For events where you wish to record attendance for people who have not signed up previously, or where you wish to take an impromptu register of attendance for a non-sign-up event, you can enable Person Search in Settings, choosing whether to Search Address Book or Search Children or both. Additionally, for events with My ChurchSuite visibility restricted by Tag, ticking Search event tags shows a filtered list of tagged people to search and check-in. When recording attendance for those who haven't signed up for an event, a sign-up is automatically added for the person as you check them in, meaning that everyone who is checked in to an event will have a sign-up listed against the event.

The Device name setting (shown above) distinguishes the module user or overseer that checked a person in and is visible when viewing the Check-Ins tab on the event "View" page. Hovering your cursor over a tick reveals the check-in device name and check-in date/time stamp.

Communicating with event attendees

A vital part of event management is timely communication before and after an event. From the Check-Ins tab clicking Communicate gives the option to Send email or Send SMS to communicate directly with checked-in attendees.

The recipient list comprises all checked-in attendees for the event being viewed, but you can optionally further filter, perhaps just those within your ChurchSuite database or those not in ChurchSuite. And for events with Sign up to the sequence enabled there are further filter options for Check-Ins and Dates (date A OR date B OR date C, etc.). Once filtered, you can then compose and send your message in the usual way.