How can I manage event guest lists on the ipad?

April 12, 2012 12:37 PM

How can I manage event guest lists on the ipad? Need to check people in as they arrive.

I am an event manager and would like to use my ipad to check people in for events. Our typical group size is 600 people.

I've looked at several apps, including Check-In Easy and Entry Manager (from Eventbrite) but both have limitations. Both require that you upload lists to a website, which doesn't seem ideal. Check-In Easy isn't easy - I tried 3x to import a spreadsheet and kept getting field mapping errors. The Eventbrite app is made for events where you are selling tickets, and I couldn't find a way to create an event without tickets.

I've considered Numbers and Google Docs, but neither seems ideal for editing on the ipad in a busy event environment.

Any ideas? I can't be the only person trying to do this...

posted by kdern to technology (8 answers total)

Also checking out this option - Event Pro - but since the one-time setup fee includes "one-on-one training session", I'm guessing it's expensive.
posted by kdern at 12:38 PM on April 12, 2012

How about using a list in the built-in Reminders app? I believe you can sync those to a list on a WebDAV server if you have a lot of data to import.
posted by stopgap at 12:39 PM on April 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Numbers has a built-in template for Attendance. This may work. There's a tab at the top that's a form that just gives the name and a check box for present/not present. I might be unwieldy to create columns for every single person but if you wanted you could set it up and make new rows for subsequent events. I think you're probably right that this isn't the right approach, but that's how you'd do it in Numbers.
posted by davextreme at 12:58 PM on April 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Does this need to be anything more than a list that you can add names to and then check off for them to disappear? If not, something like a grocery list app might be just what you need. I just discovered one called Our Groceries recently that adds easily, crosses off with either a checkbox or a "crossing off" finger gesture (storing crossed-off items below, not deleting them), and can sync across multiple devices and cross-client (website, android, iOS). Maybe try something like that?
posted by Rallon at 2:08 PM on April 12, 2012

A to-do or grocery list would work but we need something just a little more sophisticated. We need to have a count for how many have arrived and how many have not. It would be nice to be able to import from Excel, to pull up a list of people who have and have not arrived, etc.
posted by kdern at 2:20 PM on April 12, 2012

Bento for iPad is $10. It should allow you to create a marginally more sophisticated todo/grocery type solution. It'll take a little work but you're not looking for a lot. I don't know how far the iCloud integration goes but you may even be able to load it up & update it remotely.
posted by phearlez at 2:32 PM on April 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

There seem to be some appropriate templates as well.
posted by phearlez at 2:36 PM on April 12, 2012

Seconding Bento - you could basically build your own custom database check-in form with as many variables as you like.
posted by Happy Dave at 2:30 AM on April 13, 2012