Ticket Desk and Check-in
On the day of your event, door staff redeem e-tickets by scanning the QR code on each ticket or by working through the event's ticket list. This article covers both ways, the difference between collecting a ticket and checking someone in, and how to give door staff only the access they need.
Collect vs check in
| Action | What it records | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Collect | Marks the ticket Collected, with the time and the staff member who collected it. No attendance is recorded. | The e-ticket is exchanged for a wristband, lanyard or printed ticket, and attendance is tracked separately or not at all. |
| Check in | Collects the ticket and creates a check-in for the ticket holder at the ticket's event. | Scanning the ticket at the door is how you record who attended. |
Check-ins made this way are ordinary check-ins. They appear in the event's attendance, on the person's timeline and in check-in reports. See Check-ins and Attendance.
Scanning tickets at the door
Every ticket email includes a QR code for each ticket. Scanning one opens the ticket's collect page in the Qik dashboard. No special scanner app is needed: door staff use the camera on their phone or tablet.
- Sign in first. Before doors open, each staff member signs in to the Qik dashboard on their device with a login that has collect rights (see Permissions below). If someone scans before signing in, they're asked to log in first. Staff who belong to more than one organisation must be signed in to the one running the event.
- Scan the QR code on the guest's phone or printout and open the link.
- Review the tickets. The page lists the tickets behind that code, grouped by event, with each holder's name and ticket title. Tickets still to be processed are ticked automatically, because most groups arrive together. Untick anyone who isn't present, or use Select all remaining.
- Press Collect or Check in. Check in only appears if you're allowed to check people in.
- The page shows All done and a summary, then is "Ready for the next scan."
What a QR code can open
- The QR on each emailed ticket opens that ticket.
- Opening a ticket in the dashboard shows a second QR code, Whole registration. It opens every ticket from the same registration, which is useful for checking in a family or a team in one go.
Messages you might see
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Event has ended | The ticket is for an event whose end time (or start time, if it has no end) has passed. Tickets for ended events can't be collected. |
| Ticket not found | The ticket has been deleted, or the code belongs to a different organisation from the one you're signed in to. |
| No access | You're signed in, but your role doesn't let you collect these tickets. |
| Not a ticket | The code that was scanned isn't a Qik ticket QR code. |
If a guest holds tickets for several events, only the events that haven't ended are shown.
Using the ticket desk in the dashboard
For a staffed desk with a laptop, or when a guest has no QR code, use the event's ticket list instead:
- Open the event and go to Attendance → Tickets.
- Use Search tickets to find the guest by name.
- Click the Collect button on their row, then choose Collect or Collect & check in.
To process several guests at once, select their rows and click Collect N selected in the selection bar. You're offered Collect N tickets, which skips any already collected, or Collect & check in N tickets.
The row button reads Collected once a ticket has been redeemed, and Event ended after the event is over. Use Add Ticket on the same tab for walk-ins. See Event Tickets.
How collecting behaves
- All or nothing. If any selected ticket can't be collected — because its event has ended or you don't have permission for it — nothing is saved, and the message names the problem ticket.
- Check in always collects. A check-in also marks the ticket collected. A ticket that was already collected can still be used to check the holder in.
- Partial check-in failures. Tickets are marked collected before the check-ins are recorded. If a check-in fails (for example, a ticket made by hand with no person attached), you'll see a message such as "Ticket collected, but couldn't check in: …". The ticket still counts as collected.
- One check-in per person per event. If a person holds several tickets for the same event, checking them in doesn't create duplicate attendance.
- Undoing a collect. Open the ticket and switch off Collected. Qik clears the collected time and staff member too. Remove any check-in separately from the event's attendance.
- You can collect up to 200 tickets in one action.
Permissions
Door staff don't need general access to your ticket records. Qik has a dedicated permission for this:
- Ticket → Collect lets someone collect tickets from the QR page and the ticket desk, within the scopes the tickets belong to, without broader access to ticket records. Anyone who can edit a ticket can also collect it.
- Check-in → Create is also needed to check in holders. Without it, staff only see the Collect button.
Setting up door staff
- Create a role, for example Door Staff, with Ticket → Collect, and Check-in → Create if they should record attendance.
- Create an access pass that grants this role in the scopes your event's tickets are filed in. These are the scopes of the registration form's submissions.
- Give each member of your door team a dashboard login with that access pass. See Managing Users and Access Passes.
- Test it: sign in as a door staff member (or use impersonation) and scan a test ticket.
To use the event's Attendance → Tickets tab, staff also need to be able to open the event, and check-ins must be enabled for your organisation.
Tips for event day
- Do a dry run the day before: register yourself through the live form, then scan your own ticket on a door device.
- Keep the ticket desk tab open on a laptop as a fallback for guests who can't find their email. Searching by name is often faster than waiting for an inbox to load.
- Because tickets for ended events can't be collected, set the event's end time to when doors close, not when they open.