Reception desk guide

Where to start

Overview

In one minute

At reception you see who is expected today, who is in the building and who has left. You check guests in and out, register the ones who just turn up, and make sure hosts know their visitors have arrived.

Most guests check themselves in with the QR code at the entrance or on a tablet, and their host is told straight away. The reception desk shows it all as it happens: you step in when a guest needs help, has no pre-registration, or has something to sort out, such as visitor terms, a door key or a borrowed item.

This guide follows Nora Vang, receptionist at the fictional Northgate Group’s Copenhagen office, on a busy afternoon.

The desk

The reception desk

Open Visitors. At the top are the location’s logo, a Live mark and the clock (both only today), the location (if you work at more than one), the day, and two switches that change how the desk looks.

The tiles

• Live: everyone who matters now: arriving, inside, later today and late. This is where the desk opens.
• Expected: pre-registered guests who have not arrived.
• Checked in: guests in the building.
• All: the whole day, including guests who have left.

The toolbar

• New guest registers and checks in someone who just turned up, or registers a guest who is expected later (see A guest expected later). On a day still to come, it registers guests for that day. New meeting registers guests for later. New loan lends something, where your location uses Lend & Lease. On a later day, it lends to that day’s guests, so you can set an item aside before they arrive. Return item takes back what is handed in, by its number or name, and can check the guest out with it.
• Search finds a guest by name, company, e-mail, phone, licence plate or host, and a meeting by its title or room. It also finds guests the tile you picked hides.
• Expand all opens every guest’s details.
• The icons on the right: the arrivals timeline (show or hide), send a check-in link by SMS, the visitor history, the digital door keys, and the badge printer (see Badges).

The timeline shows the day in bars: grey for guests who have left, green for guests inside, red for late, amber for due soon and blue for expected. Click a bar to jump to its guests.

The sections

Guests move between the sections by themselves as the time passes and as they check in and out. You do not need to reload the page: when a guest checks in at the entrance, the desk shows it within seconds, with a short message. If the connection is lost, the Live mark says so and the desk catches up when it is back. A desk left open overnight moves on to the new day by itself.

To look at another day, press the date. Another day is for looking only: guests cannot be checked in or out there, but badges can still be printed.

Help on the desk

The ? button at the top right of the desk, beside the Details switch, opens a menu with three things:

• Show me around the desk: a short tour, step by step. Until you have taken it or turned it down, the desk also offers it by itself, at most once a day and three times in all.
• Try the guest cards with demo guests: the list shows made-up guests, so you can try what a guest line does. Nothing you do is saved, and your real guests come back when you press End demo. Only on today’s desk.
• Where is ...?: type what you are looking for, also by the name it had on the old desk, and BmyGuest shows you where it is.

Meetings and guests

Guests on the same meeting are shown together, under the meeting: its time, its title and room, and the host. Guests without a meeting, such as walk-ins, have a line of their own.

• Colours: amber when a meeting starts within 15 minutes, red when it has started and guests are still missing. 2 missing under the time says how many.
• 2 of 4 counts the guests who have arrived. Click the meeting’s header to see everyone on it, also the guests listed in another section.
• The buttons on the right: edit the meeting (the pencil), its details (the i: host, catering, room and notes, with Edit meeting at the bottom), send a check-in link by SMS, print badges, and Check all in or Check all out. The arrow beside Check all in checks in one guest at a time.
• Add a guest to the meeting, the green person with a plus at the end of the counter, adds someone to it.
• The header can have two marks of its own, only when there is something: a note (point at it to read the meeting’s note; a click opens the meeting’s details) and catering (refreshments are ordered for the meeting or one of its guests; a click opens the order, or the meeting’s details where each guest chooses their own).

Each guest line shows where the guest is: “In 10 min”, “Late 21 min”, “No-show”, “Inside 20 min” or “Visit 1 h 15 min”, with the check-in and check-out times on the right. Click a guest to open their details: photo, e-mail, phone, vCard, Edit, and a row of tiles for everything the guest has or can get.

Simple and Details

The switch at the top right of the desk decides how much a guest line shows. Off (simple), a line shows only what needs you, as words: “Terms missing”, “1 overdue”, “Note”. On (Details), every mark is shown as an icon, the meeting’s title and room are on the header, and each line has an Edit button. The marks stand in the same order as the tiles in the guest’s details, with the same colours: green when it is done, yellow when it needs doing, grey when there is nothing, and red when something went wrong. The desk remembers your choice.

