Some things you ask at registration only matter at the door. A meal choice is useless in a spreadsheet at the entrance — it needs to be in front of the person scanning, at the moment they scan.
That’s what shown when scanning does. It closes the loop between the registration form and the door: the attendee answers once at checkout, and the answer travels with their ticket to whoever checks them in. Without it, the alternative is a printed list and a name search while a queue builds behind each person.
How it works
You add a custom question to the registration form
On the event wizard’s registration step, click Add Custom Form and write your question — for example What food type would you want? with options Chicken, Veg, Fish.
You scope it to the right ticket categories
Use Applied to: so only the relevant buyers are asked. A meal question might apply to VIP only.
You turn on Shown when scanning
The saved question then summarizes as something like Dropdown • Required • Shown when scanning.
The attendee answers at checkout
Their answer is stored on their order.
Your scanner sees it at the door
When the ticket is scanned, the answer appears alongside the check-in result.
What to use it for
Screenshot coming soon. This flow needs a live order or a device we could not
reach when these docs were captured. The steps below are written from the
product as it behaves today; the illustration will follow.
- Meal or dietary choice, so catering gets the right count at the right table.
- Drink package or bar tier, so the bar knows what’s included.
- Session or track, so people are pointed the right way.
- Accessibility requirements, so someone can help immediately.
- Merchandise or swag size, so the right item is handed over.
Leave it off for anything you only analyze afterwards — how they heard about the event, marketing consent, general feedback. Those belong in the attendee export, not on the door team’s screen.
Every extra answer on the scan screen is one more thing to read while a queue builds. Two or three at most; beyond that the door slows down and staff start ignoring them.
Writing questions the door can use
A scanner reads each answer in the second or two between scans, so the answer has to be glanceable:
- Prefer fixed options over free text. A dropdown answer like
Veg is read instantly; a typed sentence is not. The example above summarizes as Dropdown for a reason.
- Scope tightly with
Applied to:. If only VIP buyers get a meal, only VIP tickets should carry the question — the scanner then knows that a missing answer means General Admission, not an error.
- Brief the team on what each answer means. The scanner app shows the answer; what to do with
Fish is a decision you make and communicate before doors. See The scanner app for the rest of the door workflow.
Answers you didn’t mark
An answer to a question that is not marked shown when scanning is still collected and still available afterwards — it simply doesn’t appear at the door. See Export attendees.
The reverse is also true: flagging a question doesn’t take it out of your data. A flagged answer shows at the door and comes through in the export, so there’s no trade-off in analysis — the only cost of flagging is screen space at check-in.
If a scanner reports that expected answers aren’t appearing, confirm the question is flagged and scoped to the right ticket categories before troubleshooting the device — a scoping mismatch is the usual cause. More door-side issues are covered in Troubleshoot scanning and the Scanning FAQ. 
