Crew check-in and the on-site roster

On the day, the question that matters most is not what is happening at 4pm. It is who is actually in the building. A crew of fifteen arrives across three hours in six different vehicles, and the only record of who has turned up is whoever you happen to have run into.

Check-in fixes that with one tap at each end. Crew mark themselves on site from the link they already have, and you get a live count and a named roster, which is the list you would want in your hand if the building had to be cleared.

Turning it on

Check-in is off by default and set per event, not per account. Open the event, and in its settings tick Check-in & check-out.

It is per event because most events do not need it. A three-supplier wedding does not, a 40-crew festival build does, and the toggle keeps the crew page clean for the ones that do not.

Nothing appears on anyone's screen until you tick it, and turning it on part way through the day is fine: the button appears on a crew member's link the next time they open or refresh it.

Under the setting, Emergency assembly point is where people should go if the site is evacuated, for example "North car park, by the main gate". It is optional, up to 500 characters, and shown on every share link with the check-in button. Put it in a template and every event made from that template has it.

What crew see

On their share link, near the top of the page, there is a single large Check in button. One tap and it is done. There is no name picker, because the link already knows who they are, and no "are you sure?", because an accidental tap costs one tap to undo and the prompt was being paid for by everyone tapping deliberately with a case in the other hand.

Once they are in, the card turns green and says You're checked in, with the time they arrived, and offers Check out. Checking out does ask for confirmation, because that is the one you act on: it tells you to stop expecting them on site.

If you set an emergency assembly point, it sits at the bottom of the same card under If the site is evacuated, go to:, whether or not the person has checked in yet.

If you use 1pm for guests as well as crew, guests check in through exactly the same card.

Crew never see the roster. They see their own state and nothing else. Who else is on site is yours.

It works without signal. A loading dock with no bars is exactly where this gets used, so a tap made offline is held on the crew member's phone, the card updates straight away as though it had gone through, and it is sent as soon as the connection comes back. Nobody has to stand in the doorway waiting for a spinner.

Because check-in doubles as a safety record, a tap made offline is recorded at the time it was tapped, not the time the phone found signal again. Somebody who checks out at 3pm in a dead spot and reconnects at 6pm is logged as leaving at 3pm. The phone sends how long ago the tap was, so the time is right even when the phone's own clock is set wrong. In the roster's history, an entry like that also says when it arrived ("Tapped offline, received 6:02 pm"), so the gap is on the record.

One related piece of engineering worth knowing, because it prevents a nasty failure during a roll-call: the crew member's button sends the state it wants rather than flipping whatever it last saw. So a card left open on a phone since this morning cannot check somebody out by accident, and a double-tap cannot land as in-then-out.

What you see

On the event's planner page there is an On site now card with a count, and a View roster button.

The count is live. As people check in and out it updates by itself, with no refresh and no polling: you can leave the page open on a laptop at the door and watch the number climb through the build.

The roster opens in two lists:

On site now, most recent arrival first, each with the time they checked in. Most recent first is deliberate: during a build, the useful question is who has just walked in.
Not checked in, alphabetically. This covers both people who never checked in and people who have checked out again, and the ones who left carry the time they went.

The roster updates by itself while it is open, the same as the count, so you can leave it up and watch people arrive.

You can also check anyone in or out from the roster yourself. That is there for the two situations that always come up: a marshal doing a physical head-count against the list, and the crew member whose phone died in the loading dock. On a long list, type part of a name in the Find a name box at the top to narrow both lists. The roster keeps your place in the list as you check people in, so you can work down it at the door.

Check out everyone checks out every person still on site in one go, at the current time, with a confirmation first. Use it at the end of a shift or when the site closes, so tomorrow's count starts from zero. Each person gets their own entry in the history, marked as done by you for everyone.

History and the CSV export

The roster's History tab lists every check-in and check-out on the event, newest first. Each entry says who it was, which way they went, the time, and who did it: Self when the crew member tapped it themselves, or the name of the person on your account who did it from the roster. Download CSV gives you the full log, oldest first, with the date and time in your account's time zone, ready to hand over as a site attendance record.

Everyone on site across your events

Check-ins in the sidebar shows every event and portal you track check-ins on, in one place.

Three counts across the top: On site now, Check-ins today and Check-ins this month, counted in your account time zone.
Choose the events or portals to see only those, up to 10 at a time. The choice applies to both tabs and to the counts, so a site manager can tick one portal and see just who is at that site.
On site now lists each person checked in anywhere, the event they are at, when they arrived and who checked them in. Check out checks that person out of that event, after a confirmation, and the history records that you did it.
History lists every visit, newest first: when the person checked in, when they checked out and how long they stayed. Filter by name and by the dates people checked in, as well as by the events and portals you chose. Download CSV gives you the same visits, with dates and times in your account time zone.
The page updates by itself as people check in and out anywhere on your account.
An open roll call is shown at the top, with how many are not yet accounted for and a link to the event it is running on. It shows whichever events and portals you have chosen.

