Information, Resources and Updates for KidCheck Users

How To Speed Up Check-In Times?

We are a growing church that runs about 250 on a given Sunday and checking-in close to 100 kids (45-50 families). We are still using the free version of KidCheck until we can afford to cover the basic cost of running our 2 check-in locations. Our building has a very awkward lay-out for our children's ministry. We have tons of doors leading to the outside (a big issue) AND our nursery, 2s and 3s, 4s and 5s AND Elementary all meet in different areas of the building (literally spread out throughout the building). Thus we require 2 computers at different entrances of our building to ensure that a parent can access it for check-in.

With this background, I'm noticing our check-in times are getting MUCH slower lately. I'm not sure if this is because parents are talking while they check their family in...I'm not sure what to do. And then if we get a visitor, it can take thm up to a few minutes to put in their basic data. We have a volunteer who handles this at our main check-in, but I'm still trying to figure out ways to keep the lines going quicker. We can't afford another check-in station right now...and really, shouldn't 2 work for 45-50 parents?

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong here...HELP??

Tags: check-in, time

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Permalink Reply by Alex Smith on August 27, 2010 at 8:48am

Hi Bethany. This is a great question & to get to the bottom of this, we need to find out why things are taking longer. We typically see 2 major reasons an organization can experience a slowdown in check-in.

Reason 1 - Internet Bandwidth

Even though your church probably has a good and fast internet connection, one thing to take a look at is who else is using the connection on Sunday mornings? We've seen churches run into performance issues just to realize that they are also streaming their service live on the internet or someone is downloading that great video clip for the high school group and of course this only happens during check-in.

Also, wirelessly networked check-in stations can be problematic depending on the equipment and setup in place. WiFi is a great technology, but also has pitfalls if not properly installed or setup. Things like other computers, wireless microphones, distance between the computer and access point and physical building structure can all adversely affect performance.

So if the KidCheck system itself seems slow, this is the first thing to look at.

Reason 2 - Not enough check-in stations.

Since with a church, check-in happens over a VERY short period of time & you have to cram a whole bunch of folks through at once, just having enough check-in station is critical. In general, we recommend no more than 50 kids trying to check-in per check-in station at your busiest service. This can also vary based on how your congregations families are structured. If you have a lot of families with 10 kids each, you can get away with fewer stations, but if everyone is a single kid family, you'll need more. So with your specific situation with 100 kids, you're on the edge of where we would recommend 3 check-in stations to ensure things move quickly.

Something else to consider is to make sure you have volunteers manning your check-in stations. A trained volunteer will always be faster than a parent at running check-in and can keep a line moving smoothly even with talkative parents.