Check-in at the door: the Event check-in station

An iPad or phone at an event's door checks people in: scan the code on their ticket or find their name, add walk-ups, take cash or a check, and print name tags. It's a station: paired once, nobody signs in on it, and the volunteers using it need no account. Any published event with sign-ups, free or with tickets, can be checked in on its day.

Pair the station

1. On the iPad or phone, open praisepad.app/station and add it to the Home Screen. It shows a six-character code.
2. On your own phone or computer, open Settings › Events. Under Stations, in Pair a station, type the Code and a Name people will know, like Fellowship hall door, and press Pair.

Events managers pair stations, with two-step sign-in done. Remove takes away one that's lost; first let it send everything (it says "Online · synced"), because check-ins it hasn't sent are lost.

At the door

The station opens on the event under way (from an hour before it starts), else the next one; Change event picks another, from three hours ago to tomorrow morning.

• Scan a code reads the square code on their ticket email, on a phone or printed: one code for the whole family. Or type a name, a phone number or the code in the search.
• Their card shows each person with their ticket and answers, and anything owed. Everyone not in yet is ticked: untick anyone who isn't here, and press Check in. The card folds to one line, with Undo for ten seconds.
• A second scan says "Already in at 7:14". A family still waiting for a place says so, with Let them in; a cancelled sign-up can't be checked in.

Walk-ups

A search for someone who hasn't signed up offers "Walk-up: add" with the name typed in, or press Walk-up. Add their name (an email and phone if they want to give them) and each person coming in, with a Child box and, on a ticketed event, a ticket. When there's something to pay, choose how they paid: Cash, Check, Waived or Pay later. Add and check in puts them on Who's coming, checked in.

Money at the door

When a family owes, the card says "Owes $95" with Cash, Check and Waive. Type the amount and who took it (the station remembers your name), a check's number, or for a waiver the name of the manager who said so. It goes on Who's coming and on Reports › Events, for the counter. A family still waiting shows what they'll pay once they're let in ("$25 to pay once in"), and a waived balance reads "Waived · nothing due".

Name tags

Turn on Print a name tag at check-in on the event, and each person checked in gets a name tag: first name and last initial, the event, its day and time. They print on your church's label printer laptop, the one Kids uses (see the label printer); a church without Kids pairs that laptop under Settings › Events with the job Printer. Print name tags prints a family's again. With no printer paired, the top says "Name tags: on · no printer paired", and a family's line says when their tags didn't print, so you can write them by hand.

When the wifi drops

While it's online, the station keeps a copy of the date's sign-ups, saved again every few minutes, so open it before people arrive. With no wifi it carries on from that copy, and the top says "Offline · 3 to sync". Names and ticket codes are found from that copy, and check-ins and walk-ups wait on the device and send when the wifi is back. Phone numbers, taking money and Let them in need the internet; write name tags by hand meanwhile. If PraisePad refuses something when it sends, the station lists it: tell the event's organizer, then clear it. For the night the iPad dies, print the check-in list.

At the side, the count fills as people come in: "61 of 110 expected checked in", who's waiting, walk-ups, the cash and checks taken, and the last few check-ins. On a phone it's one line above the search.