How to capture families' details at a school open house

Saturday, 9:55 a.m. The open house starts at 10, and forty families are in the lobby. There's one check-in tablet on a stand, and a parent is typing her email with one thumb while holding a toddler with the other. Behind her, the line reaches the front doors. The families who give up and walk straight in are the ones admissions never hears from again. If you want to capture families' details at a school open house, let every family check in on their own phone at the same time, and have the viewbook in their inbox before the welcome talk starts.

With Textiful, a QR code on the check-in sign and in the printed program opens a short text conversation. It asks for a parent's email and the grade or program the student is interested in, emails the viewbook, and lets admissions know who came.

The problem with check-in tablets and sign-in sheets

A tablet or a sheet checks in one family at a time, and open house arrivals come in a wave. The line backs up, and families who arrive late skip check-in entirely, so the list misses some of the most interested visitors.

The details that do get collected come back rough. Paper sheets have to be typed up, and a rushed parent's email has a letter missing. By the time admissions sends the follow-up, families have toured two other schools.

Why the usual fixes fall short

• A registration form before the event captures families who planned ahead and misses the ones who decided that morning.
• A QR code that opens a long web form asks a parent to fill in fields on a small screen while the welcome talk begins.
• A stack of printed viewbooks gets taken by some families and left on the chairs by others, and none of them tell you who took one.
• A second tablet helps, and the line is still one family per tablet.

How to set it up in Textiful

1. Upload the viewbook to Handouts. An application checklist or financial aid deadlines work too. Upload it once and reuse it at every open house.
2. Start from "Give away a download." Ask for the email with a prompt that says whose you want: "What's the best email for a parent or guardian?" Add a "Collect custom data" step for "Which grade is your student applying for?" or "Which program interests you most?" Add "Ask for zip code" if admissions wants to see where families come from.
3. Add actions. "Email a handout" sends the viewbook as a tracked download link. "Email me a notification" tells admissions about each family. "Tag the contact" with the open house date (Open House Nov 2026), then add the contact to Mailchimp, Kit, ActiveCampaign, or HubSpot, or send it to your admissions CRM through Zapier.
4. Print the QR code. Download it as a PNG or SVG and put it on the check-in sign, the program's first page, and the welcome slide.

Where to put the code

Check-in is the first place, with a sign that says what families get: "Scan to check in and get the viewbook." The program is the second, for families who skipped the line. The welcome slide is the third: the head of school can say "If you didn't check in, scan the code on the screen now" and pause for phones to come out. All three can use the same code, so every family lands in the same list.

For programs with their own tables, such as athletics or the arts, give each table a copy of the flow with its own QR code and tag, and point its notification at that program's lead.

How many questions to ask

Keep it to three: email, grade or program, and zip. Across Textiful flows over 90 days in 2026, three-question flows were completed 85.0% of the time. Ask for anything else on the application.

Before and after

	A check-in tablet	A QR code with Textiful
Check-in	One family at a time	Every family on their own phone
Late arrivals	Skip check-in	Scan the program or the welcome slide
The viewbook	A printed stack on a table	In their inbox before the welcome talk
Admissions	Types up the list on Monday	An email for each family as they arrive
Follow-up	Days later, from a typed list	From your email tool, tagged by open house

Who this is for, and who should skip it

It fits US admissions offices at private and independent schools, charter schools, colleges, and graduate programs that run open houses, campus tours, or information nights. For check-in at events beyond admissions, see event check-in by text. Skip it for families who mostly have phone numbers from outside the US, since the short codes work with US carriers only.

You pay per conversation, one for each family who starts the flow, with plans from $19/month. See pricing, and for club fairs and orientation, schools and campus events.

Try it at your next event → Start a free trial