Event attendance¶

Used in: 4. Register and build the site · 5. Connect the workbooks · 8. Run the day · Desk handout

Staff check-in for any event. A person is marked in once, and that covers every category they play that day at that venue. Marks are made in Control Center, or on a desk page opened from a link, and land in an ATTENDANCE tab of each venue's scoring workbook.

Turning it on¶

Attendance is a setting on the event, in event-data/config/events.json:

Setting	What it means
`"attendance": "console"`	Operators mark people in the Attendance tab of Control Center.
`"attendance": "desks"`	Operators can do that too, and desk staff can mark people from their own phones with a desk link.
(absent)	The event has no attendance. The tab does not appear.

Each venue's workbook must be shared with the API's service account as Editor, so it can write the tab. Workbooks filed in the event's folder under 1. TOURNAMENTS inherit the share; see Usage step 2. The procedure is in Usage steps 4 and 5.

The tab¶

The workbook generators add an empty ATTENDANCE tab to every workbook they build, so it is there from the start with its header and the Not yet in list. Update roster then only fills it in. A workbook without one gets the tab created on the first Update roster.

The roster¶

The roster is made for you. After every sync the API compares each venue's players with its ATTENDANCE tab and brings the tab up to date: people missing from it are added, a changed team or category is corrected, and someone who is no longer on the roster is flagged withdrawn. A person who has been withdrawn keeps their row and any check-in, and is hidden from the list. If they come back, they are restored.

To do it right now instead of waiting for a sync, press Update roster in the Attendance tab. It reports, for each venue, how many people were added, updated or withdrawn.

Two names count as the same person when they match once spacing, capitals and accents are ignored (José Rizal and jose rizal). Names that are nearly the same are never merged for you. They appear under Needs attention so you can fix the spelling in the category tab; the roster follows on the next sync. A person listed twice in the same category appears there too.

Standard and dual-meet rosters come from the standings tab. A team event's comes from its Teams tab.

Using it¶

Desk staff open a desk link on a phone, pick the venue, find the person with the search box or a category (or team) chip, and flip their switch. It shows Saving… for a moment, then In 8:14 AM. Flipping it back clears the time. A person who plays in two categories is one switch, shown in both places. When everyone on a team is in, it shows Ready. Marks made on other devices appear within a second or two. If the page says Live updates are off, press Refresh to see them.

The step-by-step is the desk handout, a page to send with the desk link.

Who marked someone in¶

Each mark or unmark also records who made it and when, in a markedBy column of the ATTENDANCE tab: In · Ana (Gate A) · 14:32, or Out · Control Center · 09:05, in Manila time. It holds the last change to that person, not a history.

The name is the label of the link used: the Issued to and Note the operator gave when issuing the desk link, or Desk link if it was issued with neither. A mark made in Control Center reads Control Center. The label says who the link was issued to, not who typed, so a forwarded link writes under the same name.

Where the column goes is decided for you, and never over a column of your own:

if a column from H to Z has the header markedBy, that is the one;
otherwise the first mark claims the first column from H to Z, skipping J (the Not yet in list lives there), whose header and rows are all empty, and writes the header into it;
if every column is taken, the mark is still saved, without markedBy.

A new workbook's tab has no markedBy header until the first mark claims a column.

Control Center extras¶

The Attendance tab, for operators, also has:

the count of people in at each venue
Update roster (above)
Issue desk link (events set to "desks"): a link for one day, with Copy, Share and Show QR. It works until the end of that day in Manila time. Send it to the desks, or let them scan the QR code.
Needs attention: possible duplicate names, people listed twice in a category, and a Show withdrawn switch.

Sign in at the top of Mission Control first. Without signing in the tab shows no list, only a prompt to sign in.

Desk links¶

A desk link opens that event's attendance page on a phone and can do one thing: mark people in or out, on that day. It cannot reach anything else. Switching the event to "console" stops every link already handed out, within about a minute. A link that has stopped working shows Ask the operator for a new desk link.

When something goes wrong¶

A switch flips back and a message says it was not saved. Usually a dropped connection. Try again. If the message names the service account, the venue's workbook is not shared with it.
"No roster yet." Press Update roster.
"The ATTENDANCE tab's header row is not …" Someone changed or replaced the tab's first row. Put it back, or delete the tab and press Update roster to build a new one.

Use a filter view, not Sort, to rearrange the ATTENDANCE tab by hand. Anything you add in columns to the right of withdrawn (a TShirt Size column, say) is left alone, and shows beside each name.

A tab the API creates also has a Not yet in list in column J: the names of everyone who is not yet in and not withdrawn, shrinking as people are marked. It is for the person running the workbook. A tab that already exists is left as it is, so put the formula in J2 by hand there (=IFNA(FILTER(TRIM(B2:B1000), E2:E1000=FALSE, G2:G1000=FALSE, B2:B1000<>""))).

The tab can be read by anyone who has the workbook's ID, so keep phone numbers and emails out of it.

Pickle for Sight¶

Pickle for Sight 2026 has its own check-in page and a per-workbook Apps Script, and nothing above applies to it. It keeps one row per pair slot, has its own page at /events/pickle-for-sight-2026/attendance and does not use desk links or the Attendance tab.

Technical: event attendance