Onboarding: how people join

The Onboarding page holds every setting between a participant opening the app and reaching Home: how they find the event, how they sign in, whether they can register, what they’re asked for, and any screens you add along the way. A phone preview beside the settings shows each step as participants see it.

Who can do this: Org admins. Read-only users can open the page and look, but can’t change anything.

Where: Event → Content → Onboarding

How the page works

The left-hand list shows every step in the order participants go through them: Join screen (with Login design under it), Event welcome, Sign in, Details, Photo ID, Team, your own screens, Pass and Home. Select a step to edit it.

A step that is switched off stays in the list, marked Off, so you can switch it back on there.
The built-in steps have a lock: their place is fixed, only their settings change.
A coloured dot means the step has something to check. A summary at the top of the page counts problems and warnings; select one to jump to its step.
On a narrow screen, select Preview to open the phone preview.

What saves straight away, and what waits for Publish

Most settings on this page save and go live as you change them: how people find the event, sign-in options, registration, photo ID, teams, the pass and the look.

Three things are a draft that participants don’t see until you publish: the Login design, the Event welcome and your own screens. Their headings carry a “Draft · goes live on Publish” badge. See Publish your onboarding design below.

Join screen: how people find the event

Under How people find this event, choose one:

Choice	What participants get
Code	People type the event code, or scan its QR. The event is not in the app’s list.
List	People pick the event from the app’s list, no code needed. The code box tucks behind a small “Have an event code?” link, and the code, QR posters and links keep working.
Both	The event is in the app’s list, and the code box stays on the screen too.

The list is shared by every event on the same app. The code box only tucks away when every listed event has chosen List. Organisation-wide join screen settings are on the App event list page; see App event list and join screen.

Event list card

With List or Both, set how the event’s card looks in the app’s list of events:

Choose an Icon and type a Title (for example “Acme Sales Summit”). Without a title the card shows the event’s logo, or a plain row with its name.
Set the Order. Lower order comes first; events with the same order go by start date.
Optionally turn on Coming soon. Tapping the event then opens a coming-soon page instead of joining, and the app never opens it by itself. The code still works, for testing. Add a Page title and Message for that page if you like.
Select Save card.

The card’s own image, and every event’s card side by side, are on the App event list page. Both edit the same card.

Event code

The Event code card shows the code people type, scan or tap to join, with its QR code.

Copy copies the code.
Edit lets you type your own code: 4 to 12 characters, letters A–Z and numbers 0–9. Select Save. If the code is already used by another event, it won’t save. Like a new code, an edited code replaces the old one straight away: posters and QR codes printed with the old code stop working.
Print prints the page, QR code included.
Download QR saves the QR code as a PNG image, large enough to print.
QR poster opens the public join poster in a new tab.

Change the code’s length

New events get a 6-character code. To use a different length:

Pick a Code length from 4 to 12 characters.
Select New code (or New n-character code).
Read the warning and select Replace code.

A 4-character code is easy to guess, so use it only for open events. A 5-character one is short; use 6 or more if the event is private.

Look

The join screen step also holds the event’s colour, dark mode, images and background. They’re used on every onboarding screen, and across the app once someone has joined. See Set your event’s look.

The Sign in step is where returning participants find themselves.

Ways to sign in are the tabs a returning participant can use. At least one stays on:

Name: people search for their own name and pick it.
Unique ID: the Unique ID you gave each of them, set per participant under Participants.
Email: the email address they registered with.

Links on the sign-in screen:

“Forgot your ID?” link: lets people look themselves up by name. It only shows while name sign-in is off.
“I’m new — register instead”: shown while registration is open. Select Registration settings to change that.
“Registration is closed” notice: a line at the top of the sign-in screen saying registration is closed. It only shows while registration is closed; switch it off and the screen says nothing about registration, which suits an event where you added every participant yourself.
Help desk contacts: a “Need help?” pill listing the people on Info → Contacts.

Words (draft, goes live on Publish): a Heading and a Line under it at the top of the sign-in screen. Empty fields use the app’s own words.

Under Verification, turn on Verify sign-in by email code to make sure nobody signs in as someone else just by knowing their email address.

With it on, whenever someone signs in or registers with an email address, the app emails a 6-digit code to that address and asks for it before letting them in. The code works for 10 minutes; Send a new code sends another. People who sign in with their Unique ID aren’t asked for a code.

Email sign-in has to be on first: the switch can’t be turned on while it’s off.
Name sign-in turns off with it, because picking a name from a list proves nothing. It stays off while this is on.
People already signed in on their phone stay signed in. They’re asked for a code the next time they sign in.
If the switch won’t turn on and says codes can’t be emailed for this event yet, contact OnStage support to set up email for your organisation.

