Check travellers in from any phone

Bookings are about money; manifests are about people

The bookings list is organised around who has paid and what is owed. On the day of a departure, a guide needs something else: who is coming, who has arrived, who is vegetarian, who is under 18 and who to call in an emergency. The manifest gives that view for one departure, built from the same bookings, so it is never a copy that someone forgot to update.

It works in a phone's browser, so guides need no special device or app.

Worked example: the evening before a Saturday departure

Your Saturday 07:00 departure has 12 seats and 5 bookings for 11 travellers. You open Operations › Departures, find Saturday and choose Open manifest. The summary shows 0 of 11 checked in and an amount still to collect on two bookings. With the Waivers and Traveller forms plugins on, it also shows 8 of 11 waivers signed and 9 of 11 traveller details complete.

You open the two bookings with money owed and use Email payment link, or note that the guide will collect cash. The three travellers without waivers will sign on the kiosk in the morning. You print the list for the guide and download the CSV for the transport company, which needs names and numbers only.

At the meeting point

As travellers arrive, the guide searches Find a name or reference and taps Check in. A family of four arriving together is one tap with Check in all for their booking. The Show: Not here yet filter shrinks the list to the people the guide is still waiting for, which is the question that matters at 06:55.

If someone was checked in by mistake, Undo check-in fixes it. With the Waivers plugin, a traveller who must sign cannot be checked in until they have, either on their own phone or on the signing kiosk: a tablet page where they find their booking with its reference and a surname. With the QR tickets plugin, the team can instead scan each booking's ticket at Operations › Scan tickets.

Roles and personal data on the day

Guides see departures and bookings read-only and can check travellers in, without access to money settings. With the Tour guides plugin you can assign guides to departures. Owners, admins and sales agents can check in too.

A manifest holds personal and sometimes medical details, so treat copies with care. The kiosk link lets anyone who has it look up bookings on that departure only, so share it with the person holding the tablet, not in a public group chat. Shred printed lists after the trip, and prefer the phone view where you can.

Opening the manifest from wherever you are

The manifest is one click from several places: Open manifest on Operations › Departures, Passenger manifest in a tour's Departures tab, and Departure manifest in a booking's More actions. A guide answering a question about one booking can jump straight to the full departure.

Each booking on the manifest also shows its extras, so a guide can see who pre-ordered lunch or hired equipment without opening the booking, and the lead traveller's Call and email links are there when a group is running late.

Common mistakes to avoid

Pressing Check in everyone before people have arrived, which defeats the point of the count. Use it only when the whole group is in front of you, or use Check in shown on a filtered list. Leaving waivers to the meeting point for large groups, which delays the start; send the before-you-travel links earlier. And collecting money on the day without recording it on the booking, so the manifest still shows it as owed.