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Some high profile incidents have brought many security issues such as theft of computers and proprietary information to the forefront of corporate thinking, renewing interest in the need to screen visitors. |
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The hope is that proper screening will filter out people who might cause problems. Separating the vast majority of welcome visitors from the one or two aiming to cause trouble is the purpose of visitor management systems. |
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Managing Visitors |
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Companies manage visitors with one of several systems today. The first and most basic approach is a manual system, in which a visitor presents credentials to a receptionist or security officer and signs a logbook. At a minimum, the entries should include the visitor's name and company, the date, the time and the person being visited. |
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A second way to manage visitors simply automates the manual approach. Most of the major access control software packages on the market offer screens that receptionists can use to record visitor information. Automated records improve on manual systems by providing fast basic searches. Ask who visited the building on July 26th, and a list of names will appear. Unlike handwritten lists, automated records are more legible; however, the reporting capabilities of basic systems go no further. On the plus side, visitors entered into access control systems can be issued access control cards. |
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The third option, stand-alone visitor management systems, automate the sign-in process and can offer photo-identification badges with a digital photo system or scanners that capture pictures from photo-ID's carried by visitors. |
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Stand-alone systems include powerful reporting functions: Who was on the fourth floor at 2pm? What visitors remain in the building at 6pm? |
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One of the most important features of stand-alone visitor management is the watch list, which may include anyone who poses a threat, from estranged spouses or partners to terminated employees. Should an unauthorised visitor attempt to enter the facility, the management system will flag the guest, prompting the receptionist to call for help. |
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Stand-alone systems can also operate at self-registration kiosks that visitors can use to sign themselves in, thus saving work for receptionists. Watch-listed visitors attempting to self-register will be denied access beyond the lobby. Another feature of these systems enables company employees to log onto a website and pre-register their visitors. |
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Which Visitor Management System Should You Choose? |
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Selecting an appropriate system depends on the type and size of the building or campus, according to Henry Garcia, vice president for Chicago-based Kroll Inc., a security services company. |
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Small office buildings may not justify automated visitor management technology either. “You can write down visitor names in a log book easily enough,” Garcia says. |
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Experts recommend that managers of larger buildings with thousands of tenants, sophisticated access control systems, and hundreds of daily visitors consider some kind of automated visitor management. |
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Case History: Adobe Systems Inc. |
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About 50,000 people visit Adobe Systems Inc.'s offices every year. The developer of software applications employs 3,000 people who work primarily in two high-rise buildings in the company's headquarters city of San Jose, California. |
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About 100 visitors enter each of these buildings daily. Until two years ago, the company used a manual visitor management system, says Mark Domnauer, security operations manager at Adobe. Under this system, visitors to each facility stopped at a reception desk, showed their identification and signed in. |
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The system worked fine, and Adobe reported no incidents. But there were two problems. First, it took a while for a visitor to get into the building -- an inconvenience that Adobe wanted to eliminate. Second, a security officer interested in finding out when a particular visitor was in the building would have to search thousands of paper files. |
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To solve these problems, Domnauer has turned to a stand-alone STOPware PassagePoint visitor management system. The system runs on Adobe's network and helps manage visitors in each of the company's facilities. |
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Computers at the reception desks in each of the two main San Jose buildings have access to PassagePoint's screens. So do security officers stationed at the entrances to the parking garages beneath each building. |
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Approximately 95 percent of those visiting Adobe's two headquarters facilities drive into the parking garage before entering the building. A security officer in a booth at the entrance of each garage registers visitors as they arrive. Registration includes entering the name of the visitor, the name of the person being visited, nature of business to be conducted, date, time, and license number of the visitor's vehicle. |
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The visitor receives a parking pass, parks, proceeds to the lobby reception desk and gives his or her name and the name of the person being visited. The receptionist calls up the list of pre-registered visitors and looks for the visitor's name. Finding it, the receptionist asks the visitor to agree electronically to a non-disclosure statement and prints a visitor badge. Visitors that enter the buildings from the street without parking in the garage go through the registration process with the receptionist. |
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If the buildings did not have underground garages, Domnauer would have set up the system differently. “We would have used self-registration kiosks in the lobby,” he says. |
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Pre-registering visitors in the garage offers search benefits. At the garage entrance booth, a digital camera connected to Adobe's CCTV system grabs a picture of the driver and the license plate of the vehicle. |
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While the digital video system and PassagePoint are not linked, the procedure makes it possible to retrieve photos of visitors. “To match the data between the two systems, we can run a report on the visitor and retrieve the date and time of a visit as well as the license plate number,” Domnauer says. “Then we search the digital video system for the date, time, and license plate and come up with a photo.” |
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The search process also works the other way around. A security officer could begin with the photo of an individual and the license plate taken on a certain day and then search PassagePoint for the license plate and learn the individual's name, who that person was visiting, and why. |
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Reference: Security Solutions |
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