Manual Onboarding Participants for an Assembly

This manual provides administrators with comprehensive instructions for onboarding participants to an assembly in GoVote. It included onboarding methods, best practices, and troubleshooting guidelines.

Proper participant onboarding ensures that all eligible participants can access the assembly and cast their votes according to your organization's requirements. This document covers both assemblies with and without admittance requirements. It assumes that the invitations to eligible voters are already sent. 

What You Will Need

Before beginning the participant onboarding process, ensure that you have:

  • Administrator access to the assembly
  • A device with internet access (computer, tablet, or smartphone)
  • For admittance-required assemblies: 
    • A mobile device with a camera for QR code scanning
    • Physical space where participants can present themselves - preferably a registration desk
    • Enough assembly administrators to handle the number of participants to be onboarded

Understanding Access Requirements

GoVote offers two primary methods for controlling participant access to your assembly:

Without Admittance Requirements

When the "Allow Participant Access Without Admittance" setting is enabled, participants can join the assembly immediately after registration without waiting for approval. This is useful for:

  • Assemblies that have open access for anyone
  • Situations where an invitation alone provides sufficient authorization for the individual participant
  • Scenarios where you invite participants as they physically arrive

This is the simpler onboarding approach, as participants only need to complete the registration process to gain full access to the assembly. There is no further involvement needed by you as an administrator.

With Admittance Requirements

By default, all participants need approval before joining your assembly. This helps you:

  • Control attendance according to organizational rules
  • Verify that participants are physically present

With this setting, participants must present themselves to an administrator to be admitted after showing up at the assembly.

Participant Registration Process

When participants are invited or join an assembly themselves using a shareable link, they need to be registrered to participate in the assembly. This can be either through them being an existing user with the same e-mail as used in the invitation or them signing up as part of the registration process. 

The processes to join an assembly are the following:

Email Invitation Method

  1. Ensure all participants have been invited. The invitations are sent by e-mail when the assembly was published or when a participants has later been invited.
    • Each invitation contains a secure link unique to that participant
    • These links are not sharable between participants
  2. The participant clicks the link in their email and will either:
    • Complete the registration process (entering name, password, etc.) if they are new to GoVote
    • Go through the login process if they have previously used GoVote

Shareable Link Method (skip if not enabled)

If you've enabled "Allow Participant Access to Anyone with a Shareable Link":

  1. Share the assembly link through appropriate channels (email, messaging platforms, websites)
  2. Participants access the link and will either:
    • Complete the registration process (entering name, password, etc.) if they are new to GoVote
    • Go through the login process if they have previously used GoVote

No individual invitation emails are involved in this process.

Important: Don't use the shareable link option for confidential or sensitive assemblies as it reduces your control over who can attempt to register.

Registration successful

After successful registration or login, the participant lands directly on the assembly overview page. If there are no admittance requirement, the onboarding of the participant is complete. It doesn't involve you as an administrator.

Admitting Participants (for assemblies with admittance requirements)

After registering for assemblies with admittance requirements, the participants will see a yellow warning box indicating they need to be admitted by an administrator.

Manual Admission

  1. Search for the participant in the participants list
  2. Click the Admit button (with the padlock icon) for that individual participant or select Admit from the participant context menu
  3. Instruct the participant to click the "Check" button in the yellow warning box to confirm their admission
  4. When correctly admitted, the warning box will disappear

QR Code Scanner Method (faster)

  1. Instruct the participant to click the QR button in the yellow warning box on their device
  2. Open the built-in QR Code scanner from the participant management page on your administrator device
  3. Scan the QR code displayed on the participant's screen (instruct them to open it by clicking the QR code button in the yellow warning box)
  4. A green success toast will confirm successful admission
  5. Instruct the participant to click the "Enter" or "Check" button in the yellow warning box to confirm their admission
  6. When correctly admitted, the warning box will disappear

The participant now has full access the assembly and is ready to vote when the assembly starts.

Best Practices

  • Test the onboarding process yourself before the assembly by using the rehearsal mode
  • Provide clear instructions to participants in advance. See link for participant instructions
  • Have additional administrators available during large assemblies to manage admittance efficiently
  • Consider setting up a dedicated registration desk for in-person assemblies
  • Make sure all needed participants are invited before starting the assembly - onboarding can continue after assembly has started
  • Plan for troubleshooting common issues 
    • Keep onboarding instruction link available to share with participants
    • Plan for various onboarding scenarios
    • If one onboarding method fails for a specific participant, then resort to another method
  • Allow sufficient time for onboarding before the assembly starts 

Summary

Successful participant onboarding involves understanding your assembly's access requirements, guiding participants through registration, admitting participants (if required), and troubleshooting any issues. By following these steps, you can ensure all eligible participants are properly onboarded and ready to participate in your assembly.

For additional information on configuring access settings, refer to the Assembly Settings documentation.

Troubleshooting Registration Issues

Missing Invitation Emails

If a participant reports not receiving their invitation:

  1. Ask the participant to check their spam or junk folder
  2. Send another invitation: 
    1. Search for the participant in the participants list
    2. Click the dotted context menu
    3. Select "Send new invitation"
    4. Guide them to complete the registration process
  3. Alternative method: 
    1. Direct the participant to sign up (or see more below about logging in if they are already a registered user)
    2. Ensure they use the same email address as in the original invitation - otherwise they will not be invited to this assembly
    3. After accessing GoVote, they should go to the Assemblies landing page → Invitations tab, and click to open the given assembly

Already Registered Users

If a participant has already registered with GoVote but cannot access the assembly:

  • They need to log in rather than sign up again
  • If they don't know their password, direct them to use the "Forgot password" functionality
  • After accessing GoVote, they should go to the Assemblies landing page → Invitations tab, and click to open the given assembly

Direct Access Option

For cases where email-based registration is impossible (participant cannot receive emails and cannot remember password from a previous registration):

  1. Search for the participant in the participant list and click the "Direct Access" option in the context menu
  2. This opens a modal where you need to grant the participant direct access. Follow the instructions on the screen. 
  3. It will display a QR code on the administrator's device
  4. The participant scans this code using their device's regular camera, or if the participant cannot scan the QR code, toggle to show a link and a code for manual entry in a browser

The user is now granted access . When obtaining access using the Direct access feature, the user bypasses other authentication features.

Note: This access method expires after 5 minutes

Important: Only use this feature after all other methods have been attempted.