5 Tips for Successful Event App Scanning

It’s a real buzz watching your participants enjoy your event. Using checkpoints along your event route allows you to monitor progress of your event accurately. This data is useful to manage the distribution of staff and volunteers effectively across the route and ensure the safety of your participants.

Ensuring that you get the best data takes a little planning, but with our top tips you can get the most from your scanners and data. Here are our top 5 tips for using our free event app.

1. Plan scanning stations carefully. Think about how to protect your scanning volunteers or staff from the elements. Will there be shelter from the sun and rain? Are there toilets near by? Will the volunteers need to get food near their checkpoint or will they need to take food and drink with them? Keeping you volunteers happy will make the biggest difference to the quality of their scanning.
2. Tell your participants why you’re scanning and using event tracking software if they ask. Knowing that it’s for their own safety, or that they will get to know how they did on the event is an incentive to get them to help you.
3. Have a practice run with the people performing the scanning at your event using the scanning apps. With different levels of IT ability, it’s worth running a trial to make sure that everybody knows how to operate the scanning software and device. Having an agile scanning team who can support each other and move checkpoints to manage user flow can make a huge difference to your participants experience of your event.
4. Check for reception and internet availability at your scanning points. The Let’s Participate event management app works on and off line, but working online is always preferable to ensure that you have a steady stream of data. Using local Wi-Fi points from businesses and cafés (with permission) or moving your checkpoint a few metres to where there is mobile internet can give you real-time data.
5. Use reliable tags for scanning on long lanyards. Short lanyards can leave the tags very close to the wearer’s body. Unreliable tags can slow your scanning as you may need to re-scan when the first scan fails.

Using our free android event management app we have been able to scan participants quickly and easily through checkpoints. With preparation you can ensure your event runs smoothly.