A family is in line at admissions doing the math: two adults, three kids, a second visit planned next month. A membership is the better deal, but the line is long and the cashier is busy. A tablet near the entrance where they could join on their own sounds like an obvious fix. With Altru, it takes a bit more planning than you might expect.
Before buying hardware, decide which of three setups you actually want. They solve different problems, and each one asks something different of Altru.
Option 1: A staff member with a tablet
This is “line-busting”: a membership staffer or volunteer walks the queue with a tablet and signs people up on the spot. Altru runs in a web browser, so in principle a staff user can log in from a tablet. In practice, Altru’s sales screens were built for a desk workstation with a mouse and keyboard, and how well they behave on a touchscreen depends on the device, browser, and screen size.
Things to confirm before you commit:
- Usability. Run a full membership sale on the actual tablet in a test environment: constituent search, adding household members, choosing the level, taking payment. If any step needs precise clicking or scrolling inside small panels, staff will slow down, which defeats the purpose.
- Payment hardware. Find out whether your card processing setup supports a card reader on that device. If it doesn’t, staff would be typing card numbers by hand, which is slower and usually costs more in processing fees. Ask Blackbaud support what is supported for your account rather than assuming.
- Security. A tablet logged in as a staff user is a staff workstation that can walk away. Use a short screen lock, a named login per staffer, and an access role limited to what membership sales need.
Option 2: An unattended self-serve kiosk
Here the guest does everything, which is what most people picture when they say “Altru membership kiosk.” The key point: never put a logged-in Altru staff session in front of the public. A self-serve kiosk should run your public online membership purchase page, the same one people use at home, locked to that page.
That means the kiosk is only as good as your online membership checkout. If your web form is clumsy on a phone, it will be clumsy on a kiosk too, and now there’s a line behind the person struggling with it.
Setup checklist for a kiosk tablet:
- Lock the device to one page. iPads have Guided Access, Android has app/screen pinning, and Chrome supports a kiosk mode on managed devices. Guests shouldn’t be able to reach email, settings, or other sites.
- Clear data between guests. Turn off browser autofill and saved passwords, use a private session, and set the page to reset after a period of inactivity. Otherwise the next guest may see the previous guest’s name, email, or address.
- Think hard about card entry. Asking guests to type a card number into a shared public screen makes some people uneasy, and it puts the device inside your payment security conversation. Talk to your processor and whoever handles PCI compliance before launch.
- Mount it where staff can see it. Near admissions, not in a quiet corner. Someone will need help, and a visible kiosk is less likely to be tampered with.
- Plan for the card. Decide what a new member does after paying: go to the desk for a printed card, show a confirmation email, or get a digital card. Put that instruction on the confirmation screen and on signage.
Option 3: The guest’s own phone
Often the simplest “kiosk” is a sign with a QR code: “Join today and today’s admission counts toward your membership” (if that’s your policy). The guest buys on their own phone, using their own wallet and autofill, with no shared device to clean or secure. It also works from the parking lot or the café.
The catch is the same as Option 2: everything depends on how well your online membership purchase works on a phone. Test it on a few real devices, start to finish, on cellular data rather than staff Wi-Fi.
Connecting the sale to today’s visit
Whichever route you choose, settle the desk handoff in advance. If the guest already paid for admission, can they apply it to the membership, and how does staff find that transaction? If they join on a kiosk or phone first, how does the desk confirm the membership exists in Altru before letting the family in free? Write those steps down for front-line staff, and check after the first few weeks that web and kiosk memberships are landing in Altru with the right program, level, and household members.
Where Social Good fits
Options 2 and 3 both depend on a membership checkout that works well on a touchscreen. Our Checkouts replace Altru web forms with a branded, mobile-friendly checkout for memberships, tickets, and donations, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, and the data writes back to Altru. Because it is a web page, the same checkout can sit behind a QR code on signage or run on a locked-down tablet at the entrance.
Quick answers
Can a guest use Altru directly on a kiosk?
Not safely. Altru’s sales screens run under a staff login, and handing that session to the public exposes far more than a membership sale. Public kiosks should run your online purchase page instead.
Do I need special kiosk hardware?
Not necessarily. A consumer tablet in a locking stand, with the device restricted to one page, covers most needs. Card readers are the part to confirm with your processor.