Correcting a guest’s details

Edit opens the guest’s details in a panel. It is on the guest’s line when Details is on, in the guest’s details, and in the … menu in the Table. Correct the e-mail address, name, phone number, company or job title, choose another host, or write the note for reception and the host, and press Save changes. The desk shows the new details straight away.

• Next time: for a guest who has not confirmed their details with you, the phone number and company you save are kept for their next visit too. BmyGuest fills them in when you type the guest’s e-mail address under New guest, and when you pick the guest from the suggestions as you register a meeting or add a guest to one. A field you leave empty does not remove what BmyGuest already has.
• A guest who has confirmed their details with you, for example by checking in themselves at the entrance or on their own phone, keeps their own: what you save applies to this visit only. They change their phone number and company themselves, under Settings, in My visitor profile.
• Email address: you can correct it as long as the address is not the guest’s own sign-in. Once the guest has verified it, or has their own BmyGuest account, it is shown greyed with a lock and cannot be changed here.
• Where your location registers visitors’ cars, the licence plate is changed on the Parking tile, not here.
• Note: the same note as the Note tile in the guest’s details. If someone else changed it while you had the panel open, nothing is saved and the panel shows their note above yours; press Save changes again to replace it with yours.

How to

Checking guests in and out

Checking in

Press the green Check in on a guest’s line. When the guest has accepted the visitor terms, or the location has none, that one click checks them in. When the terms are missing, BmyGuest first shows who will be checked in, and you confirm with Approve and check in. The host is told, by the channels your location uses, and the badge prints where your location has a badge printer.

• Check all in on a meeting checks in every guest on it who has not arrived, at once when they have all accepted the visitor terms.
• When the terms are missing, the button says Approve and check in: you confirm that the guest has read and accepted them. To record the acceptance on the guest, use Mark as accepted in the terms panel; see Visitor terms.
• A guest without a name, or at a location that asks extra questions at check-in, opens the New guest form instead, so you can fill in what is missing.

Checking out

Press Check out on the guest’s line, or Check all out on the meeting (the button says how many, for example Check all 2 out). Guests with nothing on loan are checked out at once. If the guest has borrowed something, BmyGuest lists it first: tick what they handed back. The guest is checked out either way; items you do not tick stay on loan.

A guest who just turns up

Press New guest, fill in the guest’s details, choose the host and press Check-in. The guest is registered and checked in straight away, and the host is told.

• E-mail address is optional, but worth asking for: BmyGuest then recognises the guest next time, fills in what it knows, and finds their pre-registration. If the guest turns out to be expected within the next three hours, or later today with the host you choose, the pre-registered visit is checked in instead of a new one.
• Full name: first and last name, unless your location asks for one name only.
• Door key: where your location uses them, a digital door key for the visit.
• Loan: where your location uses Lend & Lease, the items the guest borrows, such as a guest card. It is the list from New loan: type a number or a name. Expected return follows the items you pick. An item that is out to someone else is marked “on loan”; you can still pick it, and are asked before it is taken back.
• Where your location uses visitor types, choose the type first: it can decide the host and add questions.

A walk-in’s line has Put on a meeting, the green button with a person and a plus. Choose One of today’s to move the guest onto one of today’s meetings, or A new meeting to start a meeting around them with their own host. Then press Put on the meeting or Start the meeting. The guest is not checked in or out. When the meeting has another host, that host takes the visit over, and the panel says whether they are told: straight away if the guest checked in within the last 10 minutes, when the guest checks in if they have not yet, and otherwise not at all, so tell them yourself.

With a mouse you can also drag a walk-in’s line by the grip at its left: onto a meeting, onto another walk-in to give the two a meeting of their own, or onto New meeting, which appears at the bottom of the screen while you drag, to start a meeting around the guest. Dropping it on a meeting or on another walk-in asks you to confirm first. Esc cancels. Dragging works in the Meetings layout, not in the Table; on a touch screen, use the button.

A guest expected later

A guest you know is coming, but who is not here yet, is registered in the same panel. Press New guest and choose Expected later at the top. Fill in the day, Start Time and End time under Time (the end follows the start, an hour later, until you change it), then the guest’s details and the host as for a walk-in, and press Pre-register.

