Chapter 5 · Scanner access

Prepare the scanners

Your team’s phones become the scanners — the “verification devices” of your plan. No hardware to buy, no app to install from a store. The “Scanner access” tab follows the order of time: “Before the event”, “During the event”, “After the event”. From the first day of the event, “During the event” moves to the top of the tab; once the event is over, it is “After the event”, with erasing the phones.

Step by step

1. 1
   Create the checkpoints

   Name each entrance you watch, for example “Main entrance” or “Car park”. On the phone, the team chooses it as a “door”. A guest gets in only once, whatever the door.

2. 2
   Set up the check-in

   The check-in mode: “Keep working without network (default)” or “Require server confirmation” — what each one does. The maximum age of the offline list: 24 hours by default; beyond that, a phone without network no longer decides on its own. Optional: “Show the guest's email in scanner search” — the addresses are then copied to every phone.

3. 3
   Open the team’s access

   “Open access” creates an activation link and a PIN, shared by the team. The PIN is shown only once: write it down. Access closes on its own at noon on the day after the last day of the event.

4. 4
   Print the team sheet

   “View the printable sheet”: an activation QR code, the event’s doors, and a space for the PIN, to be written by hand — the sheet never prints it.

5. 5
   Activate each phone

   Scan the sheet’s QR code with the camera or open the link, enter the PIN, choose the door and name the device: this name, required, appears in the check-in tracking. Then, in the scanner menu, “Sync the list”, with network. How many phones can be active at once depends on the plan.

The step “Prepare the scanners” is done when access is open and at least one phone is activated.

Good to know

• PIN refused: after several wrong attempts, activation pauses for 5 minutes at most; if the PIN is blocked, “New PIN” creates another one without disconnecting the phones already activated.
• Test scan (optional): with an activated phone and network, scan the QR code of your test invitation (chapter 4): “Test passed — This QR code admits no one”. No entry is recorded.
• During the event: “Connected devices” shows each phone, its door, its last sign of life and its pending entries. “Disconnect” stops one phone; “New PIN” and “New link” replace a forgotten PIN or a link that was spread around without disconnecting anyone; “Revoke access” cuts off all the phones at once — keep it for when the link and the PIN have fallen into the wrong hands: every phone will then have to be activated again with a new link and a new PIN.

After the event: erasing the data on the phones

Each activated phone keeps the guest list offline: names, companies and categories, and email addresses if you allowed them — never their QR codes. It erases itself. When the event’s data is deleted, the scanner erases whatever is left of it on a phone the next time it is opened. Only a phone that is never opened again keeps its copy: InviteKey cannot erase it remotely.

To erase it sooner, as soon as the event ends, depending on the case:

1. On each phone handed back. Restore the network and check that the scanner has no more pending entries. In the scanner menu, choose “Disconnect this device”: the guest list is erased immediately. The scanner needs the network to disconnect. Entries that were not sent stay on the phone: disconnecting does not send them.
2. From “Scanner access”. “Disconnect”, in “Connected devices”, closes one device’s session; “Revoke access” closes those of all devices and makes the link and PIN unusable. A phone that is switched off or offline only erases its list the next time it reaches the server.
3. Phone lost or not handed back. Disconnect it, then choose “New link”: the link and the sheet in circulation can no longer activate a device, and the activation screen no longer shows the event’s name. If the PIN circulated too, “Revoke access” closes everything at once.

4. Phone that does not reconnect. When you get it back, clear the data of the scanner’s address, app.invitekey.app, in its browser settings, then check that it no longer appears:

   iPhone — Settings › Apps › Safari › Advanced › Website Data (on iOS 17: Settings › Safari › Advanced). Safari files app.invitekey.app under its domain, invitekey.app: delete that entry, then check that it is gone from the list. If the scanner was added to the Home Screen, also delete its icon: its data goes with it.

   Android — Chrome › ⋮ › Settings › Site settings › All sites, then app.invitekey.app (Chrome may group it under invitekey.app) › Clear & reset. Then check that app.invitekey.app no longer appears in the list.