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Sunday morning

Taking attendance on Sunday

Two paths: a phone in your pocket, or a PIN-protected iPad on the welcome table where members check themselves in. Plus how to fix a mistake on Monday.

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What this does

Records who was at your service so the dashboard, follow-up pipeline, and Monday email all know what actually happened.

When you’d use it

Every Sunday, once. Pick the path that fits your service: a pastor or single volunteer tapping names on a phone, or a dedicated iPad on the welcome table where members find their own name and check themselves in. Most small churches start with the phone and add the kiosk only when their welcome table is consistently staffed.

Both paths land in the same place. The dashboard can’t tell the difference, and you can switch between them week to week without breaking anything.

Step by step

Path A — A volunteer on a phone

  1. Open the service. Walk in with your phone, open Events, and tap into this Sunday’s service. If you haven’t created the service yet, do that first — the event has to exist before you can take attendance for it.

  2. Tap Start check-in. On the day of the service, a Start check-inbutton sits at the top of the event page. Tap it and you’ll land on a roster of everyone in People sorted by last name.

  3. Tap names as people walk in.Each name becomes a check-in instantly. There’s no save button — the count updates as you tap. If you tap the wrong person, tap again to undo before you move on.

  4. Stop when the sermon starts. No need to close anything. The check-in session stays open all day, so if a family slips in late you can pull out your phone and tap them in before you forget.

Path B — A PIN-protected iPad kiosk

Use this path when you have a volunteer at a welcome table and an iPad (or any tablet) that can stay parked there. The kiosk is full-screen, dark-themed, and members tap their own name — you don’t have to staff it once it’s running.

  1. Set a kiosk PIN first. Open Settings and find the Kiosk section. Click Set PIN, choose a 4-digit code, and confirm it. This PIN is what an admin types to exit kiosk mode at the end of the service. Only owners and admins can set it.

    If you skip this step, the first time you launch the kiosk it will stop and ask you to set one anyway. Either place works — do it ahead of time if you can, so a Sunday volunteer doesn’t have to.

  2. Launch the kiosk from the event page. Open Events, tap into this Sunday’s service, and use the overflow menu next to the event title. Pick Launch kiosk. The tablet drops into full-screen kiosk mode and pins itself to this specific service.

  3. Hand the tablet to your welcome team. Members type or swipe to find their name, tap it, and see a confirmation. The kiosk handles families one at a time — each person taps their own name.

  4. Exit when the service ends. Tap Exit Kiosk in the corner. A PIN prompt appears. Type the 4-digit code an admin set in step 1, and the tablet returns to the regular dashboard.

Fixing a check-in after the fact

  1. Open the past service. From Events, tap into the event and scroll to the list of past check-ins. Click the row for the date you need to fix. You’ll land on a read-only summary of who was there.

  2. Tap Edit attendance. The summary header has an Edit attendancebutton. Click it and you’re back on the full roster — tap to add someone who was there but missed, tap an existing name to remove a wrong one.

  3. Walk away. Changes save as you tap, same as the live check-in. The dashboard and Monday email pick up the corrected count automatically.

If something goes wrong

  • The Start check-in button isn’t there. The button only shows up on or after the day the service is scheduled. If you’re looking at a future Sunday, the action will be Backfill attendance instead, which works the same way — tap it to log a one-off session for a day other than today.

  • The volunteer forgot the kiosk PIN. On the PIN prompt, tap Forgot PIN?. A 6-digit recovery code gets emailed to every owner and admin on your team. Whoever has email open reads it back; the volunteer types it in and gets out of kiosk mode. The code expires in 10 minutes and only works once. Then go to Settingsand set a new PIN you’ll actually remember.

  • The kiosk is locked out after too many wrong PINs. After five wrong attempts the PIN prompt shows a one-minute cooldown. Wait it out, or use Forgot PIN? to skip the wait with a recovery code.

  • Someone’s name isn’t on the roster. The roster shows everyone in Peoplewho is active or a visitor. If a new visitor isn’t there yet, that’s expected — they’ll appear after they fill out the connect card. Add them by hand from Peopleif you need to log attendance for someone who didn’t use the card.

  • You double-tapped a name on the kiosk. The kiosk recognizes a repeat tap as “already checked in” rather than recording two check-ins, so the number on the dashboard stays right. No fix needed.

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