Running College Event Approvals: Vetting Outside Campus Participants Safely

Why Inter-College Fests Require Attendee Vetting

When hosting an inter-college cultural fest or high-stakes hackathon: University security mandates knowing exactly which outside colleges are entering campus. Technical hackathons must screen applicant GitHub profiles, project resumes, and team compositions to ensure high coding quality. * Organizers must ensure balanced representation across departments and partner universities.

If registrations are instant and un-gated, the event risks overcrowding with unqualified participants.

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1. The Spark Approval Workflow

Spark allows organizers to toggle Approval Required on any event or individual ticket tier:

graph LR
    A["Delegate Applies<br/>(Fills Profile & Roll No)"] --> B["Held in Pending<br/>(No pass issued)"]
    B --> C["Manager Reviews<br/>in Dashboard"]
    C -->|Approved| D["Ticket Minted &<br/>Dynamic QR Emailed"]
    C -->|Rejected| E["Polite Rejection Emailed<br/>Capacity Released"]

1. Submission: The delegate submits their registration form (including college ID proof or portfolio links).
2. Pending State: The database creates a pending record. No ticket pass is generated, preventing unauthorized gate entry.
3. Manager Review: Organizers review the queue in the dashboard (/dashboard/events/:id).
4. 1-Click Action: Clicking Approve transitions the status to approved, mints the rolling QR pass, and notifies the student.

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2. 1-Click Mobile Approvals for Faculty Advisors

If department heads or faculty advisors need to approve delegates: Spark generates single-use signed approval tokens (`sign_approval_by_token`). The faculty advisor receives an email notification with applicant summary details and two simple buttons: [ Approve Delegate ] or [ Reject ]. * One tap signs and records the decision in the PostgreSQL audit log without requiring the professor to remember a password.