We believe that most of these issues can be immediately resolved by installing a visitor management system and in this blog, we discuss the reasons why it is critical for the educational sector to do so – not just in terms of achieving their security goals but also in automating their day-to-day operations.
A Visitor Management System for Schools – Not Just Beneficial, It’s Vital.
Verification of visitors is vital. Schools receive different types of visitors on a daily basis and you cannot treat everyone equally with regard to their authentication, especially when it’s manual. It’s hard to differentiate if one is an existing parent/guardian or a guest, or whether someone is banned from entering your premises.
Manual collection of personal information like name and phone number in a paper visitor book or sheet does nothing as far as verification is concerned. The data provided could be false and no one would ever come to know. Even if it was genuine, it has no further use. How do you retrieve visitor data from a paper visitor register in case of, for example, an emergency?
All these issues get eliminated when Entrée Solutions is installed and there is a strong school reception system in place. Confirmation is instant and information about the visitor is captured digitally. Having this data digitally, you automate your sign-in process as well as store visitor information correctly compliant with GDPR, knowing that you can easily access historical visitor information instantly.
Give parents easy entry and give them the confidence of being welcomed by a visitor safeguarding system.
Parents form a large percentage of school visitors. Many parents are given paper passes to enter school premises. These paper passes can be easily manipulated, lost and misused. Entrée Solutions gives your school the confidence to sign visitors in real-time with badges that have allocated expiries, this also makes it easier for your staff to spot an unauthorised individual on your site.
Verify all staff and contract labourers. A digital visitor management system easily records the data of all groups of staff and contractors and maintenance teams – whether they are permanent or temporary. The school admin can allocate them badges/cards/fobs or a unique ID code that captures their attendance every time they log in and out of the school premises. Your management team will have instant knowledge from a live dashboard which gives you an overview of who’s on-site.
Restrict “stay” time of visitors on your premises. Once a visitor or contractor is allowed entry into the school premises, he or she could stay on for any length of time. This is quite challenging from a security point of view.
By installing a digital sign-in system, the school can issue an instant visitor badge with restricted stay periods and times.
Check reports on trends and violations. An automated visitor management system for schools is extremely critical because it has built-in statistical tools to analyse visitor data. It allows management to find out trends – for staff, students, or outside visitors – as reports.
The school management can access these reports in real-time on a central dashboard:
How long was a visitor present in the school? Was anyone found wandering in a particular location on the campus longer than was necessary? Integrate MIS systems to once again capture data of late arrival and early leavers.
A system to quickly receive accident and incident registers. Ensure everyone on your site is safe and promptly dealt with. Entrée Incident Manager gives you the tools to easily communicate with the right people.
Log an incident, leak or accident and automate the way you communicate with parents, guardians and relevant staff members. Your incident data helps you plan for the future helping you further eliminate any ongoing or recurring issues.
Evacuation Register. This is quite a useful feature in a visitor management software. In the case of an emergency, how does a large school deal with emergency evacuation?
Our Visitor Systems provide you with a real-time fire evacuation list. This is essential as paper books can be damaged or unreadable. Entrée gives you a digital register that provides critical information like who your visitor was visiting, a photograph of your visitor on-site and much more.
An Integrated Visitor Management System. No matter what system a school chooses to install, integration is a real issue. Software is supposed to make things easier in terms of operational efficiency and pace. We have observed that most schools have too many different systems. Instead of making things smooth, over time unrelated systems become problematic and difficult to manage.
A digital visitor management solution should be an integrated system that records and stores all the information about every person that enters and exits the school premises. It should not be limited to capturing visitor data but achieve major security goals.
A visitor management system should be one that can be easily integrated to other systems. That’s why our Visitor System manages MIS integrations for students who arrive late on to your site or leave early for an emergency or appointment. Entrée Solutions also allows you to integrate your door access card/fobs making it again faster for staff to sign in.
DBS Check. We know how easy it is to forget and we know how hard it is to keep track of visitors, ad-hoc staff DBS files. Allow entrée visitor management to prompt you when a DBS check is required for a visitor. Store this information on the system to easily trace back for future reports or data. Stay compliant at all times by implementing the right technology that empowers you.
Safeguarding message with Entrée solutions. Inform all your visitors of your schools safeguarding message whilst they visit your site. Ensure you are compliant at all times. Easily access the management dashboard for any data you require on a visitor who may have breached your safeguarding message.
Admin made easy. The team at entrée solutions has been working within schools for over 16 years. Closely working with Bursar managers, headteachers and school security in the United Kingdom in helping to streamline their admin and operations. We have in-depth knowledge and understanding of the daily challenges within the education sector. In fact, our visitor system was developed for a school by a school. We have used the latest feedback and technology to build our user-friendly but intelligent system that any school, college, university can implement this solution right away.
Call us on 0330 1271 888 or email sales@entreesolutions.co.uk to find out more!