Picking up kids

A pickup writes down two things: which children left, and who took them. The family's code is what finds the children. Tapping the adult standing in front of you is what records the handoff.

The code on the labels

When a family checks in, Scout issues one code for that whole batch and prints it under SECURITY CODE on every child's label and again on the parent receipt. Children checked in together share the code.

It is four characters, mostly letters. Scout leaves out I, O, 0 and 1 so nothing gets misread off a printed label, which is why a code reads like KRWT or HP47. The kiosk field uppercases whatever you type, so case doesn't matter.

Set a kiosk PIN before your first Sunday

Checking a family out happens inside the kiosk's staff tools, and staff tools open only after a correct kiosk PIN. If your church has no PIN saved, the PIN screen still appears on every attempt and rejects all of them, and there is no other route in.

Set one on Check-in → Room setup, under Kiosk PIN. It can be 4 to 6 digits. That page says the staff panel is accessible without a PIN when none is set. The kiosk does not behave that way, so save a PIN.

Check a family out at the kiosk

1. 1

   Open staff tools

   Triple-tap the faded Scout logo in the top-left corner of the kiosk screen, then enter the kiosk PIN. The drawer that opens is titled Staff tools, and it locks itself after 60 seconds with no tap. Reopen it the same way.

2. 2

   Start a checkout

   Tap Check out a family.

3. 3

   Type the code

   The field is labelled Pickup code, with the placeholder "4-letter code". Type the family's code and tap the magnifying glass. Every failed lookup gives the same message, "No checked-in children found for that code," whether the code was mistyped, already used, or from an earlier session.

4. 4

   Confirm who is leaving

   Leaving now lists the children on that code who are still checked in, each with their room. They all start ticked. Tap one to untick it if that child is staying.

5. 5

   Tap who is collecting

   Who's collecting? shows the family's approved adults as photo cards with their relation. Tap the person in front of you and match the face to the photo. There is no child photo on this screen, and Scout does not ask for the code a second time, because the code is what got you here.

6. 6

   Release

   The button at the bottom names what it is about to do, for example Release Eli & Mara to Sarah Mitchell. Tap it. Scout confirms "Eli & Mara released" with "to Sarah Mitchell" underneath, then offers Next pickup.

The approved-adult list is empty at most churches

Who's collecting? reads a list of approved pickup adults stored against the family's household. Nothing in Scout writes that list today. There is no screen for it in the dashboard or the member app, and neither the CSV importer nor the Planning Center importer brings one across. For almost every church the section renders with nothing to tap.

Releasing to someone not on the list

The kiosk is the only surface with an override. On the family screen, tap Not on the list — staff override. The photo cards are replaced by a box headed Staff override — reason required, with the placeholder "Who is collecting and why they aren't on the list". The release button becomes Override release Eli & Mara.

What you type is what Scout stores as the collector, saved as "Staff override:" followed by your sentence, on the child's check-in record and on the audit entry. Write a name and a reason that will still make sense to someone reading it six months from now. Back to approved list takes you back to the photo cards.

Releasing from a volunteer's phone

A volunteer can release from churchHQ on their own phone, including a camera scanner for the family's QR pass. It stays hidden until three things are true at once:

1. Someone turns on Volunteer phone pickup on Check-in → Room setup.
2. That volunteer is added under Who can release children on the same page. A staff role carrying the Release children at pickup permission also qualifies.
3. A check-in session is open.

The volunteer then sees a Kids pickup is open banner at the top of their churchHQ home screen. Tapping it opens a screen headed Pickup, with the camera above and an Enter 4-letter code field and a Find button below it for when the camera can't read the pass. The rest matches the kiosk: Leaving now, then Who's collecting?, then Release Eli & Mara to Sarah Mitchell.

There is no override on the phone. Not on the list shows Send them to the check-in station and goes no further. Hard cases are meant to end up at the kiosk with a staff member.

Each volunteer you add shows a background-check line. Nothing in Scout ever writes that field, so every name reads No background check on record. Scout never verifies a background check, and clearing your volunteers stays your church's job.

The QR on the parent receipt

A QR prints only when the family already has approved pickup adults on file, which is the same list nothing writes yet. Most receipts print the code on its own under Present this code at pickup, and the code is all pickup needs.

If the family doesn't have the code

The kiosk pickup screen accepts a typed code or a scanned pass and nothing else. There is no lookup by child name or by phone number on that screen, and no photo-match fallback.

Someone with dashboard access can read the code instead. Open Check-in while the session is still open and find the child in Checked-in children. The Code column shows it. Take that code to the kiosk and carry on as normal.

What Scout records, and where to read it

Every release stores the time, which children left, and the name of whoever collected them. The name is snapshotted, so it survives later edits to that person's record.

A release from the kiosk is attributed to the kiosk. The tablet sits behind one shared PIN, so Scout does not claim to know which volunteer tapped the button. A release from a volunteer's phone does record that volunteer, because they were signed in as themselves.

Two places to read it back:

• Check-in, while the session is open. A released child's row reads Picked up, with to Sarah Mitchell underneath.
• Settings → Audit Log, permanently. A release appears as checkin.released, which has no plain-English label in that table yet, and the Who column reads System for a kiosk release. The collector's name, the override flag and the override reason are all stored on the entry, but the table doesn't display them. Export CSV at the top of the tab is how you get at them.

Opening that tab needs the View audit log permission, which Admin and Pastor have by default and Staff does not. The CSV export needs Export data as well.

Close the session after the last child leaves

Closing the check-in session ends pickup. Once it's closed the kiosk cannot unlock staff tools again, so a family arriving late has no way through. The confirmation inside the kiosk's staff panel says parents will still be able to pick up. That line is wrong, and the one on the dashboard is right.

Related: Running the kiosk, Setting up rooms, What each permission controls, What your church sees in the app.