The actual design of the inventory system should be done inside Airtable. You can use miniExtensions Form to scan products to check them in and out. Our customers usually let their employees use the form as a barcode scanner.
Tutorial
In this tutorial, we will make a simple form that you can use as a check-in system.
Setting up Airtable
You will only need 1 table which contains the following fields:
Required Fields
Name of the Attendee
Email - This contains the email address of the attendee so you can send the generated QR code to the attendees
Attendee ID - This should be a unique ID for the attendee that is going to be used for looking up the record. If you are managing an event for a company, you can store the employee ID in this field. But for this tutorial, we will use the record ID from Airtable using a formula field.
Check-in Date and Time - Leave this field blank since this will be populated by the check-in system to confirm attendance.
QR code - This contains the QR code generated based on the Attendee ID field. You can use the Generate QR Code automation.
Optional
Additional information about the Attendee (eg. Address, Company, VIP, etc)
Picture of the Attendee
Status - You can use this as an indicator if the Attendee is allowed to check in (eg. inactive or blocked)
Collect a List of Attendees and Send QR Codes
When collecting the list of attendees, you have to store them in this table. Let's assume that you have already collected the list of the attendees and a QR code is already generated for the participants. You now need to send the QR code to the attendees by setting up an Automation in Airtable. You can trigger this Automation when the QR code is generated for a record.
Check-in System using the Form
Now, you need to set up the form.
Create the form. It is suggested to name the form based on the name of the event.
Turn on the login. Use the Attendee ID field as the login field and turn on barcode scanning.
Within the Form Fields section, include the necessary fields that will validate the attendee's identity, such as their name and relevant attendee details. Additionally, you can utilize the form logo to visually represent the attendees, further enhancing the identification process.
Make sure that you have a check-in date field in the Form Fields also.
Click on the check-in date field. In the Advanced section, turn on the Autofill field to today by default when empty toggle. This will serve as the confirmation of attendance.
In the Submission Actions section, turn off the Keep users logged in after form submission toggle so you will be back to the login screen after saving the form.
With this setup, you can scan the QR code that will be presented by an attendee, authenticate their identity within the form, and acknowledge their presence by submitting the form.
You can set a condition in the login field to make the QR code a one-time valid pass.
If you plan to have the same attendees for the upcoming event, you can simply add a new check-in date/time and create a fresh form specifically for the next event.