How do I enable on-demand badge printing?

After you have setup your name badge designs and configured your name badge settings via Attendees → Name badges, you may then proceed to navigate to Attendees → Attendee check-in. From here, you will see the section titled “Print badges on-demand as attendees check in” and can click the ‘Set up’ button to get started.

Next, they can familiarize themselves with the steps to get started with on-demand printing. 

After reviewing these instructions, they have the option to either open the on-demand badge printing portal in a new tab or copy the link for easy access.

From the portal, Organizers will be prompted to sign in using their Whova account. This ensures that only event admins can enable on-demand badge printing.

Upon signing in, Organizers will be guided through the necessary steps to set up on-demand badge printing.

Organizers will have to complete the following steps:

• Configure the printing settings in the browser's print dialog, which includes indicating which printer and paper size will be used
• Disable the browser's print dialog in order to ensure that a badge is printed automatically each time an attendee is checked-in, so that check-in staff don’t have to manually print every time
• Finalize setup on the computer, which includes logging out of the Organizer Dashboard, turning off the computer’s sleep mode, and ensuring the computer is in a secure location prior to check-in

Upon completion of all steps, they will be able to continue on to start printing badges. 

When they’re ready to start printing badges, Organizers can click the 'Turn On' button to activate on-demand badge printing They also have the option to revisit the setup instructions.

Upon activating on-demand printing, Organizers gain access to a comprehensive list displaying each attendee who has checked in, alongside the printing status of their badge.

The status “Preparing to send” indicates that the check-in has been recorded and the badge is about to be sent to the printer. The status “Sent to printer” indicates that the badge has been successfully sent to the printer.

Furthermore, Organizers retain the flexibility to resend any attendee's name badge to the printer, whether due to initial printing issues or if the attendee has misplaced their badge. They can do so by clicking ‘Resend to printer’ for any individual attendee. If for some reason several badges have not been printed, the Organizer may want to ensure that all settings are still ON, and the printer connection is stable. They can press the button ‘Resend multiple jobs’ to select all the badges that have not yet printed, and resend them to the printer. 

Upon selecting 'Resend multiple jobs', they will be directed to a page where they can specify the printing jobs they wish to resend by entering the job numbers in the fields '"From printing job #" and "To printing job #". Afterward, they can click 'Resend selected jobs'.

If the Organizer is done printing badges at their event or simply wants to stop using the on-demand badge printing feature for some time, they can easily disable on-demand badge printing by clicking the 'Turn off' button. Upon doing so, they will be prompted to confirm their decision. On-demand printing can be re-turned on and set up at any time, and from that point onward, new attendee check-ins will automatically be sent to the printer once again.

P.S. In case this didn't fully answer your question or want to see a live demo or ask live Q&A,  join our Event Management Whova Academy! We host a live session covering the Event Management tools every Monday at either 9AM or 1PM Pacific Time.