Attendance check-in

Attendance records a volunteer arriving at their post and leaving it. It answers the question you ask during the event rather than after it: who is here, who is missing, and how much time each of them actually gave.

Turning it on

Attendance is off by default, and it is turned on event by event:

Open your event settings
Tick Record attendance at posts

While the box is unticked, no button appears anywhere and nothing changes. Once ticked, the setting carries over to the next edition, and you can untick it at any time without losing what has already been recorded.

Recording an arrival

Two paths lead to the same gesture, depending on whether you have the badge in front of you or the screen.

By scanning the badge. Point your phone camera at the QR code on the volunteer's badge. The screen that opens carries their name, their shifts around that time, and one button per shift. Badges already printed work as they are: there is nothing to reprint.

From the shift page. Every volunteer assigned there carries a Record arrival button, then Record departure once they have arrived. That is the path when the volunteer is in front of you without their badge.

You record it, not the volunteer. A volunteer cannot record their own arrival: a badge scanned from home is a declaration, not a presence. They see their own attendance on their page, and every arrival keeps the name of whoever recorded it.

Who can record attendance

The organiser, and any team manager for the positions of their own team. The bar manager checks in the bar volunteers, not the ticket desk ones: it is the same rule as for the rest of team management.

Reading the state of a position

The shift page shows three states, with the number of volunteers currently on duty at the top:

At their post: the arrival is recorded, the departure is not.
Left: both are recorded.
Not checked in: the shift has started and nobody has checked that volunteer in yet.

A volunteer with no check-in carries no red badge, and that is deliberate: a missing check-in does not say they did not come, only that nobody recorded them.

Correcting a mistake

A wrong scan, one volunteer checked in instead of another: the Cancel this check-in button, next to the other one, clears both the arrival and the departure on that assignment. Attendance starts over, and nothing is irreversible.

Hours worked

The volunteer list gains a sortable Hours worked column next to the planned hours. It is included when you export the list.

The count starts at the actual arrival: a volunteer who arrived half an hour early gave that half hour.
A forgotten departure stops at the planned end of the shift and never runs past it.
An assignment nobody checked in leaves the cell empty, not "0 h".

What attendance does not do

It does not value the hours: no hourly rate, no tax receipt for donated time, no statement ready to attach to a funding application. It does not check where the recording phone is either: if you need proof that someone was on site, attendance does not provide it.

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