How to validate tickets sold at the counter on the night itself, offline included.
QRACCESS practical guide · online ticketing + on-site box office · Offline mode
The principle, in one sentence: import in advance the codes of the tickets you will sell on site. From then on the app knows them, and a ticket sold at 21:05 validates at 21:06 — offline included.
Offline mode downloads a copy of the list onto the phone and works from it, with no server. That is what makes it reliable in a venue with no coverage, and it is also its only limit: whatever was not in the list when the copy was taken does not exist for the app. Hence the method below.
Your on-site box office works from pre-printed tickets. What you need is the list of codes for that batch — a simple one-column file.
Size it right. If you expect 150 counter sales, prepare 150 codes, not 600. You will see why at step 6.
In your event's group: Attendees → Add attendees → Import file. Do it twice: once for the export from your online ticketing, once for the box office batch.
Selected file: online-ticketing.csv — 1,042 rows
Confirm import CancelThe import is being processed in the background.
Both imports feed the same list. The app will not tell them apart.
If your box office already prints its own codes: when creating the group, declare that the first imported field IS the QR code. Your ticket's code becomes the QRACCESS code, and you don't have two numbering schemes to reconcile.
A short but decisive step: only active attendees travel down to the phone. A deactivated code does not travel, and at the door it would read "QR not found".
| QR code | Source | Active |
|---|---|---|
| BIL-004182 | Online ticketing | Yes |
| BIL-004183 | Online ticketing | Yes |
| GUI-000001 | Box office (pre-printed batch) | Yes |
| GUI-000002 | Box office (pre-printed batch) | Yes |
The box office codes are already there, and already active, long before being sold.
In the event settings, choose the Mode:
Mode
Online: network required, but the same code cannot enter through two doors.
Offline: local copy, validation with no network, scans uploaded afterwards.
This is the step where order matters. The phone downloads the list as it stands at that moment. Do it once both imports have finished, and do it again if you import anything else afterwards.
Both kinds of ticket scan the same way, and the app answers the same:
A ticket sold at the counter a minute ago: validated with no network.
The trade-off, to be decided knowingly
An imported ticket is valid from the moment of the local copy, whether it has been sold or not. The app cannot know which of your pre-printed tickets went through the till.
In other words, security moves from the software to the cash drawer: the unsold batch has to be guarded like money. It is exactly how paper ticketing worked twenty years ago, and it is perfectly manageable — provided you decided it.
It is also why importing 150 codes beats importing 600: what does not exist cannot be lost.
Voiding a ticket mid-evening: offline, the app works from the copy it holds. A deactivation made in the panel after the copy will not reach it. If that has to happen, tell the door some other way.
Upload the scans from the app with the button provided. Until you do, they stay on the phone: do not uninstall the app before that.
Half an hour, and there will be no surprises on the day.
An ordinary phone sustains 15 to 25 scans per minute in real conditions. In a theatre almost everyone arrives in the twenty minutes before curtain: 1,300 people over twenty minutes is 65 per minute, which is three to four checkpoints. Size it on your real peak, not the evening's average.
Questions? Write to us — we answer in writing, with screenshots from your own account if
that helps.
info@abarcando.com · +34 910 054 224
QRACCESS is a service by Abarcando SL · Madrid, Spain