QR Codes

[Jonathan Hatch]

Hey there,

I think it’s great that there’s a QR code generator in Events List Plus, and I could sell the crap out of some licenses with this kind of feature, but there are a couple of problems that I’m hoping will get cleared up:

1. There’s no complementary app that can handle the “Check-in” of registrants using the QR code. Yes, I realize that there are apps that can scan the code that will send me to a logged in Safari session, but then my clients would have to manually back out of Safari and back to the QR app and then back and forth and back and forth. This is less than ideal.

2. There’s no way to turn off QR codes from the dashboard. That’s ridiculous, because you’re practically begging users to come to the event with a print out or an email with the QR code–only to find out that no one is registering them for events with that because it’s such a clunky process.

So, I guess my question is this: Is there an app via Android/iOS being developed to integrate the QR code feature nicely with the backend of WordPress via the REST API (or some other means), or are we supposed to do that ourselves?

It would be pretty slick if we didn’t have to do it ourselves.

[Brook]

Howdy stpaulme,

I can see where you are coming from. Some QR code readers actually have a built-in browser, so you never have to leave the app while doing checkins. I have seen a couple of iPhone ones that do this. But personally I don’t own an iPhone so I have yet to give them a whirl.

If you want to disable QR codes from being visible on tickets, then you can copy/paste the following into your theme’s functions.php or wherever your prefer:

https://gist.github.com/elimn/36b24ada494337b5dad7

We do not have plans to build our own QR reader app. We  certainly we could consider it though if there was a high level of demand. If you’d like to see this feature request make some headway, please suggest it on the feature tracker: UserVoice (feature suggestion page for The Events Calendar).

I will bring this to the teams attention though. Perhaps we could try out a variety of QR readers and find some recommendations for ones that will make the checkin process happen as fast as possible.

Does that answer all of your questions?

Cheers!

– Brook

[Brook]

Howdy stpaulme,

We really appreciated this feedback. I spent a couple of hours trying to find a way to simplify this process, and came up with the following. You can paste this snippet into your site to enable a tie-in with the zxing barcode scanner apps. This app is extremely popular on Android, and has an iOS compatible version.

What this snippet does is add a “Scan QR Code” link to the attendees page. Clicking this link allows you to scan a QR code of course, and once it is scanned it brings you back to attendees list page. From there you can scan another. In my tests on Android this has turned QR checkins into a one click process.

https://gist.github.com/elimn/89fbec4850beb115f7a1

Please let us know what you think of this. It is something we are probably going to turn into a Knowledgebase post, so we would love to collect feedback. Thanks for giving us the idea!

• Brook

 

[Jonathan Hatch]

Hi Brook,

First, thank you for getting back to me so quickly, and thank you for taking the time to actually explore this issue. I appreciate that; it’s part of the reason I’m a loyal Modern Tribe account holder.

I haven’t had time to play with this code much, so I’ll go ahead and do that this weekend. I’ll let you know sometime early next week if I think this solution is sufficient. In the meantime, we’re having our developer Sean look into putting an app together that might use the WordPress REST API to do the same thing. QR code scanners aren’t hard to develop, so it seems like the real hurdle would be the api.

Let me get back to you with my thoughts about your solution.

[Brook]

That sounds great! Definitely let us know where you land. Thanks stpaulme.

• Brook

[websource]

Hook in to be also notified. Nevermind.. 😉

[Brook]

Welcome websource. I figure it might take stpaulme a while longer to get back given the holidays. But definitely excited to hear what he says as well.

• Brook

[Jonathan Hatch]

Okay, sorry about the delay. Before my comments, let me tell you that I’m running this through an iphone 6. Trying to find the ZXing software was a hassle because it’s branded differently from it’s Android counterpart. Also, thank you, again, for attempting to find a solution to this problem. I’m not sure the solution you came up with is ideal, but it’s certainly better than the other option.

Issue 1: Make sure to open the barcode software before trying to check people in. When you attempt to check people in with the barcode software without first giving it access to the camera, it crashes the app. Clearly this is something you won’t be able to resolve, but I think it’s worth noting. Maybe it’s common sense. I don’t know.

Issue 2: The QR code link works great, but every time I click it, it has to ask me first if I want to “Open this in Barcodes?” Of course, I do. I don’t know if there’s a way to make this the default app for scanning in attendees, but this makes it a two-click approach.

Issue 3: Every time you scan a code, it sends it back to Safari and back to the attendees list, but in a different window in Safari. So every time I scan a code, it opens a new window in my phone’s browser. Clearly, this isn’t ideal–especially for a ticketed event with hundreds or thousands of people.

Positive side: This new Scan a QR Code Button is a step in the right direction. It’s easy to see on my iphone when I first get to the attendees page, which is definitely a good thing from a user experience perspective.

So, while this is certainly better than the other option, it’s still a little clunky. Let me know what you think about that feedback! I’m still angling towards a dedicated app for this thing. I know the apple app store audit process is not fun, but it might help you sell more licenses.

[Brook]

Thank you for the feedback. I am not able to test on iOS, so I am not surprised it is not as seamless. Unfortunately I doubt any of those things can be fixed on iOS, they sound like limitations from how the OS sandboxes things.  The only critique that might apply to to Android is that it opens in a new window each check. I do not recall seeing that in my tests on Android, but I would not be surprised if that happens there as well due to how the integration works.

Thanks for getting back. It sounds like it is an ideal setup for Android, but definitely less for on iOS. Very good info to have. I will have some folks here with iOS test it out as well and share their feedback.

To be blunt, this is probably basically our final step towards simplifying this for a long time. We will keep an eye on any feature request y’all submit, but it will have to garner a lot of support to be worth the time it takes to build native apps. There are plenty of open source QR scanner engines we could base the app off of, but that is only a tiny portion of the amount of effort needed to build, maintain, and support apps in multiple app stores. And we have to consider that we can either spend that time on these apps, or on one of the many other popular feature requests that will take a fractions of the time long term to develop and support. I am just laying our cards on the table so you know, by no means take this as a discouragement for you suggesting that feature and voicing your support for it.

Let me know if you have any questions. Ta!

• Brook

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[Author]

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