The Check-In Process

You’re up and running and ready to start utilizing the Check-in tool!  If you haven’t already made yourself familiar with the Dashboard, click here for an overview: Using the Check-In Portal.


Using Search Households

Search Households will likely be the quickest routine for finding and checking members in.  Let’s take a look at how that works. 

 

Using the Search Households bar, type in the name of the individual you would like to search.  

 

This doesn’t necessarily have to be the person you’re looking to check in, it could be another Household member.

 

Let’s say a parent walks up with their family, and you know the parent, but not the children.  Search for the parent’s name, last name, or any child’s name. It will automatically search the entire household and bring up matching results.

 

The search will result in a list of matching households.

If you see the Household name needed, click the names.  

Each member will then be shown; with their applicable Activities. 

 

 

Simply click the box that each person will be checking into.  

That person will then be automatically checked in, their tag will be printed, and attendance will be taken (when desired).

 

Keep in mind that People can be assigned to more than one activity happening at a time.  For instance, if your church has a Sunday School hour and a Kids’ Worship hour, you might ask the family if they are staying for both and check the child into both Activities.  

Or, if an adult volunteer is a part of the preschool ministry and the 5th-grade ministry, you can check them into the Activity that is applicable for that day and time.

If you do not see the person/family that you are looking for, you will need to Add them/the household into the Empower system.  

 

This is an easy feature accessible from the Check-In Portal.  See a step-by-step guide to Adding a Person or Household from Check-in here.

Bag Tags

 

Empower also gives you the feature of printing tags for items that attendees might bring with them.  We call those “bag tags,” but you can use them for cups, blankets, backpacks, and more!

 

 

To use this option, double-check that the bag tag feature is turned-on for that specific Activity in Membership>Activities>(the appropriate activity).  Click Setup in the profile tabs and edit the feature in the Check-In field.

When this feature is enabled, it will prompt you to select the number of backs before checking the individual in.