Check In Event Attendees with the QR Code in Emails & PDF Receipts

FormSmarts allows event organizers to check in participants with the QR Code in the confirmation email or PDF receipt.

Attendee is checked in with a QR code

How can I check in participants?

All FormSmarts confirmation emails, printouts and PDF documents contain a QR code. Scan the QR code with your phone or tablet to access the form submission online and review its status, update it, tag it, and add notes. You can also use the QR code to check in guests at your events.

With the App

The fastest way to check in guests at an event is with FormSmarts’ Event Check-In app. We built a mobile app because there is no better way to streamline the entire check-in workflow.

On the Website

Some forms, including event registration forms, have a special QR code that allows the event organizer to check in participants with any phone, even without the Check-In app.

  • Scan the QR code with a phone or tablet to check in an attendee
  • Any user with permissions to access form submissions may check in participants
  • The check-in system detects if an attendee attempts to check in with a QR code that another person has already used
  • The check-in systems keeps track of who checked in each participant and when.

In order to work, direct QR code check-in without the app requires that: you have enabled QR code check-in and that you keep logged in to FormSmarts while scanning guests' QR codes at the event. Do not set your browser to Private mode (Safari) or Incognito mode (Chrome), because that would force you to log in again each time you scan a QR code.

How can the event organizer know that a guest was in attendance?

Search Registrations

When an event attendee checks in, FormSmarts automatically tags their registration as checked-in. This a system tag automatically added by FormSmarts. FormSmarts also has user tags, simply called tags, that you can use to organize form submissions.

The event organizer can search for all event participants that are checked in or look up individual registrations with the checked-in system tag filter.

Generate an Excel Report

Generate an Excel report with checked-in participants

You can easily generate a report with results filtered by system tag.

  • Use the checked-in system tag to filter registrants that attended the event, as illustrated above
  • If you want to generate a list of registrants that haven't turned up, use the not:checked-in systems tag to exclude participants who have already checked-in

How do I enable QR Code Check-In?

The event check-in app allows event organizers to check in participants that registered with any of their FormSmarts forms. There is no need to enable QR code check-in if you are using the app.

In addition, FormSmarts automatically sets up a form to allow event organizers to check in participants even without the event check-in app when one of the following applies:

If you want to use QR Code Check-In with any other types of form, please contact Support.

How Can I Check In a Guest Manually?

If a guest forgot their phone or can't find the confirmation email, you can check them in manually with the app or on the website.

With the App

Search the participant's registration with their email address or phone number in the Search tab of the Check-In app and tap Check In. The FormSmarts user logged in to the app must have "Check-In Leader" permissions to be able to use the search function.

On the Website

You can also check in guests manually with the Check In Guest button shown on the registration on FormSmarts. Look up the participant by email or phone number and use the button to check them in. Note that:

  • The button only appears in the registration details page on FormSmarts if you have set up a calendar invite for the registration form
  • It only appears between the start and end date of the event specified in the calendar invite

How Can I Resend the Confirmation Email?

If a guest deleted the FormSmarts confirmation email or can't find it, you can look them up by email or phone number and resend it:

  1. Search for the guest's registration by email address or phone number
  2. View the registration and click Share in the right column or mobile menu
  3. Share the registration with the guest.

Note that Search and Sharing are not supported will all types of accounts.