Visitor Management System for Schools | Enhance Safety and Security

The need to create a safe and secured school premise calls for an integrated security system that monitors every activity happening, even at the busiest hours. A visitor management system for schools can therefore ensure a risk-free zone at all times, without putting in much effort.

 Have you deployed a proper system for identifying visitors in school? Are you keeping track of the visitors meeting your students or the faculty inside the school premises? Is your school campus free from unwanted visitors?

 When it comes to keeping the students and faculty safe inside the school facility, authorities are bound to ask these questions. With a visitor management system for schools in place, you can create a smart solution to all these challenges combined, and handle other facility needs with utmost ease.

Basic Intro

Visitor management system is a comprehensive and integrated software that can effectively keep track of all the visitors visiting a particular premise, floor or area inside the institute.

Basically, it answers who, where and when of all the people entering and exiting the school premises. This system can help institutions to identify the visitors, keep track of their whereabouts inside the school premise, their crucial details like photo ID, mobile number, items carried and capture other personal data, maintaining an accurate record of all the guests visiting.

Does Your School Need a Visitor Management System?

It is important to take note of the visitor’s activity inside any facility but when it comes to schools, no mistakes can be made because it concerns the safety of students of all age groups.

 Educational facilities deal with a lot of visitors, be it guests, parents, guardians or other personnel. It can be pretty hard to manually keep a complete record of all such visitors. Most of the schools follow the obsolete approach of keeping a manual directory or a log book at the front desk/ security office wherein the visitors are required to fill in their details and can enter without any authentication.

This poses two many challenges:

• The personal details entered by the people cannot be verified and in case of unwanted intruders, there is a high chance that they may enter wrong information
• Any intruder can slide-in even without filling in the logbook since the log-books are considered to be a formality
• There is no accurate nor complete record of visitors in cases of emergency

 These problems can only be solved with a proper visitor management system operating in place, at the front desk. In order to ensure complete control over the visitor’s information and movement, a VMS is an unavoidable asset in any educational institute.

 How Does a Visitor management System Work?

In order to closely monitor the activity of visitors entering a particular facility, the visitor management software for schools is designed in such a way that the whole process is authentic, error-free and at the same time, leaves an everlasting impression on the guests.

 Here is a quick walk-through of a typical visitor management system deployed in a school facility and how it works.

 ● Sign-in at Checkpoint

The point of entry is placed at the main facility gate where the system is deployed. Once there, the visitor/guest is asked to sign in using a form filled electronically. Details like the name of the person, phone number, Id proof and the person they wish to meet etc. are required to be filled in.

 ● Image Capture

Make sure your visitor profile is complete. Let you visitor’s use their smartphone to capture their selfie and complete the profile creation. The image/ photo captured can be verified and stored in the cloud so that when required it can be pulled easily.   

● Notification to Host

Once the details are filled in and photo saved, the host that the visitor wishes to meet is identified using an automatic notification feature in-built in the VMS. The host is required to approve the visitor’s details for entry inside the premises. The feature acts as an additional layer of security when installing a visitor management system for schools. After reviewing the guest profile the host gets to decide whether the person needs to be allowed to walk past the security lounge or not. 

 ● ID badge Printed

Once approved, an ID badge is printed or generated in the app/device of the visitor as well as the school’s system. This allows easy navigation, future references and seamless storage of visitor data.

  Visitor Management System for Schools – Top Features

• Authenticated Check-In

A visitor management system for schools comes with the option of handling visitor’s information with utmost ease. Once a visitor enters the school premise, he/she is asked to fill in certain details. Then, the submitted info and data is verified by the system. Their ID is verified, the number is double-checked using features like OTP verifications and other details are examined. Only after complete extraction of personal information, validation and approval, can a person be granted entry inside the building.

 Moreover, the modern VMS takes a photo of every visitor for extra verification. This seamless check-in and authentication process at the front door ensures that the campus is threat-free and safe always.

• Contactless Check-In 

Smart institutions are embracing a proactive strategy to prevent pandemic spread similar to COVIS-19 which caused massive disruptions and compromised the safety of students and faculty members within the school premise. Touchless check-in solutions (face recognition technology, smart phone based qr code scanning, etc) with pandemic proof technology can help mitigate the risk of carriers entering the school premise. When deciding on a visitor management system for schools make sure to select the right solution. 

• Verified Entry

Schools don’t just have visitors but also have hundreds of staff personnel entering and exiting the premises. In order to keep a control check on all the people entering the institute, a visitor management system also offers the feature of pre-entering the staff information in the system. With the pre-entered names and information of staff members, the school premise is safe at all times since only the verified members of faculty/ staff are granted access to the building. As an additional layer, you get to decide whether an OTP validation is required or not.

