You work the counter. Visitors arrive in front of you - some expected and holding a pass, some walking in cold, some standing at a kiosk that has stopped asking them anything sensible - and your job is to get each of them on site quickly, with the right record behind them, and off site again when they leave. Everything in this section happens on the Visitors Dashboard and the visitor record; you should almost never need to open the configuration screens.
Start here
Your first shift, in order:
- Open the Visitors Dashboard and read the status column. Check-in and Check-out explains what expected, checked-in and checked-out mean and how a visit moves between them.
- Check one expected visitor in and out again on a test visit, so the confirmation pages hold no surprises when somebody is waiting.
- Learn the quick action that registers and checks in a walk-in from a single dialog - the fastest thing on the dashboard, described at the end of the same chapter.
- Learn the full capture form in Add Visitor, for the visitors who need documents, a vehicle or a photo.
- Find out what your site does about cards and badges before your first busy morning: Card Pools and Visit Passes.
Getting people in
See who is expected today
Start every shift here. Select Visitors in the sidebar and the dashboard opens on today’s visits with their current status, so you know who is due, who is already inside, and who has left.
Full walkthrough: Check-in and Check-out.
Check-in a visitor who was invited
The common case: the visitor is on the dashboard already because their host invited them. Select their row, click Check-in, confirm the details on the confirmation page, and the status changes to checked-in. No retyping, no new record.
Full walkthrough: Check-in and Check-out.
Register a walk-in in one step
Somebody arrives with no invitation and no pre-registration. The dashboard’s quick action looks them up by mobile number and checks a returning visitor straight in; if there is no match, you capture the required details in the same dialog and the visitor is registered and checked in together. Use this whenever there is a queue.
Full walkthrough: the Quick Register and Check-in section of Check-in and Check-out.
Where Require Host Approval for Dashboard Check-ins is switched on, this same dialog holds the visitor instead of checking them in: it opens a request to the host and shows a waiting panel with a running clock, right there in the dialog. Nothing to do but wait for the panel to report an answer.
Full walkthrough: Reception Host Approval.
Capture a walk-in in full
When the visit needs more than the quick dialog holds - a photo, an identity document, vehicle and parking details, a specific visit reason - create the visitor on the full form instead, then check them in from the dashboard.
Full walkthrough: Add Visitor.
Handle “a visitor with these details already exists”
The system matches on identity number first, then on name and date of birth, and flags a duplicate when the email address or mobile number is already on record. That message means the person is already known: open the existing record and update it rather than creating a second one, or the same human ends up with two histories and two sets of credentials.
What the message means and what to do: the troubleshooting section of Add Visitor.
Process a registration that came in overnight
Visitors who used the self-registration link appear in the Registration list as pending requests. Work the list down at the start of the shift so those visitors arrive as expected visits instead of walk-ins. If your site sends requests to a manager or a compliance officer, your part is to check the captured details and pass it on.
Full walkthrough: Visitor Registration.
Receive a whole group
A tour, a delegation or a class arrives as one registration carrying a leader and their members. Process the group once and everybody in it is registered for the visit; you do not check them in one form at a time.
Full walkthroughs: Group Pre-Registration for a group that registered itself, Managing Group Registrations (Admin) for a group you build at the counter.
At the counter
Store the visitor’s paperwork
A copy of the identity document or passport, a work permit, a signed non-disclosure agreement, a contractor’s insurance certificate. Store it on the visitor’s Documents tab with its expiry date, and the next time they arrive you can see what has already been supplied instead of asking again.
Full walkthrough: Documents on a Visitor.
Print a badge or send the pass again
From the share page you can print or download the badge, resend the pass by email, WhatsApp or Telegram, or copy the pass message into any chat. Reach for this when a visitor cannot find their invitation, or when your site issues a printed badge on arrival.
Full walkthrough: Visit Passes. The badge layout itself is chosen centrally under Badge Printing.
Hand out a card and take it back
If your site lends physical cards over the counter, they live in a card pool that keeps stock control: which cards exist, which are free, who is holding each one and when it went out. Check a card out to the visitor when they arrive and take it back when they leave, so the pool always tells the truth and a missing card is obvious.
Full walkthrough: Card Pools, Steps 16 to 21.
When the visitor has to wait for their host
Where host approval is switched on, a check-in that names a host holds until the host answers the approval email. The visitor waits with you. If the host does not respond, telephone them; do not push the visitor through another way.
What the visitor and the host see: Host Approval. The dashboard’s own quick check-in dialog has the same idea with its own setting and its own waiting panel: Reception Host Approval.
When a name matches the watchlist
A match raises a warning on the record you are working on, with the details of what matched. Do not process the visit past it on your own judgement: follow your site’s standing instruction, which normally means calling security or the manager on duty. Adding and editing watchlist entries is not your job.
What a match looks like and where it can surface: Watchlist.
Help someone stuck at the kiosk
The self-service kiosk asks for what your site configured it to ask for, refuses expired identity documents, and can hold a visitor while their host approves. When a visitor is stuck, the quickest fix is to register them at the counter and send them on their way, then report the pattern - a kiosk that refuses everybody has a setting or a device problem behind it, not a visitor problem.
What the kiosk asks and why it refuses: Kiosk. If the tablet itself is unpaired or offline: Set Up Kiosk and Guard Devices.
Getting people out
Check the visitor out
On departure, select the visit and click Check-out, then confirm. The visit is complete and the full entry and exit history remains in the Logbook. Take back any card you issued at the same moment.
Full walkthrough: Check-in and Check-out.
Let a visitor back in the same day
A visitor who leaves for lunch and returns is checked in again on the same visit while their pass is still valid; each entry and exit is recorded separately. You do not create a second visit for the same person on the same day.
Full walkthrough: Check-in and Check-out.
Correct or remove a record
Fix a misspelled name or a wrong mobile number on the visitor’s profile. Deleting a visitor is permanent and removes their records with them, so it is a last resort rather than a tidy-up habit.
Full walkthroughs: Edit Visitor and Delete Visitor.
What you do NOT need
You can ignore these entirely - they are set up once by an administrator or a manager:
- Access control lists, points, schedules, devices and readers. Which doors a pass opens is not decided at the counter.
- Which fields are required, which visit reasons exist, which agreements a visitor signs. You fill the form in; somebody else decides what is on it.
- Kiosk, guard app, email, SMS and WhatsApp settings. Report a kiosk that behaves oddly instead of reconfiguring it.
- Watchlist administration. You act on a match; you do not create or edit entries.
- Users, personnel, locations and roles. If a colleague cannot log in, or a location is missing, ask an administrator.
- Reports and retention. Managers pull the reports; the Logbook keeps your check-ins for them automatically.
Approving your own visitors instead of processing other people’s? That is the host role: see For Hosts.