Knowing who is inside your building at any given time is increasingly important for many businesses and organisations, whether you manage a school, college, nursery, office, warehouse, care setting or other premises.
Throughout the day, staff, pupils, visitors, contractors, delivery drivers and temporary workers may all be moving through your premises. Relying on a paper visitor book or reception staff to manually keep an accurate record of everyone can quickly become difficult, particularly across larger or multi-site organisations.
A digital visitor management system such as EntrySign provides a smarter way to manage people entering and leaving your premises, while supporting security, safeguarding, health and safety and emergency procedures.
What is a Visitor Management System?
A visitor management system replaces the traditional paper visitor book with a digital sign-in process. Visitors can sign in using options such as a touchscreen, QR code or a mobile device.
This gives organisations much greater visibility and control over who is accessing their premises. A visitor management system such as EntrySign can do more than just record names; it can help organisations:
- Record visitor arrival and departure times
- Pre-register expected visitors
- Notify staff when a visitor arrives
- Print visitor identification badges
- Display important site policies and instructions
- Record contractor documentation and expiry dates
- See who is currently on site
- Produce evacuation information
- Integrate visitor management with compatible access control systems
Support Safeguarding in Education
For schools, colleges and nurseries, controlling access to the site is a key part of safeguarding.
A digital visitor management system can help create a consistent process for visitors and contractors entering the premises. Visitors can be asked to review important information during sign-in, such as:
- Safeguarding procedures
- Fire safety instructions
- Site rules
- Photography policies
- Emergency procedures
- Health and safety information
Clearly identifiable visitor badges can also make it easier for staff to recognise people who have been authorised to be on site. Contractors can be managed through the same system, helping schools keep better records of who is working on the premises.
Visitor management can form an important part of a wider safeguarding strategy alongside access control, CCTV, gates, intercoms and other security measures.
Improve Your Fire Evacuation Procedures
Knowing who is inside your premises becomes particularly important during an emergency.
If the fire alarm activates, staff need an effective way of establishing who may still be inside the building. EntrySign can provide a live evacuation report showing the staff, contractors and visitors currently recorded as being on site. Electronic roll calls can then help designated personnel account for people at the assembly point.
For schools, businesses and other organisations where staff, visitors, contractors, parents, suppliers or temporary workers may be arriving and leaving throughout the day, this provides much greater visibility of who is on site than relying on a paper visitor book during an emergency.
Create a Better Visitor Experience
Your reception area is often the first impression somebody has of your organisation.
For a business, this might be a customer or supplier; for a school, it could be a parent, governor, visiting teacher, contractor or prospective family. A professional digital sign-in system can provide a more organised and efficient experience.
Visitors can be pre-booked before arriving and provided with information such as:
- Directions
- Parking instructions
- Site access information
- Appointment details
- Visitor requirements
- A QR code for faster sign-in
Once they arrive, their host can be notified, and a clearly identifiable visitor badge can be produced. The result is a quicker, more professional and more controlled visitor experience.
Manage Contractors More Effectively
Visitor management isn't just about guests and customers; schools, businesses and other organisations regularly have contractors, engineers, maintenance companies and suppliers attending their premises.
A visitor management system can help ensure important procedures are completed before somebody is permitted access to the wider site. Depending on requirements, this could include:
- Displaying site rules
- Presenting health and safety information
- Asking contractors to confirm important declarations
- Recording relevant documentation
- Tracking document expiry dates
- Recording arrival and departure times
- Issuing visitor or contractor badges
This can be particularly useful within education, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics and other environments where contractor control is especially important.
Connect Visitor Management With Access Control
Visitor management becomes even more powerful when it works alongside your existing access control system. MES Systems can integrate EntrySign with compatible Paxton access control systems, including suitable Paxton Net2 configurations.
Depending on the system and required workflow, integration can help organisations:
- Use compatible existing staff cards or fobs
- Improve records of who is currently on site
- Reduce duplicated administration
- Improve evacuation information
- Provide controlled temporary access
- Connect visitor management with controlled doors, gates and barriers
For a school, this could form part of a wider strategy for controlling access between reception, classrooms, staff areas and external gates. For a business or industrial site, it provides an integrated approach to staff, visitor and contractor access.
Improve Data Management and Privacy
Paper visitor books can create privacy concerns because information entered by previous visitors may potentially be visible to the next person signing in. A digital visitor management system provides much greater control over how information is collected, stored and managed.
EntrySign includes tools designed to help organisations manage visitor information and support their data protection processes. This can be particularly important for organisations such as schools and care environments where safeguarding and responsible data handling are high priorities.
As with any system processing personal information, each organisation should ensure its configuration and procedures reflect its own GDPR obligations and privacy policies.
Who Can Benefit from a Visitor Management System?
EntrySign is suitable for almost any organisation that needs greater visibility and control over people entering and leaving its premises.
Schools and Education
It can help manage parents, contractors, supply staff, governors, visitors and other people arriving on site.
Offices and Commercial Premises
Visitor management can help businesses provide a professional reception experience while improving visibility of staff, customers and contractors.
Industrial and Logistics
Factories, warehouses and distribution centres can benefit from improved contractor control, site rules and evacuation reporting.
Healthcare
Healthcare premises, clinics and care environments can use visitor management to support controlled access and maintain better visibility of people entering the site.
Public Sector
Local authorities, public buildings and community organisations can use visitor management to create a consistent and auditable sign-in process.
Leisure and Hospitality
Hotels, sports facilities, leisure centres, visitor attractions and other venues can also benefit from improved visitor and contractor management.
Is It Time to Replace Your Visitor Book?
If your organisation still relies on a paper visitor book, spreadsheet or largely manual reception process, it may be worth reviewing how visitors are currently managed.
Ask yourself:
- Can we quickly identify everyone currently on site?
- Could we produce an accurate visitor and contractor list during an evacuation?
- Are visitors being shown the safeguarding or safety information they need?
- Do we have an effective process for managing contractors?
- Can staff easily identify authorised visitors?
- Could our reception process be quicker and more professional?
- Could visitor management work alongside our existing access control system?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, it could be time to explore a digital visitor management system.
EntrySign Visitor Management from MES Systems
MES Systems can help schools, colleges, nurseries, businesses and other organisations implement EntrySign as part of their wider security, safeguarding and site management strategy.
We can review your current visitor management process, understand your requirements and explore how EntrySign could work alongside existing systems such as Paxton access control, gates and barriers and CCTV.
Whether you need a straightforward visitor sign-in kiosk for a school reception or a more integrated solution covering multiple buildings, staff, contractors and access control, the system can be configured around the way your organisation operates.
Want to See EntrySign in Action?
The easiest way to understand the possibilities is to see the system working.
Book a free EntrySign demonstration with MES Systems, and we can show you how the platform could help improve visitor management, safeguarding, staff sign-in, contractor control, site security and emergency reporting.
