Recently I was at a networking event showing off our visitor management app. One of my peers asked me, what about, visitor management system for iPad. At first, I didn’t know if she was making a statement or posing a question. Although based upon Cynthia’s voice inflections I interpreted it as a question, which was “Do we have visitor management system for iPad?”. I bluntly answered, yes it’s developed for an iPad and Android but at this point we only support android.
Then Cynthia gave me a blank look on her face which let me on a long-winded explanation. Our developers programmed the code with an authoring tool that writes code for both iPad and Android simultaneously. Although, even with duel capability there are little slight differences and nuances between ios and Android Which need to be thoroughly tested, fixed and multiple instances of republishing. Our developers programmed the code with an authoring tool that writes code for both iPad and Android simultaneously.
Although, even with duel capability there are little slight differences and nuances between ios and Android Which need to be thoroughly tested, fixed, and multiple instances of republishing. The iPad was not our priority. Our focus was to offer a visitor management system that offered a lot of value, the iPad was just overkill. I elaborated further, placing a great product like the iPad in a steel metal enclosure that performs similarly to any other touch tablet. We simply came to the realization the visitor management system for the iPad didn’t offer any
additional value to our clients. More specifically, whether it’s an iPad or an Android tablet when it’s placed in a metal enclosure you’re not really going to tell much of a difference. At that point, when you see the visitor management system sitting on the counter inside of the lobby it essentially looks all the same. It begs the question, why pay such a premium for an Apple product when really the end-users are simply interested in the functionality of a visitor management system for their front lobby or their warehouse/ factory, etc… At the end of the day, All they need is a tablet that can do the job.
Also Read Emergency Notification System At this point, I was really rambling on. Cynthia’s eyes started to gloss over as if she was sorry she asked me this question about the iPad. After my double-shot espresso, I was on a roll. Besides, she was pleasant and polite with her nice smile and acknowledging my points by gesturing yes, so I continued with my rant. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Apple fan, they make fantastic products. But what makes an iPad so great it’s the ability for the running multiple apps, its processing power, sleek design, and stunning graphics. Having said all that, the sole purpose of the tablet in this visitor application is just to perform one simple task, a visitor sign-in application and that’s it. The iPad for a visitor management system is overindulgence.
As long as, it’s responsive to someone’s finger to navigate through the visitor sign-in process, that’s all you need. In other words, you need a simple device to capture the information into the visitor registration app. With the additional software, you can run the application in kiosk mode so that no one can manipulate it to use it for different purposes. The real magic is in the back-end of the visitor registration app. Here is where facility managers or security personnel can view all the information and capture the insight that offers. For instance, my clients have been looking at the dashboard and realized there’s a pattern of when the front desk is really busy. As a result, they opted for another admin assistant to answer incoming calls to help out the front receptionist.
And this is only for specific days such as Tuesday and Thursday. This particular organization had most of their meetings and of course, visitors come to the front reception between 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM just made a lot easier for the front receptionist and guests to get their meetings a lot more efficiently. Also, the back end of the software that much more and just provides the insights it also provided some great features such as:
- Tracking visitors Dashboard
- Sign-out reminders
- Two-way messaging
- QR code meeting invite – Express sign-in
- Emergency messaging
- Customize screening
- Digital records of waiver document acceptance
So in conclusion, our visitor sign-in Application is not about whether or not if it’s a visitor management system for iPad.
Our goal in the future is to be hardware agnostic. In the meantime, we’re going to focus on offering a visitor management system that offers value. Presently, Android tablets have proven offer significant amount of value. When I finished explaining, my long-winded answer about if our visitor management solution runs on iPad, my dear colleague, corrected herself and said, I meant to say tablet, not iPad. I guess, the word iPad has become some synonymous with the word tablet.