Set up Check-Ins
Welcome to Check-Ins! Check-Ins is where you'll track attendance for your church's events—whether it's children's church, VBS, or Sunday morning. By the end of this guide, you'll know how to set up events and stations so you can start checking in families quickly and safely!
Important
If you're coming from another system, start by importing people's data into Planning Center! Check out the Add people in Check-Ins article to learn about the different ways you can add people to your database.
Create an event
Before checking people in, you need to create an event to check people into. An event is the type of service or gathering where you want to track attendance, such as a Sunday morning service or a Wednesday night kids program. Each event can have multiple sessions, which represent the specific dates and times for which you need to track attendance.
To create your first event, log in to Check-Ins on a web browser and follow the steps in the Create an event article! You can create new sessions later by adding times to your event.
Tip
If you're a multi-campus church, create separate events for different campuses!
Once you've created your first event, you can set up locations and labels. Locations represent the areas or classrooms where people need to check in, and labels determine what gets printed when people check in to a location (such as a name tag or security label). Check out the following articles to learn more!
Set up stations
Stations are devices that volunteers and families can use to check in at each location. Any device that connects to the internet and supports the Check-Ins app can be set up as a station. To see a list of supported devices and printers, head to the Software and hardware for Check-Ins article.
Once you've got all the software and hardware you need for Check-Ins, check out the Create a station article to learn more about the setup process and different station types.
Check people in
Now that you've got your event and stations set up, you're ready to start checking people in! Depending on the station types you've set up, you can either train your volunteers to check people in, or have families check themselves in at a self station.
Before your first real event, it can help to do a test run with your staff! Follow along with the Prepare for your event article to make sure you have everything you need before your event.
These articles explain the different ways that people can check in to your events:
Tip
If you're moving from a different check-in system, slowly rolling it out for your church is recommended. Choose one month to run both systems simultaneously, and ask people to check into both systems on the week corresponding to their last name (e.g., Week 1: A-F, Week 2: G-M, etc.).
Try to split the families as close to even as possible, and by the end of the month, you'll be ready to use Check-Ins!
Review your attendance
After your event, you can review attendance information on the Attendance tab of your event page:
Select the Events page from the top navigation in Check-Ins.
Choose your event from the left sidebar.
Select the Attendance tab from the left sidebar to see a record of everyone who checked in for each session.
You can also check out the following articles to learn other ways to track attendance data:
Next steps and additional resources
Now that you've set up your first event, check out these resources to keep improving your Check-Ins process!