• The guest is pre-registered, not checked in. When they arrive, they check in like any pre-registered guest: with the QR code at the entrance, on a tablet, or with Check in on their line.
• BmyGuest puts the guest on a meeting of their own, with the guest’s name as its title. You see it as a meeting on the desk, and the host sees it among their meetings. You can add more guests to it later, as to any meeting.
• The guest gets the same e-mails as a guest invited to a meeting: the reminders before the visit, where your location sends them. Nothing is sent the moment you register them.
• The host is told as for a new meeting: by the pre-registration notice, if your location sends it.
• Door key: the key works from an hour before the visit until an hour after it ends. A licence plate is saved on the guest and filled in when they check themselves in; the parking is registered at check-in, not now. Loans are not offered here: lend when the guest checks in.

On a day still to come, New guest opens straight on Expected later with that day filled in. Where your location checks guests in without a host, guests cannot be registered in advance.

Registering a meeting

Registering guests in advance makes their arrival quicker: they are on the desk, their host is set, and they can check themselves in. Press New meeting (for a single guest, Expected later in New guest is quicker):

• Meeting details: the subject, the location, the host and the room. If you change the location after choosing the host, the host stays when they can hold the meeting there; if not, BmyGuest clears the host and says why under the field. Where your location uses them, a digital door key for every guest, catering, and a Label print text to print on the badges instead of the host’s name. An Internal note is for reception only.
• Time: the date, start and end. A meeting over several days can have a check-in for each day (Recurring check-ins?). On the desk each day is then a meeting of its own, and Check all in checks in that day’s guests only. A meeting cannot start in the past.
• Attendees: under Guests, each guest’s e-mail, name, phone and company. BmyGuest suggests guests it already knows as you type. For a long list, upload a file, such as a CSV file: its guests are added to the list straight away, where you check and change them like any other guest, and Undo on the line under the upload takes them out again. On a computer the panel is wide and each guest fits on one line; the note button on the line opens the guest’s note. Online meeting marks everyone as remote: nobody is expected at reception.
• Colleagues are hosts in BmyGuest who join the meeting without checking in at reception. If you type a colleague’s address on a guest row, BmyGuest asks: Add as colleague, or Register as guest when they need a badge or a door key, for example because they come from another location.

Press Create meeting. The guests are pre-registered, not checked in. Closing the panel before you have saved, with a click beside it, Esc, the X or Cancel, asks first: Keep editing or Discard changes. To change a meeting, use the pencil on its header (Edit meeting); Add a guest to the meeting adds one more without touching the rest. On a computer, a meeting opened with the pencil shows Meeting details, Time and Settings folded to one line each at the top, with the attendees under them; on a phone the attendees come first. Copy meeting, at the bottom of a meeting opened with the pencil, starts a new meeting with the same subject, host, location, guests and colleagues, today at the same times: choose the date, then press Create meeting. On a meeting over several days (Recurring check-ins?), what you change with the pencil applies to every day. To change one day only, choose it under Meeting series at the top and press Edit this day only: the day becomes a meeting of its own with that day’s guests, and everything in it can then be changed for that day alone. Opened from the desk, the day on screen is chosen. Later changes to the series do not reach the day, and deleting the series also deletes the day while it has not started. A meeting imported from a meeting room’s calendar can have guests added, but its date, time and subject follow the calendar and can only be changed there. You can give it another host: BmyGuest asks Are you sure? first, and a later sync keeps the host you chose. The new host is not notified, and guests who have already checked in keep theirs.

Visitor terms

Where your location asks guests to accept visitor terms, a guest who has not accepted them has a Terms missing mark. Click it:

• Mark as accepted: when the guest has accepted the terms another way, for example on paper at the desk.
• Send link: the guest gets an e-mail with a link to read and accept the terms on their phone. The link works for a guest who is checked in today.

Guests who check themselves in at the entrance or on a tablet accept the terms as part of the check-in, and the mark turns to Approved.

A check-in link by SMS

A guest who cannot scan the QR code, or is waiting outside, can get the check-in link by text message: press the speech bubble in the toolbar (or on a meeting or a guest), check the phone number and press Send. On a self-service plan, BmyGuest sends no check-in links by text message, so the speech bubble is not there.

Badges

Where your location has a badge printer, a badge prints when a guest checks in, unless the meeting or the visitor type says otherwise. You can also print them yourself:

• The printer icon in the toolbar: Print missing pre-registrations for today’s expected guests without a badge, or Print all pre-registrations. Its dot shows whether the printer is connected.
• The printer button on a meeting prints the badges for that meeting; the badge mark or tile on a guest prints theirs, again if needed.
• A meeting’s details (the i on its header) and Edit meeting start with Name tags: how many of the meeting’s badges for the day are not printed yet, with Print missing for this meeting and Print all for this meeting. In the Table, click the meeting’s name, or Edit meeting in the guest’s opened row, to get there.
• 10 to print next to a section’s name counts the guests there without a badge.

