How to check-in volunteers for your event

Volunteers can check in four different ways, and every method writes to the same attendance record and the same hours ledger. This article covers where staff go in BetterUnite, what each method is good for, and what a check-in does to a volunteer's credited hours.

Where staff start: Volunteer Sign In

There is no tab called Check-in in a volunteer campaign. The staff-facing check-in area is called Volunteer Sign In.

Open your volunteer sign-up campaign, then in the left menu expand Volunteer Center and choose Volunteer Sign In. This is the roster of everyone signed up, and it is where you check people in, add walk-ins, and open the other tools.

Across the top of that page you will find:

• View Volunteers, which opens the full volunteer list.
• Walk-in Quick Add, for someone who arrives without having signed up.
• Kiosk Mode, which opens the self-service station in a new tab.
• Attendance Board, the live view of who is here.

The Actions menu on the same page holds Check-in Activity By User (an audit of who checked whom in), Import Volunteers, Export to File, and Bulk Edit in Excel.

The four ways a volunteer checks in

1. Volunteer Portal

Best for recurring programs where volunteers already have a BetterUnite login. A signed-in volunteer opens their portal, finds the shift, and uses the Sign In button. When the shift is done they use Sign Out.

The buttons appear only inside the sign-in window, which your organization sets (see Turning self sign-in on below). Before that window opens, the volunteer sees the shift but no button.

2. QR code

Best for multiple entrances, outdoor sites, or anywhere you do not want to staff a table. Volunteers scan with their phone camera. There is no app to download.

To print them, open the campaign's sharing panel, where the Links, QR Codes and Embed Codes tabs are, and select the Check-in tab. Choose Open printable QR codes. You get one code for the whole sign-up page plus one code per upcoming shift, on a page built for printing.

The same printable page is reachable from Manage Sessions, under Check-in QR codes.

3. Kiosk Mode

Best for a staffed entrance with one shared tablet or laptop. Kiosk Mode turns a single device into a self-service station: a volunteer searches for their own name or email and checks themselves in, and the screen resets for the next person. Staff can also register a walk-in from the same screen.

Open it from the Kiosk Mode button on Volunteer Sign In, or from Tools in the left menu. It opens in its own tab, so you can leave it running on the kiosk device while you work elsewhere.

4. Walk-in Quick Add

For someone who shows up without a sign-up. On Volunteer Sign In, choose Walk-in Quick Add, enter their basic contact details, and pick the job and shift they are covering. This creates the registration and checks them in together, so you are not doing two steps at the door.

Turning self sign-in on

Portal, QR code and Kiosk self sign-in all depend on one organization-level switch. If volunteers report that they can see a shift but no Sign In button, this is almost always why.

Go to Volunteer Management, open Settings, and stay on the Hours & Sign-in Settings tab. The relevant fields are:

Watching attendance as it happens

The live board is called Attendance Board. Open it from the button on Volunteer Sign In or from Tools in the left menu, and it opens in its own tab so you can leave it on a second screen.

It shows who is checked in, who is still expected, and who has not arrived, and it refreshes on its own. You can filter it to a single shift. The board is for monitoring only. It does not replace a check-in method, so you still need at least one of the four above.

What a check-in does to hours

Each check-in opens a time record. Checking out closes it, and BetterUnite credits hours according to the rules on the Hours & Sign-in Settings tab, including the credited-time buffer.

Remind volunteers to sign out when they finish. A record that is never closed cannot be credited accurately, and cleaning those up afterward means editing each one by hand.

Mixing methods

Nothing stops you from running more than one method at the same event, and most organizations do:

• Kiosk Mode at the main entrance, QR codes at side entrances.
• Portal as the everyday method for regulars, QR codes as the backup when someone cannot log in.
• Any of the above, plus Walk-in Quick Add at the staffed table for unregistered arrivals.

If an option is missing from your menu

Three of these tools are permission-gated, so a staff member with a limited role may not see them. If a colleague can see something you cannot, ask an administrator to check the role:

• Kiosk Mode requires the volunteer kiosk permission.
• Attendance Board requires the attendance board permission.
• The Check-in tab holding the printable QR codes requires the volunteer self check-in permission.

Volunteer Sign In and Walk-in Quick Add are not gated this way. If you cannot find Volunteer Sign In at all, confirm you are in a volunteer sign-up campaign rather than an event campaign. Event campaigns use Guest List and Manage Carts instead, and they have no volunteer check-in tools.

Wording you may have seen elsewhere

Some older guides and screenshots use earlier names for these screens. Current labels:

The one place Check-in is still the literal label is the sharing panel tab that holds the printable QR codes, described above.