Signing in book

leigh_boy · 8 Jul 2013 at 10:01

Morning all, I have been asked to get rid of our signing in book and put in place a better / more technological solution.
im thinking like a touch screen pc, and a small printer, and clients can come in and then confirm who they are on the pc, and then it prints out a badge or something. any suggestions welcome.

paradigm · 8 Jul 2013 at 10:04

This reeks of technology for technologies sake.

tom_e · 8 Jul 2013 at 10:17

K.I.S.S Stick with the nice simple foolproof system.

PAz · 8 Jul 2013 at 10:40

My old company used this - http://lobbyguard.com/

leigh_boy · 8 Jul 2013 at 11:22

paradigm said:
This reeks of technology for technologies sake.

yup thats pretty much what i said.
but stil apparently its to old school for our scientific company.

paradigm · 8 Jul 2013 at 13:38

leigh_boy said:
but stil apparently its to old school for our scientific company.

As a visitor to a building I'd much rather be met by a real (and polite) person, who can deal with my requests/find relevant people.

If you are residing yourself to having a person by the door anyway, then the self-service element is pointless. If you aren't having anyone down by the door/reception, then how are the guests going to contact who they need to?

In summary: Self-Service is pointless. If they really must modernize it, just use outlook calendaring.

leigh_boy · 8 Jul 2013 at 13:58

paradigm said:
As a visitor to a building I'd much rather be met by a real (and polite) person, who can deal with my requests/find relevant people.

If you are residing yourself to having a person by the door anyway, then the self-service element is pointless. If you aren't having anyone down by the door/reception, then how are the guests going to contact who they need to?

In summary: Self-Service is pointless. If they really must modernize it, just use outlook calendaring.

basicaly, what happenes is, they press the buzzer, it rings a phone, then we have to go open the door, ( no automatic systems in place) then bring them in to the main office, ask them to fill in the book and then we give them a badge
( the badges are imported from the US as we are a us company and have there ball sh t rules)

J.B · 8 Jul 2013 at 14:41

This could also raise additional complications from a data protection act point of view.

Gammawolf · 8 Jul 2013 at 23:10

leigh_boy said:
basicaly, what happenes is, they press the buzzer, it rings a phone, then we have to go open the door, ( no automatic systems in place) then bring them in to the main office, ask them to fill in the book and then we give them a badge
( the badges are imported from the US as we are a us company and have there ball sh t rules)

What are these badges? Just bits of plastic or RFID etc? At my company what happens is:

1) Visitor walks into reception
2) Visitor looks at the provided phone directory of internal numbers and calls the number from the provided phone
3) The employee then goes to let them in and provides them with a visitors badge
4) Visitor swipes the badge on the way in and they are now logged into the system

leigh_boy · 9 Jul 2013 at 08:04

Gammawolf said:
What are these badges? Just bits of plastic or RFID etc? At my company what happens is:

1) Visitor walks into reception
2) Visitor looks at the provided phone directory of internal numbers and calls the number from the provided phone
3) The employee then goes to let them in and provides them with a visitors badge
4) Visitor swipes the badge on the way in and they are now logged into the system

the cards we have are plastic, and colour codded, with numbers on and bar codes.

jake9891 · 10 Jul 2013 at 14:03

Looks like they are just normal plastic cards I guess, we used them at school. RFID could be used to limit them where they go, but I guess that wouldnt be the cheapest solution at your place.

How about a custom spreadsheet where they record who is visiting? could be linked to a database that stores all the info about who it is, what time they came in and left?

clade · 16 Jul 2013 at 16:28

arent visitor books also meant to be used incase of fires so the fire marshals can review who has been inside to make sure they are outside?