A check-in form that asks too much gets abandoned in the line. One that asks too little just moves the typing back to the counter. The form that works asks exactly what the fitting needs, in the order a guest can answer it, and refuses the answers that would cause trouble later.
This post is about making that form in Ribbe’s check-in form designer. It assumes you have read what a check-in form does and want to shape your own rather than run the template as shipped.
Open Templates, create a check-in form and pick “Ski & snowboard check-in” from the Templates menu. You get the renter block, the sizing block, the skis-or-board tick, and the conditional ski and snowboard sections already wired. Everything below is about how to change it with intent.
The designer shows a live preview beside the question list, switchable between phone and tablet widths. Every edit shows up there immediately, which is the fastest way to catch a form that has grown too long: scroll the preview as a guest would.
Industry templates in the check-in form designer, with the ski and snowboard template marked for the shop's industry
Each question has two settings that most form tools do not have, because most form tools do not know what a rental party is.
Scope: “for each person” or “once for the whole party”. Weight is per person. The rental start date and number of days is per party; asking it five times is how you get five different answers.
Who: everyone, only the main renter, or everyone except the main renter. Email, phone, address and accommodation go to the main renter only. Names and sizing go to everyone. A “relationship to the main renter” question, if you want one, goes to everyone except them.
Getting these two right is most of the difference between a three-minute form and an eight-minute one.
A question can be “answer only”, kept on the order for staff to read, or bound to a field on the customer’s profile. Bind anything the fitting station or the waiver will use:
Weight, height, age
Weight / Height / Age
DIN calculation, waiver
Skier type (ability)
DIN calculation, waiver
Boot sole length
Boot sole length (mm)
DIN calculation, waiver
Street shoe size, mondo boot size
Shoe size / Boot size
Stance, angles, board length
Snowboard stance / angles / length
Hotel / Room #
Deliveries and pickups
Bound answers are saved when the guest submits, so when staff open the order the DIN is calculable and the boot size is already on file for next season. Leave “what time will you arrive?” as answer-only; it is useful once and meaningless afterwards.
Sizing questions bound to the rider profile: boot sole length, ski length, stance and binding angles, each shown only when it applies
a bunch of orange shoes that are on a shelf
Weight, height and age should be number questions, not short text. A number field gets a unit label, a minimum and a maximum. The ski template uses 20 to 400 lb for weight and 2 to 110 for age; set them to whatever makes a typo impossible to submit. A weight of 16 because somebody dropped a digit is a binding setting problem you would rather catch on the phone than at the bench.
Height in US shops is two half-width fields, feet and inches, bound to Height and the inches part; metric shops use one centimetre field. Either way the value lands in the same profile field the POS reads.
The question “What are you renting?” with Skis and Snowboard as checkboxes is the hinge of the ski form. Every ski-specific question (skier type, sole length, ski length) is set to show only when Skis is ticked; every snowboard question (ability, stance, angles) only when Snowboard is. A snowboarder never sees the word DIN, and a skier never has to decide whether they are goofy.
Hidden questions are not asked, not required and not saved, so “required” on a conditional question is safe: it only bites when the question is on screen. Conditions can also test numbers, so you can show a “parent or guardian name” field only when age is under your threshold.
A product rule says: when this answer is this value, add this product to this person’s part of the order. A shop that wants the form to do the booking can tick “Skis” to a ski package, “Helmet” to a helmet, and use age under 13 to swap in the kids’ package. The order then arrives on the waitlist with the lines already there and waiting for payment.
The shipped ski check-in template deliberately has no product rules; many ski shops prefer to decide the package at the bench after seeing the guest. Both are fine. If you add rules, remember they fire from the last saved form, so save before you test the QR.
Product rules and waiver rules at the bottom of the designer: answers can add products and extra waivers
The site’s default waiver is signed by everyone. A waiver rule adds a second template for people who match a condition: a snowboard-specific addendum for anyone who ticked Snowboard, a park-and-pipe acknowledgement for anyone who chose Advanced. The guest sees one combined agreement and signs it once. The waiver template itself is written separately in the template designer.
Questions can be full, half or third width on a six-column grid, so first and last name sit on one row and city, state and ZIP on another. Section headings take an icon and a colour. An image block can show a boot-sizing chart or a photo of where the counter is. Help text under a question (“Mondo, if you know it, e.g. 27.5”) prevents more abandoned forms than any amount of layout.
The test is the preview at phone width: if the form needs more than three or four thumb-scrolls per person, something on it is answer-only trivia that can go.
Max party size defaults to the site’s kiosk setting; set it to one for a form that is only ever for the person holding the phone, and the party step disappears. The intro line above the form is the first thing the guest reads, so make it do work: “Fill this in for everyone in your party so your gear is ready when you get to the counter.”
Save, and watch for the unsaved-changes bar: the QR always runs the last saved version of the form, and “the rule didn’t fire” is almost always a form that was edited and not saved.
Design the form your counter wishes guests had filled in Ribbe’s check-in form designer gives ski shops per-person sizing, conditional questions, profile bindings and product rules, with a live phone preview. Try it free. Start a free trial