Question

Photo of Don Smallman

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General Check-in Question

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Hi, I was just wondering how the Check-in was working for those that are using it?  Also, how are you using it?  On PC, Laptop, tablet?  Unattended, Attended?  Any issues or obstacle’s to overcome?

Also, is anyone using the check-in system that meets in a school, or other place, where you may not be able to assign static IP addresses

Thanks!

  • Photo of DJ Grick

    2

    Don,

    We have been using check-in for a few months now and it's working great for us. The biggest obstetrical was the initial setup for schedules, room, printer config, and labels. Once we got over those humps everything worked great.

    We are using a few windows all in one computer for self check-in and early in the switch also ran 2 iPads to help train people to use the system. When a new family comes we have a laptop setup behind the check in counter with a monitor mirroring the screen so the new family can see/check the information right as it's entered. For label printers we are using the Zebra GX420d. Our children's director is loving Rock over our previous check-in system (CCB).

    As far as using IP based printers on a school network I might have a solution to that but it is kind of a stretch. If the school did not block this (which many large networks do) you can create a network inside of that network. If the school's uses 192.168.1.1 as the starting IP address (I doubt they do) you can bring a rougher and set it to start at 192.168.2.1 and leave DHCP on. Plug their network into your rougher's gateway port and you might have a separate network to use. I would definitely say research this more, the only reason I know anything about doing this is because my last apartment had free internet but I wanted to keep my NAS and printer separate from everyone else.

    I hope this helps. 

  • Photo of Robert Frisone

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    We have been running check-in in production every Sunday. As far as the interface goes it's super easy for volunteers to use. Until we get a dedicated kiosk we have been running it attended. Once we get a kiosk we will have parents check their kids in themselves and have help available for them if they need it. I've ran into a few issues. My biggest one right now is that there is no self guided sign in process for new visitors. This means visitors have to be added into the database by a volunteer. Self-guided first time check in is planned to be implemented in a future release. I haven't tried the iPad app or network printing yet, but I hope to soon. The other problem I'm currently having is figuring out why the first time visitor symbol keeps printing on my labels as well as the birthday symbol. I think it's because we do not have birthdays for some of the kids, and I'm sure these are pretty easy problems to fix. It's a pretty great system, and it's only going to get better.

    -Edit-

    It seems that I cannot reply to my own posts yet so I'll add this in an edit. We currently meet in a movie theater. We just print over USB for now. It works well enough, but you are limited to one computer for check in. If you are wanting to print over a network connection I would try what Don says below. If that doesn't work then it may not be a bad idea to look into using a mobile broadband router. We currently use one since the theater doens't have WiFi and it works great. It's not too expensive either, and we always have internet access on buissness trips and events. I haven't tried network printing yet because I only have the one computer. I'm looking forward to trying it in the future though.

  • Photo of Arran France

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    We haven't run check-in in production yet but we ran a trial at our smallest campus on Sunday. We found that the biggest obstacle was people not being aware of their last 4 digits of their number. We were using a remote 3G connection which was patchy and made the process more painful than it would have been had we had a reliable connection.

    We're planning (we haven't yet) running check-in on some Windows tablets to open up USB printing to us if necessary and to provide a familar UI for our volunteers. The check-in system is *very* simple for volunteers to administrate which is a huge plus. 

    It's worth noting there are currently a few bugs with scheduling (visible on Github)  which have been fixed in 1.3 but if you run into any odd behaviour then that's why.

    We're using it at a school but we're hoping to be assigned static IPs :) 
     

  • Photo of Don Smallman

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    Thanks everyone!