What is visitor management software?

Visitor management software allows organizations to streamline the visitor check-in process through ID scanning, visitor pre-registration and customizable visitor badges, and email notifications. Companies can collect accurate data and easily recall and track visitor information to help monitor employee and facility safety. Visitor management system is especially useful for hospitals, corporate property management companies, schools, and government buildings.

The benefits of visitor management software

• Streamlined visitor check-in: Visitor management software allow for streamlined group check-ins with the help of pre-registration, real-time scanning, and background identification processing. The software can directly extract information from government-issued identification cards such as driver's licences, passports, and health cards. Automated data entry reduces manual errors and creates an electronic record for later reference.
• Fewer administrative tasks: Front desk employees are saved from trivial tasks that include data entry and background verification. Paperless operations allow front desk staff to process requests quickly, get approvals online, and reduce wait-time for visitors. Information about return visitors can be easily retrieved from the database of visitor management system to save them from going through the registration process again.

Typical features of visitor management software

• Contact management: Capture and store visitor contact information such as name, address, and phone numbers in a central database.
• Registration management: Allows visitors to self-register for check-in. Hosts can also pre-register visitors and send them a QR code for quick sign-in.
• Visitor tracking: Tracks visitor in- and out-time, host's name, and purpose of visit. Users can also generate reports to know exactly how many visitors are in the facility at any given time.
• Self check-in: Allows visitors to check in by scanning an ID card and then receive a customized visitors badge.
• Watchlist: Reviews visitors against a "watch list" and notifies security staff of their presence.
• Alerts/notifications: Notifies hosts when visitors arrive and informs employees about events and tasks with system-wide notifications.

Considerations when purchasing visitor management system

• Integration with third-party software and hardware: Integration with other systems is an essential factor that needs to be considered before making a purchase decision. Visitor management solutions can work in collaboration with different hardware and software tools. The solution should function well with hardware tools such as printers, kiosks, and barcode scanners, and software such as background verification tools, database management software, and analytics solutions. Buyers should review their technology infrastructure and integration needs when selecting a visitor management system.
• Budget and feature requirements: Prices for visitor management software can vary to a great extent and use different pricing models. Some of these variations depend on deployment type, IT requirements, number of users, etc. Buyers should evaluate their feature requirements, daily visitor counts, number of hosts and office locations, and deployment options as all of these factors will play a role in determining the total cost of ownership of visitor management software.

Relevant visitor management software trends

• Wearable computing will transform visitor management system: Mainstream adoption of wearable devices will reduce the need for visitor registration as some visitors' information could be accessed with the help of data connectors and sensors. According to our research , more than half of small businesses are planning to adopt wearable computing technology by 2020. Disney's Magicband is one of the successful use cases that has enabled customized visitor management with the help of RFID scanners.