A Unique ID that is short or follows a pattern (such as ACME001, ACME002) can be guessed. If you want every sign-in checked, turn off Unique ID sign-in too, or give out IDs that are hard to guess.

Details: registration

The Details step has one switch, Registration open.

On: newcomers can register themselves from the sign-in screen.
Off: newcomers can’t register, and the sign-in screen doesn’t offer it. Only people already on the list, added or imported under Participants, can sign in. Use this when you add everyone yourself.

The registration form asks for name and email (required), phone and organisation, then the consent line. Its fields can’t be changed yet.

Photo ID

Turn on Ask for a photo ID to have newcomers photograph an ID card while they register. Returning participants who haven’t sent one are asked when they sign in. You review photo IDs under Moderation; see Photo ID and documents and Moderate submissions and photo IDs.

Team

Turn on Teams to have newcomers pick their team while they register. This also turns on team scoring and team leaderboards across the event. Manage teams opens the Teams page; see Teams and sub-teams.

Pass

Turn on Event pass to show each participant a scannable pass on the “You’re in” screen, which stays in their profile. Staff scan it to check people in and to redeem passes. With it off, registering ends straight on Home.

Home

The last step links to the Home screen page, where you set what everyone lands on.

Login design (under Join screen) sets how the join screen looks when the app opens on this event: when it’s the only event in the app’s list, or when someone arrives by its link or QR. Anywhere else the app’s own join screen shows.

Background: App’s own, Colour or Image. With an image, use the slider to darken it so the logo stays readable, and choose Text over the background: Automatic, Light text or Dark text.
Logo on the join screen: leave empty to use the event’s own logo.
Words: Headline, Sub-line and Button label. Empty fields use the app’s own words.
Button colour: Event colour or Pick one.
Privacy policy link: points the Privacy link in the footer at your own policy. It must start with https://.

Event welcome

Event welcome is one full-screen welcome, shown once the event is known and before signing in. Everyone sees it, once.

Turn on Show an event welcome. With it off, people go straight from the join screen to signing in.
Add an Image (required) and a Title (required), and optionally a Small line above the title, Text and a Button label.

Add your own screens

You can add up to 8 screens that participants see after they’ve joined, before Home.

In the step list, select Add screen.
Pick a template:
- Info slide: one idea per slide, such as “Earn points” or “Win prizes”. Slides next to each other swipe as one carousel.
- Agreement: a code of conduct, waiver or media consent, with a checkbox. Acceptances are recorded per participant.
- Permission primer: explains why before the phone asks for notifications, the camera or photos.
Fill in the screen. Every screen has Show this screen and Who sees it: Everyone, New registrations only or People signing back in only.

Each template’s own settings:

Info slide: Layout (Image on top or Icon in the middle), Image or icon, Title, Text and Button label. Can be skipped shows Skip, which jumps past the rest of the carousel.
Agreement: Title, Text (participants scroll through it), Checkbox label, an optional Link to the full terms, and Button label. Turn on Required to keep the button disabled until the box is ticked, or Can be skipped for an agreement that isn’t required. An agreement adds to the consent line every newcomer already ticks; it never replaces it.
Permission primer: the Permission (Notifications, Camera or Photos), a Title and Text. The button is fixed.

To reorder your screens, drag them in the list, or use the screen’s menu: Move up, Move down, Duplicate or Delete.

Each agreement acceptance is recorded with its version and time, in the participant’s details (see Agreements) and in the participants export (see Export your data). If you publish a change to an agreement’s title, text, checkbox label or link, it becomes a new version and people are asked to agree again.

Publish your onboarding design

The bar at the top of the page shows where the draft stands: Nothing designed yet, Draft — not live yet (with “Draft saved” or what is stopping it from saving), or Live with when it was published. The draft saves itself as you edit.

Publish: makes the login design, event welcome and your screens live. Participants see the new version the next time the app loads this event. If problems are listed, fix them first.
Discard changes: drops everything since the last publish and goes back to what participants see now. This can’t be undone.
Reset to built-in screens: offered once something is live. Publishes an empty design, so participants see the app’s own screens again. Agreements already accepted stay on record. This can’t be undone, though you can design again.

If someone else changes the draft while you’re editing, the page pauses saving and offers Reload to load their version.

Copy onboarding from another event

Select Copy from another event.
Find the event with Find an event (search by name or code) and pick it under Event.
Select Copy into the draft.

This brings over that event’s login design, event welcome and screens (its draft if it has one, otherwise what it has live) as this event’s draft. It replaces this event’s draft, and nothing goes live until you publish. Switches like sign-in options aren’t copied. To copy a whole event instead, see Copy or clone an event.