How a volunteer-run club can track who actually shows up for a shift and total the hours
Volunteers sign up in one place and scan a code when they arrive, so hours and reimbursements come from who showed up, not who signed up.
SuperCat
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I look after volunteer hours for a volunteer-run club. Volunteers already sign up for shifts, for example at a food stall, in another tool. I now need to record who actually shows up, so I can total hours and handle reimbursements. It must handle a large group of volunteers and have no per-volunteer fees.
Build one tool: a list of volunteers (name, phone or email) and a list of shifts (date, location, role, start and end time, how many are needed). Import the sign-ups from a CSV export of my sign-up tool, so I don't type them twice.
Check-in: a QR code for each shift location that volunteers scan with their phone camera when they arrive and again when they leave. A page opens where they type the first three letters of their name and pick themselves; it shows only first name and last initial, and nothing until three letters are typed. Arrival and departure are only accepted while the shift is open. A staff screen on a shared tablet does the same job for anyone without a phone.
Show for each shift who was expected, who arrived, who didn't, and any walk-ins, with a note field.
Hours: total hours per volunteer by season, with a rule for rounding, and a list of who has met the hours the club requires. Export it as CSV for the reimbursement and the treasurer.
Reminders: a message I can copy for people who have not yet met their hours. Keep volunteers' details private to me and the other organizers I add.
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What you get
- Sign-ups imported from your existing tool, with no retyping.
- A QR check-in and check-out for each shift, plus a shared-tablet screen for people without a phone.
- Expected against arrived for every shift, with no-shows and walk-ins.
- Hours per volunteer and a list of who has met the requirement.
- A CSV export for reimbursements and the treasurer.
What usually gets in the way
- Sign-up sheets show who planned to come, not who actually did.
- Hours and reimbursements depend on the real attendance, which has to be reconstructed by hand.
- A large volunteer group cannot be tracked on paper without mistakes.
- The club runs on volunteers and a small budget, so per-person fees are a non-starter.
- Not everyone has a phone, so a scan-only method leaves some people out.
The longer story
Sign-up tools are good at the first half of volunteer scheduling: who is planning to come. They are weaker on the second half, what actually happened, and that second half is what hours, reimbursements and thank-you lists depend on. A sign-up sheet that says forty people were expected tells the organizer nothing about the thirty-one who turned up.
A check-in at the door closes the gap. A code at each location lets people record their own arrival and departure in a few seconds, and a shared tablet covers anyone without a phone. Importing the existing sign-ups keeps the tool in step with what volunteers already use, so nobody has to sign up twice.
Once attendance is recorded, hours become a total rather than a reconstruction, and the club can see at a glance who has met its requirement and who needs a reminder.
Send it as it is, or change anything first
SuperCat asks a question or two, then builds it.
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Fair check-in for a giveaway with more people than items
A shared-tablet check-in with a random draw order and a simple fairness rule, so a few volunteers can run the line with fewer data-entry mistakes.
Send this to SuperCat
I help run a weekly giveaway for a community group. There are usually more people than items, so we use a random draw to decide the order in which people choose. People line up outside, there is no check-in desk, only a few volunteers, many people have no smartphone or reliable internet, and some have limited English.
Build one tool for a single shared tablet, with very large buttons and simple words. A volunteer types a first name (or picks a regular from a list) and the tool gives that person a random number not used yet that day, which the volunteer hands over on a card. One tap fixes a typo or removes a name, and the tool warns if a name is already checked in today.
Draw order: when check-in closes, show the numbers in order on a big screen, and let a volunteer mark each person as having chosen an item or left without one.
Fairness rule: count each person's visits in a row without getting an item. After a number of misses that I set, they go first on their next visit and the tool shows that clearly.
Keep data to a minimum: first name, number, visit count and date. No phone numbers, addresses or photos. Volunteers sign in with a shared PIN and nothing is visible without it. Records delete themselves after 12 months, and I can delete a person's record on request. If the connection drops, show a clear reconnecting message and keep what was typed. Export a plain weekly attendance count.
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