Checking in guests and collecting information during fundraising events can be a complicated process.

With Essential Events, you have ways to collect guest information that's designed for use on phones and tablets, and should make this process run as smoothly as possible as your event begins.

The Check-In feature is available for use on your Essential Events pages, and will be available once you have created at least one “guest ticket.”

When at least one of those guest tickets has been sold, a button will appear under the “Guests” tab of your event labeled “Open Check-In.” That button will open the “Guest Check-In" page whenever you’re ready to begin checking your guests in!

If you do not see a green button for “Open Check-In” on the “Guests” tab when managing your event, then first confirm that the page you’re reviewing is an Essential Event.

You can verify this by navigating to your campaign home page and reviewing if there is an “Events” label (for an Essential Event) or “Events Lite” label listed on the page’s “tile.”

Please note that the Check-In feature is only available for Essential Events pages.

Additionally, the “Open Check-In" button will only display when at least one guest ticket has been purchased. Since the feature is designed to exclude add-on tickets, such as meals or t-shirts, you will need to ensure that your event has guest tickets available before you can begin the check-in process.

You can review which of your tickets are configured as guest tickets by navigating to the “Tickets & Sponsorships” page of your Essential Event.
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Eligible ticket types will be listed with a “Guest Ticket” label if they were originally created as such.
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If you’ve created a ticket type that was not configured as a guest ticket, you can delete it - so long as there haven’t been any purchases of that ticket type yet. After deleting, you can create a new ticket type and indicate that it represents a guest.

Already created a ticket type and the ticket has already been purchased? Not to worry - you can contact our Support Team for further assistance.
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When creating a ticket, you will need to select “Yes” for “Does this ticket represent a guest?”, to ensure that the ticket is set up as a guest ticket. “Yes,” is the default selection when creating new ticket types, so just be sure to leave that as-is!

When you are ready to begin checking in your guests, you’ll want to navigate to the “Guests” tab on your Essential Event, and click on the green “Open Check-In" button towards the top right corner.

This will refresh the page and load the Guest Check-In page. This page will list all guests who have purchased a guest ticket for your event, as well as the name of the ticket purchaser (because sometimes they are different!).

It’s also designed to work on phones and tablets, in addition to laptop and desktop computers, to make it as easy as possible for your team to check people in quickly and efficiently.

Once on the Guest Check-In page, you can search for the ticket purchaser’s name or email address to filter for a list of their guests. Once you’ve located the guest you’re trying to check in, click on the arrow to the right of their name.

You’ll then be prompted to review and confirm the guest’s information, including their name, email address, and phone number. This is a great opportunity for you to collect key information about guests that you might want during – or after – the event.

Once the information has been confirmed, click on “Save Guest Details.”

You should now see the guest details listed one more time for final review. If everything looks correct, you can click “Check-In” to finish the process.

You can easily check to see if a specific guest has been checked in from the Guest Check-In page, or from the “Guests” tab on your Essential Event.

In both cases, if you search for the ticket purchaser and locate the guest, you should be able to see a green checkmark next to the guests who have been checked in.

To add or edit guest information fields, you’ll want to click on the “Tickets and Sponsorships” tab within your Essential Event.

Then, click on the “Actions” button next to the specific ticket you’d like to change, and select “Edit Questions” from the drop-down menu.

Once the page reloads, you’ll be able to add, edit, or remove any questions or fields as needed. You also have the option to indicate if a specific field or question is required during check-in.

Questions are specific to each individual ticket type, so if you wish to add a question to multiple ticket types, you will need to repeat this process for all ticket types you’d like to change.
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If a guest needs to update their “Guest Details” after they’ve already been checked in, you can always edit that information on their behalf from the “Guests” tab within your Essential Event.

You can search for the guest using the ticket purchaser’s name or email. Once you’ve located the guest, click on the “Actions” button next to their name, and select “Edit Guest Info” from the drop-down menu.

From this page, you can then update and save the information provided for that specific guest.

If you can’t find a last-minute guest on the Guest Check-In page, simply refresh the page and see if the guest appears by searching for the ticket purchaser’s name.

If you still can’t find the guest, you should confirm that the ticket purchased was a guest ticket, and not an “add-on” ticket (such as a meal, t-shirt, etc.).

While event volunteers can help with the process, Fundraising Pages users must have a “Manager”-level admin role or higher in order to access the Guest Check-In page.

We recommend that an admin who has access log into a shared laptop, tablet, or other mobile device for volunteers to utilize during check-in.

To report on an Essential Event’s attendance, you’ll want to click on the “Guests” tab within the Essential Event.

Then, you’ll want to click on the “Export” button towards the top right of the screen, and select the option to “Export CSV.” (The CSV version of the file will provide the check-in times and check-in status for all guests.)

No, guest information for your event can only currently be viewed via your Essential Event page, within Fundraising Pages.

If you wish to add that information to your Donor Management System, use the steps above to export out a CSV report of your guests’ details. Then, you can import that report into your Donor Management system directly – which will add those guests and their details to your existing list of contacts.