If the printer is not connected, check that it is switched on and has labels, and ask your administrator. The Administrator guide has a checklist.

Also at reception

Other views of the day

Table

The Table button at the top shows the day’s guests in one table, as the old reception list did. Its tiles are the old list’s too: Live (guests inside, and guests due within half an hour either side of now), All, where the table opens, Pre-registered, Checked in and Checked out. Click a column heading to sort, and choose how many guests a page shows. Each row has the guest’s Check in or Check out button and a … menu with the rest. To check several guests in or out at once, tick the box at the start of their rows (the box in the heading ticks every guest shown). A bar under the table then offers Check in and Check out for the ticked guests, and BmyGuest lists them for you to confirm once; Clear unticks them all. A guest who needs the New guest form first has no box. Click a guest, or the arrow at the end of the row, to open their details, and a meeting’s name, or Edit meeting in the opened row, to edit the meeting. On a narrower screen nothing is lost: the check-in and check-out times move under the expected time, the meeting under the host, and whatever still does not fit is listed at the top of the opened row. Meetings switches back.

The whole day

Press All to see the guests who have left as well, under Checked out, and Show to unfold the No-shows.

Today at a glance

The round button at the bottom right opens a summary of the location’s day: how many guests are expected, arrived and on site, deliveries waiting and overdue loans, arrivals hour by hour, what needs attention, and the latest check-ins and check-outs. Its number counts the things that need attention.

Search everything

The search box at the top of every page finds guests, hosts, meetings, visits, deliveries and loans across your locations. Ctrl+K takes you there. Press Enter, or Show all, for the full results.

Cancelling a registration

A guest who will not come can be cancelled instead of deleted, so the registration stays on record: open the guest line’s … menu and choose Cancel registration. The guest can no longer check in with it, their door key for the visit is withdrawn, and nobody is notified. A cancelled guest stays on their meeting, struck through, when you open the meeting. A cancelled visit without a meeting, or a meeting whose guests are all cancelled, goes to the Cancelled section at the bottom, folded away. Undo cancellation brings a registration back, but not its door key. Administrators can always cancel; receptionists can where the location lets them change its settings.

Evacuation

Where your location uses it, Evacuation is red at the bottom of the menu. It sends every guest and host at the location a message to leave the building, and gives you the list of guests who have not checked out.

1. Press Evacuation, then Yes, evacuate. The messages go out at once, by e-mail and SMS as your location has set it up.
2. The evacuation list shows every guest checked in today who has not checked out, with their host and phone number. Print it with Print, which gives a sheet with a box to tick off each guest, or keep it open on a phone or tablet and find a guest with the search box.
3. As guests are accounted for, press Mark as safe: that checks them out. The list updates itself.
4. When everyone is out, press All clear. An evacuation ends by itself after two hours.

Other pages reception uses

Live monitor

A screen that keeps itself up to date: who is inside, and who is expected, at first within half an hour either side of now. Expected within sets how far ahead it looks, up to Rest of the day, and Keep late guests for how long a late guest stays on it, up to All day. The lines have Check in and Check out buttons. Copy link gives you an address to open on a wall screen, with the same filters and times, and Full screen hides everything else. Filter it by location or visitor type.

Visitor history

The clock icon in the desk’s toolbar opens the visitor history: every visit at the location in a period you choose, with a search and a chart of the busiest times. Export downloads the period as a CSV file for Excel. Visits older than your company keeps details for are shown as Anonymized.

Digital door keys

Where your location opens doors with BmyGuest, Digital door keys lists every key issued and the ones that start later. New digital door key gives a key to someone who is not a visitor, such as a contractor or a colleague, for a period and an access level you choose. Guests get their keys from their host, from the meeting, or from you on their line.

Mailroom, Lend & Lease and parking

Deliveries and lending have their own desks and guides: Mailroom and Lend & Lease. Where your location registers visitors’ cars, open the guest and use the Parking tile to see whether the car is registered and to type its licence plate: Save plate, Register parking, or both. As you type a plate, BmyGuest suggests plates registered at the location before, with the name and mobile number last used. Parking in the menu lists every car registered on a day, and New parking there registers a car for someone who is not a visitor, such as an employee.

Help

Troubleshooting

Button and screen names are given in English, as they appear in the screenshots. If you use BmyGuest in another language, the wording differs, but every screen and button is in the same place. The screenshots show a fictional company, Northgate Group.