Attendance

Mission records attendance through the check-in system linked to events. Every time someone is checked in to an event, an attendance record is created. This gives you a complete history of who attended what and when.

How Attendance Works

Attendance in Mission is event-driven. There is no standalone "attendance sheet" — attendance is recorded by:

1. Creating an event (e.g., Sunday Service, Bible Study, Youth Night)
2. Checking people in to that event at the time it occurs

This approach means every attendance record is tied to a specific event, giving you event-level reporting alongside individual attendance histories.

Recording Attendance via Check-In

During an Event

1. In the sidebar, click Check-In
2. Select the event from the dropdown (shows events happening today or recently started)
3. Search for the person by name
4. Click Check In

The person is marked as attending with the current timestamp.

After an Event

You can record attendance retroactively by opening the event record and clicking Check In. The check-in timestamp defaults to the event's start time when done retroactively. Change the timestamp if needed.

Bulk Attendance

For events like weekly services where you track attendance numbers rather than individual names:

• Check in individuals who you have records for
• Use notes or custom reporting for aggregate counts (e.g., total chairs filled)

Mission does not have a "headcount only" mode — attendance is linked to person records.

Child Check-In

For programs with children, the check-in form captures additional fields:

Field	Description
Is Child	Marks this as a child check-in
Guardian Name	Name of the parent or guardian
Label Code	Alphanumeric code printed on a label for secure pickup matching

Label printing is handled by your label printer hardware and software — Mission generates the label code but does not interface directly with printers.

Pickup process:

1. Child is checked in; guardian receives a label
2. At pickup, match the guardian's label code to the child's check-in record
3. Click Check Out on the child's check-in record

Automatic Check-Out

Any check-in session without a manual check-out is automatically closed after 4 hours by a background process. This prevents sessions from staying "active" indefinitely and ensures attendance records are clean.

To check someone out manually before 4 hours:

1. Go to the event's check-in view
2. Find the person in the active check-ins list
3. Click Check Out

First-Time Visitor Tracking

When you check someone in with a Visitor status, Mission flags the attendance record. Use the Members list filtered to Visitor status to see all first-time and repeat visitors.

Best practice for visitor follow-up:

1. Record the visitor as a Member with status = Visitor at check-in
2. Tag them with first-time-visitor or new-visitor
3. Use Communications to send a welcome message within 48 hours
4. Update their status to Active when they become a regular attendee

Viewing Attendance History

For an Individual

Open any person's record and navigate to the Attendance section. You will see every event they were checked in to, with:

• Event name and date
• Check-in time
• Check-out time (or null if auto-checked-out)

For an Event

Open an event and click Registrations or Check-Ins. You will see:

• Everyone checked in to this event
• Check-in and check-out times
• For children: guardian name and label code

Attendance Reporting

The dashboard does not show an attendance metric directly, but you can derive attendance data from:

• Event registrations with status = Attended: Filter the registrations list for a given event
• Check-in counts: View the check-in list for each event
• Member reports by status: See how many Active vs. Visitor members you have

For advanced attendance analysis (trends over time, service average attendance), export your data via the API or use the Connection Graph to see engagement patterns.

💡

For a weekly service, create the event as a recurring event (once the recurring event UI is available) or create a new event each week. Tag events consistently (e.g., type = "Sunday Service") to enable filtering across all instances.

Integrating Check-In with Events

Every check-in is linked to an event. To ensure clean attendance records:

• Create events before the service or meeting occurs
• Use consistent event types for filtering (e.g., always use "Sunday Service" not "Sunday Worship" and "Sunday AM")
• Archive past events by letting them age out — Mission automatically moves past events out of the upcoming list

Attendance and Giving

Mission does not automatically correlate attendance with giving. Both are linked to the same person record, so you can manually cross-reference by:

1. Opening a person's record
2. Viewing their attendance history and giving history side by side

For systematic engagement scoring (identifying members who attend but don't give, or give but don't attend), use the API or export data to a reporting tool.