Adding a Data Capture Step: Asking Guests a Question

KB30121

Last updated October 3, 2026 by 6 min read 8 views

In short

A Data Capture step asks a guest a question before, or instead of, taking their photo – their name, an age, an email address, or a question of your own.

Choose from five types of question, from free text to Multiple choice buttons that can send the guest to a different step.
Each answer fills in a token, such as {TEXT} or your own {TOWN}, so it can go into a print, an AI prompt, a text message or an email.
To use an answer in an AI prompt, put the Data Capture step before the Photo step.

Add the step

Go to Admin Panel → Workflows, add a row, and set its Type to DataCapture.
Use its File dropdown to choose what kind of question it is: Text, Text (full keyboard), Number, Email or Multiple choice.
Press Configure… to write the question itself.

The five types

Type	What the guest gets	Limits and defaults
Text	A condensed on-screen keyboard: letters, space, and `' - .`	Up to 40 characters. The default question is “Type your answer here.”
Text (full keyboard)	A fuller keyboard: digits and accented letters as well, plus `. , ! ? ' -`	Up to 60 characters.
Number	An on-screen keypad.	Smallest number and Largest number set the range a guest can enter, 0 to 999 by default. The largest you can set is 999,999,999.
Email	Checked for a valid email address when the guest taps OK.	The default question is “What’s your email address?”
Multiple choice	2 to 8 answer buttons the guest taps instead of typing.	The default question is “Choose one.”

Good to know: Email answers are special

An Email answer is also used to pre-fill the email address on the Sharing screen, and it’s never sent to the AI, whatever you name it.

Text, Text (full keyboard), Number and Email all share this one-column layout:

Configure Data Capture for a Text question, with the question, Guest must answer, If skipped and Token name fields

Number adds its Smallest number/Largest number fields above Guest must answer:

Configure Data Capture for a Number question, with Smallest number and Largest number set to 1 and 120

Set up Multiple choice answers

Multiple choice’s Configure… window has a second column, where each answer is its own row.

Configure Data Capture, Multiple choice, with three answers (Bride's side, Groom's side, Both) each sending the guest somewhere different

Each row has:

a drag handle to reorder it;
the answer itself, up to 60 characters – letters, digits, spaces and . , ! ? ' - only;
a dropdown choosing where it sends the guest: Continue to the next step, a specific step by name, or Start over;
a cross to remove it.

Add answer adds another row, up to 8.

Tip: Retyping is safe

Retyping an answer keeps its “sends the guest to” choice – only deleting and re-adding a row loses it.

What the guest sees

Screen	Answer buttons
Portrait	Always one column, however many there are.
Landscape	One column for up to 3 answers, and two columns beyond that.

Every answer button, and the Skip button centred below them, has a teal outline so they show up against the black screen even on a dim display.

A guest's Multiple choice screen on landscape, with three tall answer buttons outlined in teal

Make the guest answer, or let them skip

Guest must answer is on by default. Switch it off and the guest’s screen offers a Skip button instead.

If skipped, use is the wording that fills in wherever the token is used if they do skip – blank leaves it out entirely. An Email question has no If skipped, use.

Name the token

Every Data Capture step has its own token – {TEXT}, {NUMBER}, {EMAIL} or {CHOICE} by default, matching its type – or give it your own Token name:

up to 20 letters, digits and underscores;
starting with a letter, for example TOWN.

A name that breaks these rules quietly falls back to the default token. A name isn’t special any more: NAME and AGE are just choices you can make, the same as any other word.

Important: Asking two questions of the same kind?

Give every step its own name when you ask more than one question of the same kind: two Text or Text (full keyboard) steps left unnamed both use {TEXT}, so the second answer replaces the first.

Use the token

Type the token into a print’s Text 1 or Text 2 layer, an AI prompt or negative prompt, or a custom SMS/email message, and it’s swapped for:

the guest’s actual answer;
or their “If skipped, use” wording if they skipped;
or nothing, if that’s blank too.

A token no Data Capture step defines – a typo, for example – is left exactly as you typed it, curly brackets and all.

Use the answer in an AI prompt

Put the Data Capture step before the Photo step if you want its answer available in that step’s AI prompt. A Data Capture step placed after a Photo step can’t fill in that prompt, and the Workflows tab warns you about it:

Workflows tab with an orange warning: {NAME} and {TOWN} are asked for below this Photo step, so the prompt gets its "if skipped" text instead — The orange warning names each token that’s asked for too late.

Save answers to guests.csv

Turn on Save guest answers (Admin Panel → Options → General) and every guest who answers at least one Data Capture step gets a row in that event’s guests.csv, with:

Time and Photo file columns;
a column for each step’s token;
an Other answers column for any answer without a column of its own, such as one to a question added after the file was started.

Important: Ask your guests first

It’s personal data stored on this computer, so only turn it on if your guests have agreed – a Disclaimer step can ask them before any Data Capture step runs.

Moving from an older settings file

An older settings file’s Name, Age and Free text questions still work – Booth Junkie converts them the first time it loads:

Older question	Becomes
Name	Text named `NAME`
Age	Number named `AGE` (1 to 120)
Free text	Text (full keyboard)

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