Checking divers in on the dock, and what to do about the boat

What does the door actually look like on a course morning?

Your crew opens the session on a phone and sees who is booked on it. A diver either shows the code from their confirmation email, which is scanned, or is found by name and tapped — both write the same attendance record, because a name list is the primary method for this vertical and scanning is the quick path rather than the only one.

The count updates live as people arrive, which on a boat day is the number that matters most. A diver scanned again at the same device is readmitted as a re-entry rather than silently counted again.

Re-entry is allowed, which for a course means a diver stepping off and back on through the day does not need a fresh credential.

How does check-in work across the four days of a course?

Per session. Each day of the course is its own session with its own list, so a diver is checked in four times over an Open Water course and the record shows which days they actually attended. That is what makes the attendance record worth anything: a diver who missed the boat day is visibly missing from it.

It is also what a completion certificate is issued from. A certificate can only go to a diver who was checked in on the delivered session, so the paperwork follows the attendance rather than the booking.

What happens on a boat with no signal?

The door keeps working. Sync the roster to the phone before you leave — it is signed, so a copy somebody has edited is refused — and your crew scans and taps names with no connection at all. What they record is held on the device and replayed when you are back in coverage, and a replay that happens twice still counts once.

Corrections travel the same way. A name spelled wrong on the roster, or a diver who did not board, is recorded at sea and syncs back with the rest. Nobody is ever removed from the roster by a device: it is the record of who was sold a place, and an absence is a note against that record rather than a deletion.

The limit worth planning around is freshness, not coverage. The copy you carry is as fresh as its last sync, so a place sold ashore after you cast off is not on it until the phone catches up — which is one line in a crew briefing, and the reason plenty of centres still tick divers off at the dock as well.

Who on my team should be able to work the door?

Give door staff the scanning role and nothing else. Permissions come from the role on their membership rather than from anything their browser sends, so a divemaster who can check divers in cannot open the approvals queue, read a medical statement, issue a refund or see your payouts.

That separation is worth setting up properly on day one, because the door is the surface most likely to be handled on a personal phone in poor light. Hiding a link is never what protects anything here — a hand-typed URL is refused by the same check that hides it.