Are you issuing adhesive "Hello, my name is…" badges for your visitors to stick to their clothing? Are you still manually tracking visitors through hand-written paper visitors' logs where they fill in their name and other pertinent information?
Can you tell at a moment's notice who is visiting your facilities and those who have left?
If any of these questions make you uncomfortable, it may be time to upgrade your visitor management program so you have more control over who is on site, who/where they're visiting, and other security information.
Today's visitor management programs take advantage of technology to create visitor records, help you check visitors in and out, monitor visitors against restricted lists, and offer plenty of reports. Visitor management systems tell you who is on site at any given moment, help you manage events, and present a visitor and guests checklist.
Why you might need a robust visitor management program
If you don't think a visitor management system is necessary, consider these reasons:
- Screening. You might need to screen visitors and guests to your facilities for a variety of reasons. You might need to protect individuals in your facilities from a variety of threatening persons on "restricted lists." Whether you're protecting students or adults, you don't want someone to slip through the cracks who shouldn't have access to your facilities for your employees' or students' safety.
- Emergency. If something happens at your facility and you must evacuate everyone on-site, you need a targeted list of visitors and guests. Handing emergency response personnel a list of everyone on-site makes their job easier and helps you and EMS account for everyone they find. In an emergency, you don't want to arbitrarily tell first responders that you have several guests and visitors on-site without offering them a detailed list.
- Reporting. It may be important to know how many times a visitor is on site, who he or she is meeting with, and specific access they have to restricted/unrestricted areas. You also may need to track contractors or temporary staff on-site to help with billing and payment issues. There are more reasons you may need reporting options to help you manage your business and your security.
Choose from entry, standard, and secure visitor management systems
Like with every ID management solution, visitor and guest management systems offer a variety of levels to help you choose the right solution for your business, security, and budgetary needs. Let's look at each.
- Entry level system. An entry level visitor management system offers quite a few options to help you quickly set up and check visitors in and out. Entry level systems hold an unlimited number of visitor records and help you design and print single- or double-sided visitor badges. You can also blacklist certain visitors so they can't check in to enhance your facility's security.
- Standard system. A standard system can do everything an entry level system does plus include more functionality to your visitor badges. You can add barcodes, magnetic stripes, photographs, and more. You can also easily create visitor records by scanning government-issued IDs. And you can add expiration dates to guest badges for visual identification of who belongs and whose time is up.
- Secure edition system. This system includes the other levels, but takes it a step further. You can set up email confirmation between your guests/visitors and their hosts. You can also customize your database fields to help you tailor your tracking. The secure edition offers an advanced database for much more functionality, and you still get all the wonderful functionality of the entry and standard level systems. You can also screen your visitors against criminal databases to eliminate those who shouldn't have access to your employees/students or your facility.
Additional visitor management system perks
Does your facility or campus have multiple entrances or limited receptionist accessibility? If so, you might need a visitor pass kiosk. This highly functional option lets visitors sign themselves in, print out their approved badges or passes, and negates the need for someone to collect expired or other badges at the end of their visit. If you need a streamlined visitor management system that isn't resource intensive, look for one that helps you manage your program from end to end.
Final thoughts
Are you unsure of exactly what you need because there are so many options? An Idesco ID Expert can help you wade through the various offerings and choose a visitor management solution that meets or exceeds your business, budgetary, and security needs. The advantage of having Idesco on your side is our 75+ years of experience helping companies just like yours create the most secure system that is still highly functional and fits in your budget. In fact, it's why we've been in business for almost a century.
Contact an Idesco ID Expert today at 212-889-2530 to get started.