 Even in cases of faculties/ staff entering the school facility, their names can easily be recorded pre-hand and only the ones with issued passes are allowed to enter the zones. This also helps the authorised personnel to keep track of movements of all kinds of staff and faculty inside the premise, when they enter and exit, their frequency, the duration of stay and so on. 

• Real-Time Dashboard

An effective visitor management system for schools comes with a real-time dashboard that can exhibit the movements of all the visitors, staff, faculty, parents and students (if required) at any given point of time. This allows for easy tracking and identifying of people while they are moving inside the building.

 This dashboard can be used to monitor the stay-time of parents, visitors or staff inside the premises. For instance, if a parent wishes to visit their child, his/her stay-time can easily be tracked using the app.

• Visitor Insights

The real challenge schools face is keeping an accurate record of all the visitors that have visited the facility in a specific duration of time. Paper-logs or pen-paper techniques usually fail because they can easily be tampered with and even get damaged or stolen.

 With a visitor management system, there is always a record of visitors which is stored in a safe place. The authorities can look into visitor insights provided by the system with ease. Who visited the campus? When did a particular individual leave the building? How frequently did a visitor check in? All of these stats are prepared within the system and are easily accessible to all concerned people so the team can draft a plan of action to better manage the visitors entering and leaving a certain premise.

• Quick Notifications

With an integrated approach, a visitor management system comes loaded with features like alarms, notifications and alerts. As soon as a visitor checks-in at the front door of the premise, an email notification is sent to the host or the person the visitor wishes to meet. The host is asked to verify the person’s details and approve their entry. Such notifications are important as the host can be prepared for all visitors coming to meet them, especially when parents are meeting with faculty members.

• Prompt Alerts

In cases of emergencies like when an intruder is trying to barge-in into the campus, there is an advanced alert system to notify all the concerned authorities. With a visitor management system in place, you can quickly alert every member of an unwanted intrusion. With cameras installed at the front desk, the photo is stored in a database for future reference and the intruder can easily be identified, which is highly challenging in absence of a proper digital system.

•  Customisable Badges

Just as the visitor passes the check-in step in VMS, ID badges are printed holding the person’s details and they can also be used for subsequent visits. These badges can be customised and edited according to the school standards using the software. The schools can put in their logos, their emblem or other such symbols to customise the ID badges for the visitors. This not only gives a personalised touch to the identification badges but also speaks highly of the schools’ standards and technologies deployed.

• Visitor Pre-registration

One of the top features that a visitor management system offers is the ability to pre-register the visitors who are expected at the school premise. In the admin portal, you can find the option to schedule a single pre-scheduled meeting or multiple pre-scheduled meetings. The admin can enter the visitor data at the back end and send a notification to the guest via SMS or email. The visitors are then asked for this link when they reach the main check-point of the school building or simply asked to scan a QR code. With this link, the visitor can easily opt for a quick check-in, avoiding long queues and waiting times. 

•  Great Interface Designs

Offering a user-friendly Interface and impressive UX, visitor management system for schools offers multiple features and easy integrations. With the ability to easily integrate with the pre-installed premise management solutions VMS is easy to use, easier to maintain and comes with a smooth operational dashboard. Simple check-ins, quick alerts and a universal design delivering a first impression to your guest at the front desk itself.

 Extended Features

Visitor management software also come with extended features, like touchless visitor check-in, smart profile identification, etc enhancing the safety and security of institutions manifold.

• Event Notifications

For schools serving as centres of seminars, events or other such programs, some visitor management systems come with advanced features like sending out event notifications to the attendees. This is done by sending a separate QR code or invite link using email notification. Once the attendees get the code or link, they can easily use it to check-in while attending the events. This way the schools can keep a check on visitors who are trying to enter without proper event invites. This feature proves the credibility of VMS as it maintains a risk-free zone and a safe environment even when hundreds of visitors are enter the school premise every hour.

• Student Attendance Tracking

Some modern VMS also offer the possibility of keeping a track of the movements of their students in and out of the school building. The students’ details are taken and their attendance is recorded using the software. This helps to keep track of the student’s activity, what time they are entering and exiting from the building, how often are they not being punctual and so on. Such data is visible right inside the reports and analytics present inside the VMS.

 Concluding Note:

For schools, keeping track of the visitors while they are at the institute is as important as keeping a record of their visit after they are gone. Mostly, schools fail to analyse the security aspect deeply and are often left clueless in cases of intruders or security breaches. Having a proper visitor management system for schools in place, the institute can safeguard their students, faculties and all the databases stored in their facility. Therefore, it is highly crucial for schools to think ahead of time and invest in technologies like visitor management software. This not only makes the premise secured but also creates a good impression among the staff as well as parents.

 Why wait for a mishap to occur when it can already be avoided? Why wait for an unexpected event? Providing an advanced level of safety to students, innovations like visitor management systems are bound to take over the front desks of all institutions in the coming years.