The use case: recording a real transaction at the door
A registration and a QR code answer “who showed up.” A sampling activation, brand roadshow, or product trial needs an answer to a second question too: “what did we actually give this specific person, and when?” That answer needs to be captured at the exact moment the sample changes hands, by whoever is staffing the booth, not reconstructed later from a paper tally or a staff member's memory.
Joinlah's check-in already supports this directly: sessions can carry their own custom questions, answered by staff on the scanner at the moment of check-in, not by the attendee at registration. This guide sets one up for a sampling use case. If you want the sales pitch version first, see Product sampling event software.
Set up the question on your check-in session
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Open Check-in → Sessions
Every event has at least one session (“General” by default). For a sampling activation, each session is usually one physical station or booth — a two-station activation gets two sessions, so “Station A” and “Station B” each keep their own attendance list and their own questions.
- 2
Add a field to the session
Open that session's field settings and add a question like Product given, Flavor sampled, or Unit size. Pick the field type that matches what you're recording: a dropdown for a fixed list of products, a checkbox for a yes/no freebie, or plain text for anything more free-form.
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Mark it required, if a scan shouldn't complete without it
A required field has to be answered before staff can confirm the check-in, which is usually what you want here — you don't want a completed check-in with no record of what was actually distributed.
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Repeat per station, with whatever each one is tracking
Station A's session might ask which flavor was sampled; Station B's might ask which sample size. Each session's fields are independent, so nothing about Station A's setup leaks into Station B's scanner.
What staff see when they scan
Nothing changes about how staff scan an attendee in. They open Check-in on any phone, pick the right session (the right station), and scan the QR code as usual. The custom question now appears right there on the confirmation screen — they answer it, then confirm the check-in. The answer is saved against that exact check-in record: this attendee, this session, this timestamp, this staff member.
Tip
Running a scheduled activation instead of open walk-in traffic? Cap the session at a fixed capacity so it won't check in more people than you have stock for — the scanner tells staff the session is full rather than letting them wave someone in anyway.
Why a repeat scan doesn't double-log someone
A QR code can only be checked into the same session once. If the same attendee is scanned at Station A a second time, it's rejected as already-checked-in rather than silently recording a second answer — so “once per station” is enforced automatically, not something staff have to remember to check for themselves.
Getting the data back out
- Participants list: every custom check-in answer shows up as its own column, labeled with the session it came from — turn it on or off from the Columns menu, alongside name, email, and status.
- Attendee detail panel: click any attendee to see every session they were checked into, their answer at each one, and which staff member checked them in.
- Activity log: every check-in is timestamped and attributed, useful if a distribution count is ever questioned afterward.
There's no built-in CSV export of the participants list yet — for now, the columns above and the attendee detail panel are where this data lives.
Two different systems, easy to mix up
Check-in custom fields (this guide) are answered by staff, at check-in, per session. Registration custom fields are answered by the attendee, at sign-up, once for the whole event — useful for something like a skin type or allergy question you want collected up front. Both can be used on the same event; they just serve different moments and different people.