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Run your first check-in day

By the end of this you will have opened a day at your site, checked two children in by two different routes, checked one out to a named guardian, and seen which screens recorded something and which only showed you something.

Do this on a quiet afternoon with two children you can find by name. Do not do it on the first busy Monday. In this walkthrough the site is the Claymont club, the children are Maya Reyes, 9, and Jordan Price, 14, and you are Denise, the staff member on the door.

Before you start​

  • You can sign in to PTRS and see Attendance in the menu. If the page opens but every panel is empty, your account is not allowed to use attendance. See Attendance troubleshooting.
  • Your organisation has at least one site with at least one active staff member, and your own account is linked to a staff record.
  • One of your two children has a guardian marked as an authorised pickup on their record. Without that you cannot finish step 4, and seeing PTRS refuse is part of the point.
  • One of them has a printed PTRS badge you can hold up to a camera.

Step 1: open the day​

Open Attendance and press Launch Kiosk, top right.

Launching the kiosk is what opens today's attendance session for your site. There is no other control in PTRS that opens one. If a session is already open for today, the kiosk uses it rather than starting a second one.

Step 2: check Maya in by badge​

The kiosk opens in Manual mode with an empty grid of child tiles along the bottom. That is not a problem at your site. The grid is fed by a list that nothing in PTRS fills in, so it is empty everywhere.

Press QR Scan to switch to the camera, and allow camera access when the browser asks. Hold Maya's badge up to the viewfinder.

If the message says Maya is already checked in, someone checked her in earlier and she has not been checked out. PTRS is refusing a duplicate, which is correct, and nothing was recorded.

Press Esc to leave the kiosk.

Step 3: check Jordan in by name​

You do not need the kiosk for this. Open the quick-add menu in the header and choose Quick Check-In.

Pick today's session from Session. The list shows open sessions with the site name and how many children are already checked in. The one you opened in step 1 is there.

Type Jordan's name into Member. Two letters start the search. Pick him from the list.

Leave Method on Manual and press Check In.

Neither route puts the child in a room

The kiosk does not send a room and the Quick Check-In dialog has no room field. A check-in without a room does not count toward any ratio figure anywhere in PTRS. Neither Maya nor Jordan affects a ratio display. See Check a child in for what that means.

Step 4: check Maya out to her mother​

Open Attendance and find Maya in the arrivals feed. Click her row. Her drawer opens. At the bottom, press Check Out Maya.

The list is headed Picked up by and shows only the guardians marked as authorised pickups on Maya's record: her mother, Carla Reyes. Choose Carla.

Two things this screen tells you that are not true

The message ends "Guardian notified." No message has gone to Carla or anyone else. Tell her yourself.

The Check Out Maya button also stays on screen after the check-out worked. The screen decides whether a child has left by looking for a check-out entry, and PTRS does not create one. Press the button a second time and you get "No active check-in found". That message means the first press worked.

Step 5: look at what the day recorded​

Still on Attendance:

  • The arrivals feed is the real record of the day. Every entry is a check-in. There are no check-out entries.
  • The absent panel and the expected and present figures are worked out from programme enrolments and today's session, and they are right.
  • The ratio panel across the middle reads 0.0:1 and SAFE for every site. It is not measuring your children. See Read the ratio monitor for why, and what to do instead.

Step 6: leave the session open​

There is nothing to do here, and that is the step.

Nothing in PTRS closes an attendance session, and no screen offers a way to. Tomorrow's kiosk launch opens a new session for the new date and today's stays open behind it.

Closing a session would not check anyone out in any case. A child left checked in stays checked in overnight and is still counted as present tomorrow morning. Check everyone out before you go home.

What you now have​

  • An attendance session for today at Claymont, opened by you.
  • Two check-ins, one by badge and one by name, each recorded against your account.
  • One check-out, recorded against Carla Reyes as the person who collected Maya.
  • An audit trail for all of it.
  • No room, no ratio figure, and no message to anyone.

Try it​

Check Jordan out to a guardian who is not on his authorised pickup list. You cannot: the Picked up by list does not offer anyone else. That is PTRS doing the one check at the door that a sign-out sheet cannot.

Carry this to tomorrow​

Attendance day: what PTRS will not do for you
  • Launch the kiosk first. It is the only thing that opens the day.
  • Scan badges. The kiosk tile grid is always empty and is not a fault at your site.
  • Read the allergy message before the child leaves the door.
  • Check children out from the attendance page, never from the kiosk.
  • Tell the guardian yourself. PTRS sends no message, whatever the screen says.
  • Check every child out before you leave. Nothing does it overnight.
  • Count the room yourself. The ratio display reads 0.0:1 SAFE regardless.

Next​

Checked against PTRS on 7 September 2026.