Attendance & check-ins
TrainOS keeps a roster for every class you run. This page covers how to set attendance up, how to check people in on the day, and what your members see on their own phones.
Pick how classes work
Let anyone walk in, or have members reserve a spot with an automatic waitlist.
Check students in on class day
Run the kiosk from a tablet or your phone, search the roster on mobile, or check people in from the dashboard.
Let members check themselves in
Turn on self-check-in and members tap Check In on their own phone as they arrive.
Fix attendance after class
Remove a check-in, or add one to a class that already finished, however long ago.
Choose how your academy runs classes
Two settings decide whether members walk straight in or reserve a spot ahead of time: Require registration and Enforce class capacity. Go to Settings, then find the Check-in & Attendance section — only owners and admins can change these.
- 1Off means anyone can walk in. On means members reserve a spot before class.
- 2Caps how many people a class takes. It only does something on classes that have a capacity number.
Anyone can walk in
This is the default, and it suits most gyms. Members do not have to do anything before class. If they want, they can tap I'm Interested so you know roughly who is coming.
The interest list never fills up, so nobody is turned away in advance.
If you also turn on Enforce class capacity, check-ins stop once the class hits its limit and the class shows as Full. Interest stays open either way.
Members reserve a spot
Turn on Require registration when your mats fill up and you need to know who is coming. Members claim a spot in advance. Once a class with a capacity is full, the next person joins a waitlist instead.
Waitlists move the moment a spot frees up. There is nothing to run and nothing to approve.
Ask walk-ins to register first
With Require registration on, have anyone who shows up without a reservation tap Register in their app, then check them in. Registering stays open right up to the class start time.
Switching is safe and instant
Turning Require registration on or off changes nothing you have already recorded. Every past check-in stays exactly as it is. Turn it off and today's waitlist simply becomes part of the interest list; turn it back on and the queue reappears in the same order.
Set a capacity on each class
Capacity is a number on the class itself, not an academy-wide setting. You set it in the Capacity field when you create or edit a class on your Schedule. Leave it blank for unlimited.
Enforce class capacity only takes effect once a class has a number in its Capacity field. Leave the field blank to keep that class unlimited, or add a number to any class you want to cap.
Check students in on class day
There are three ways for you to record attendance. All three write to the same roster, so you can mix them freely.
- Kiosk — a self-serve keypad, made for a tablet at the front desk. Members type their own check-in number and tap Go.
- Manual Roster — on your phone. You search a name and tap Check In.
- Check In Students — on the web dashboard. You search a name and click Check In.
Members can also check themselves in from their own phone, once you allow it. That is the next section.
The front-desk kiosk
The kiosk is a self-serve keypad built into your staff mobile app — no separate app to install, no second login. It's made for a tablet parked at the front desk, and it opens the same way from an instructor's or admin's phone whenever a tablet isn't handy.
Open the class in the mobile app
Open the class you are running — on a tablet at the front desk, or on your own phone.
Tap Kiosk
A bar at the bottom of the screen has two buttons: Kiosk and Manual Roster. Tap Kiosk.
Members check in on their own
They type their check-in number and tap Go. Tap the ✕ at the top to close the kiosk when class starts.
Every member has a check-in number from the day you add them. Members find it on their own profile in the app under Your check-in number. You can read anyone's number off their member profile, where it shows as Check-in #.
The moment the number matches, the member sees their own name and rank, and the tick is filled with their belt color. The screen clears itself after a couple of seconds, ready for the next person.
✓
Maria Reyes
Blue Belt · 2 stripes
Checked In
Other things the kiosk screen can sayFour messages beyond a plain check-in.
From your phone at the mat
Tap Manual Roster in the same bottom bar. Search by name or email, then tap Check In next to each student. This is the fastest way to catch a few late arrivals without passing the phone around.
Pull down to refresh
If two of you are checking people in on different phones, pull down on the roster to pick up the other person's check-ins.
From the web dashboard
Open the class
Go to Classes, open the Class Instances tab, and click the class you want.
Find Check In Students
Scroll to the Check In Students panel below the roster.
Search and check in
Type a name or email, then click Check In. Anyone already checked in drops out of the list, so it empties as class fills up.
The tiles at the top change with your settings. You see Registered when registration is required and Interested when it is not, plus Waitlist and Capacity when those apply.
Let members check themselves in
Turn on Allow student self-check-in in Settings → Check-in & Attendance. Members then get a Check In button on the class in their app when they arrive.
Those cut-offs only apply to members. You are never locked out: staff can check anyone in before, during, or long after a class, whether or not self-check-in is on.
Cancelling a booking goes through you
If a member wants to cancel a registration or drop off a waitlist, they let you know and you remove it from the roster for them.
Why a check-in was refusedThe message a member sees, and what to do about it.
Fix attendance after class
Remove a check-in
On the web dashboard, click the red bin icon next to the student in the Checked In table. On mobile, tap the red ✕ on their row and confirm.
The record is removed, not marked absent. The spot is freed at the same time, so the first person on the waitlist moves up straight away. They will see it the next time they open their app.
Add a check-in to a class that already finished
Open the class the same way you would on the day, and check people in as normal. Back-filling last week or last month works exactly the same as checking someone in today.
The time recorded is when you check in, not the class time
Back-filling logs the moment you press Check In, not the class's original time slot.
Free trials and members without an account
Someone on a free trial. They book their own spot from your public schedule, so they are already on the roster when they walk in. They appear in your search with a Pending tag, and you check them in like anyone else. The kiosk greets them with a Free Trial Visit banner so your front desk knows to say hello.
A member with no app and no email. You can add someone to your academy without an account at all. They get a check-in number the same as everyone else, so the kiosk works for them from day one. When they later claim their account, their whole training history comes with it — nothing is retyped and nothing is lost. See Members & profiles.
Who's allowed to do what
| Feature | Owner | Admin | Instructor | Student |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Check others in — mobile | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Check others in — web | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Run the kiosk | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Remove a check-in | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Back-fill a past class | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Change these settings | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Check themselves in | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | If on |
Instructors work from the mobile app
The web dashboard is for owners and admins only. Your instructors check students in, run the kiosk, and manage the roster entirely from their phones.
Where attendance shows up
Check-ins are the number behind most of what TrainOS tells you about your academy.
- Each member's profile shows their total classes, classes this month, and their current streak.
- The Overview tab on the Classes page shows check-in totals, average class size, your busiest times, and which new students are settling in.
- Set a topic on each class and check-ins turn into a picture of what each student has actually trained. See Class topics.
See also
- Schedule — create classes, set Capacity, and share your public schedule
- Class topics — record what was taught and see it per student
- Members & profiles — add members, including ones with no email address
- Academy settings — every setting your academy can change