Set up parent sign in / sign out QR codes

Sign In / Sign Out lets parents sign children in and out by scanning a printed QR code at the door — no app to install and no password to remember. This guide covers turning the feature on (it ships off), setting the times that make "late" mean something, creating your first station, and getting a code onto a wall or an iPad.

This publishes a public page — so it is off by default

A station's scan page is deliberately reachable without logging in; a parent in a carpool queue will not type a password. Because of that, Sign In / Sign Out is off by default on every school. While it is off, the poster URL and the scan endpoint both return "not found" and the menu entry stays hidden. Only an admin can turn it on, and only one school at a time.

Step 1 — Turn it on for a school

Go to Settings.
Open the Sign In / Out tab.
Find the card for the school you want and flip its toggle on.
Fill in School starts, Dismissal, and Grace (minutes), then click Save.

The Sign In / Out tab in MarkTrack Settings: a blue callout explaining that turning it on publishes a page anyone with the printed code can open, then one card per school — Al-Noor Hifz Program off, Al-Noor Islamic School enabled with 08:00 AM start, 03:15 PM dismissal and 10 minutes grace and a 'Set up stations and print codes' link, and Al-Noor Sunday School off. — One switch per school. In a multi-school organization you can run it for the weekday school and leave the Sunday school untouched.

Each school gets its own switch and its own times, and each is independent. Once a school is on, a Sign In / Out entry appears in that school's sidebar.

Set a dismissal time, or nothing is ever late

A pickup counts as late after dismissal plus the grace window. If you switch a school on without a dismissal time, every pickup scores as on time and the analytics page will look answered when it isn't. The tab warns you when a school is live without one.

If your admin account uses a custom permissions set rather than full admin, sign_in_out has to be granted explicitly before the tab and the menu entry appear.

Step 2 — Create a station

A station is one QR code with one job: the front door, the carpool line, the office, or a single classroom door. Open Sign In / Out → QR Codes → New QR Code.

The new-station form in MarkTrack: a Name field, a Direction choice of Sign in / Sign out / Automatic, an optional class restriction, and a section for adding questions that parents answer before the record is saved. — Name it after the physical place it will live — that name appears on the poster and on every record it produces.

Each station has a direction, which decides what a scan does:

Sign in — arrivals only. Good for the front door in the morning.
Sign out — departures only. Good for the carpool line and classroom doors.
Automatic — signs a child out if they are currently in, and in if they are currently out. Good for a front office that handles both late arrivals and early pickups from one code.

Optional: ask your own questions

A station can ask questions before the record is saved — a dropdown for "reason for early pickup", a text field for "car make and colour", a checkbox, a phone number, or free text. Mark a question required and the sign-out button stays disabled until it is answered. Answers are stored on the record and appear in the log and in the CSV export.

Optional: restrict a station to one class

Attach a class to a station and the roster it opens contains that class only. A code taped to the Year 4 Fiqh door shows thirteen names instead of the whole school's six hundred — a shorter list for the parent, and a much smaller disclosure, since that code cannot be used to enumerate any other class.

If you archive the class, its door code stops working

A class-scoped station whose class has been archived or deleted returns "not found" rather than falling back to the whole school. That is deliberate: a poster already taped to a wall must not silently start showing a wider roster than it did on the day you printed it.

Step 3 — Print the poster, or cast the kiosk

Every station card on the QR Codes tab carries three ways to put the code somewhere useful, plus a live count of today's scans.

The QR Codes tab listing four stations as cards — Carpool Line (Sign Out, 2 questions, 22 scans today), Front Office (Sign In or Out, 0 scans today), Main Entrance (Sign In, 65 scans today) and Year 4 Fiqh — Classroom Door (Sign Out, class-restricted, 6 scans today) — each with a QR thumbnail, a green Live badge, and Poster, Kiosk and Image buttons. — Each card shows the station's direction, its question count, any class restriction, and how many times it has been scanned today.

Poster — a print-ready page with the code, the school and station name, and four numbered instructions. Print it and tape it to the door.
Kiosk — a full-screen display for a spare iPad or a TV, showing the code large with a live "just collected" feed beside it.
Image — downloads just the QR code, for a newsletter or your own signage.

The printable poster for the Carpool Line station: the school name, a large 'Sign Out' heading, the station name in green, a large QR code, four numbered steps ending with 'Tap Sign Out — that's it', a note that two short questions will be asked, and the footer 'No app and no password needed'. — The poster is the whole hardware budget. Print one per door.

Step 4 — Manage a code after it is up

Use the … menu on a station card:

Pause — the code stops working but the station and its history stay. Use it out of term.
Rotate code — issues a new code and kills the old one immediately. Use it when a poster goes missing, then reprint.
Delete — removes the station. Its past records stay in the log.

A paused code, a rotated-away code and a code that never existed all return the same "not found" page, so a wrong guess tells an outsider nothing about which is which.