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. New meeting registers guests for later. New loan lends something, where your location uses Lend & Lease.
• 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.

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.

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), 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 at the bottom adds someone to it.

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 desk remembers your choice.

How to

Checking guests in and out

Checking in

Press the green Check in on a guest’s line. BmyGuest shows who will be checked in, and warns when the visitor terms are missing. Press Check in to confirm. 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.
• 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. If the guest has borrowed something, it is listed: 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, 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.
• 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 calendar icon): move them onto one of today’s meetings, whose host is then told, or start a new meeting with them.

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:

• Meeting details: the subject, the host, the location and the room. 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?). A meeting cannot start in the past.
• Attendees: each guest’s e-mail, name, phone and company. BmyGuest suggests guests it already knows as you type. For a long list, upload a CSV file. Online meeting marks everyone as remote: nobody is expected at reception.

Press Create meeting. The guests are pre-registered, not checked in. To change a meeting, use the pencil on its header; Add a guest to the meeting adds one more without touching the rest. A meeting imported from a meeting room’s calendar can have guests added, but its time and subject follow the calendar.

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.

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.
• 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 every guest of the day in one table, sortable by any column, with the same actions on each 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. It moves to the Cancelled group, where Undo cancellation brings it back. 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, or keep it open on a phone or tablet.
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 expected within half an hour either side of now, and who is inside, with Check in and Check out buttons. Copy link gives you an address to open on a wall screen, 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, the parking mark on a guest’s line registers their licence plate, and Parking in the menu lists every car registered that day.

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.