Checking someone in, Check out everyone and the roll call itself stay on each event's roster.

Roll call

If the site has to be cleared, open the roster and press Start roll call. A short explanation of what the roll call does opens first; press Start roll call again to begin. It takes everyone checked in at that moment and puts them in a list headed Not accounted for. As each person is found at the assembly point, press Mark safe next to their name and they move to Marked safe. The two counts at the top tell you how many are still missing.

Everyone on your account sees the same roll call. Two marshals can work the same list from two phones or laptops, and each sees the other's ticks within a second or two.
Someone who checks in while it is open is added to it, so a late arrival cannot be missing from the list.
While it is running, the On site now card says so at the top of the event, with how many are not accounted for and an Open roll call button. Closing the roll call window does not end it.
Call sits under each name in Not accounted for when that contact has a mobile number, so you can ring someone who is not at the assembly point. It is usually how a missing person turns out to have left early without checking out.
Undo puts someone back in Not accounted for if they were marked by mistake.
End roll call closes it. The list is kept as it was, and you can open it again from the History tab, with who was marked safe, when, and by whom. Closing it there takes you back to the history.

A roll call does not check anybody in or out. It is a separate list of who has been accounted for.

The number is a safety number, so it is built like one

Everyone checked in is counted until they are checked out. The roster is everyone holding an active share link for the event, plus anyone still on site whose link you have since turned off. Turning off a link does not take a person out of the building, so they stay in the count, marked Link turned off, until you check them out from the roster.
A contact who is on site cannot be deleted. Deleting them would drop them from the count, so 1pm asks you to check them out first. Their check-in history is kept after the contact is deleted.
Anyone still on site can always check out, even after the event is cancelled or a portal is closed. Checking in is turned off in those cases, but the Check out button stays for the people who are already in.
You can check people in and out on any plan. The roster, Check out everyone and the roll call keep working even if your subscription or trial has lapsed, because a head count during an evacuation cannot wait for billing.
You choose whether anyone is checked out automatically. Under the check-in setting, Automatic check-out is off by default. Pick a time (11:59 PM suits most events) and each day at that time, anyone who checked in before it and is still marked on site is checked out. They are recorded as leaving at that time, and the history says it was automatic. Somebody who checks in after the time is not affected until the next day's. The time is in your account time zone; if your account has none set, it runs on UTC, and the setting says so.
With it off, nothing checks anybody out on its own. Somebody who taps in and never taps out stays in the on-site list overnight, which is why the roster prints a bare time for anything that happened today and a time with a date for anything that did not. On a multi-day build, a row reading "7:15 am, 12 Mar" is last Tuesday's arrival still sitting there, not this morning's. If a count looks too high, that is the first thing to check, and Check out everyone at the end of each day keeps it clean.
Turning check-in off checks everyone out. If you untick it in the event's settings, everyone still on site is checked out when you save, and the history says check-in was turned off. That way, switching it back on later starts from an empty roster instead of showing old arrivals as people on site now.
Every check-in and check-out is logged, with the time, and with whether it was the crew member themselves or someone on your account doing it from the roster.
The log keeps the name as it was. It stores the person's name at the moment of the toggle, so renaming or removing a crew member later does not blank out the record of who was on site.
It is in your account data export, the current state, the full log and every roll call, so the record does not live only on a screen.

What it is not

It is not a timesheet. 1pm records that somebody was on site and when, not hours worked, breaks, or anything to bill from.
It does not notify you. There is no bell notification and no email when somebody checks in. Fifteen crew arriving would be fifteen interruptions during the busiest hour of your day. The live count is the notification.
It has nothing to do with crew statuses, which are your own calls about a person (Inducted, Cleared for site) rather than about today. Somebody can be confirmed for weeks and still not be in the building.
It does not touch the run of show. Checking in does not tick anything off, and nothing on the timeline changes because somebody arrived.
It is not available on templates, only on real events, since a template has no day to be on site for.

Using it well

Tell crew it is there. The button appears on its own with no explanation, which is right for a phone at a door and wrong for someone who has never seen it. A line in the event notes ("check in on your link when you arrive") is usually all it takes.
Put one QR code at the door. Print the event's self-registration link as a QR code on a sign at the entrance. People already on the event get their link emailed again, and anyone new is registered on the spot and emailed theirs. Both then tap Check in from that link. See Letting crew and guests register themselves.
Turn it on for the events where a head-count matters: large builds, anything with a client safety requirement, anything in a venue that asks who is on site.
Check the roster before you go looking for someone. "Not checked in" is a faster answer than three phone calls.