School safety is one of the number one priorities of parents and faculty. And that begins at a school’s front door.
With more and more buildings barring access points and streamlining visitors through one entrance space, a need to monitor who’s coming and going has formed. Add to that the fear of mass school shootings, according to CNN, and the urgency to get a proper identification system into effect is all the more critical.
So how can schools solve this security problem? With a visitor management system. Essentially a tool for ID-ing, name tagging, and data collecting, the best visitor management systems don’t just log who comes in, but also tracks a visitor’s visit time so that faculty and staff can easily tell who has been on campus.
But no two visitor management systems are the same. Because of this, it’s essential that the person in charge of purchasing the system knows what to look for so they can get the most out of.
Here are 10 benefits of incorporating a visitor management system into your school.
1. Track Every Guest
Rather than simply write their name in a log book, a visitor management system can help you gather additional data such as sign-in time, purpose of visit, and destination. Should something go awry, the school can use this information to retrace a visitor’s steps and help paint a better picture of what was happening at a school on any given day.
2. Stop Unwanted Guests
A visitor management system is a great gatekeeper. If someone is in the halls without a badge, someone can alert security. For instance, SpecialistID’s TEMPbadge Visitor Management System prints self-expiring badges so you can immediately tell if someone is supposed to be on campus or not.
3. Track Late Students
With customizable options, you don’t just have to use a visitor management system for guests. It can also be a way to mark tardiness. Just print a badge for a late student that they wear to class, and teachers can easily identify who overslept.
4. Easy Reporting
Want an exact figure on how many parents showed up for parent teacher conference day? Or who unexpectedly dropped in last Tuesday? A visitor management system can provide you with all of that data and help you run reports. Retrieve information from periods of time and print out total number of visitors, total number of people by pass type, or total number of people who went to a specific place using SpecialistID’s system
5. Easy Installation
New software can be anxiety-inducing, but not the TEMPbadge Visitor Management System. The tool works easily configured with Windows XP (must have SP3) and Windows 7. And it only requires one USB port for the printer.
6. Maintenance
Cumbersome record books can be difficult to keep tabs on, not to mention store. A digital visitor management system, on the other hand, is compact and easy to move from computer portal to computer portal. Plus,each station has a unique identification number and is designed to not interact with other installations or communicate with a network, so that if you’re using multiple stations, the source of every badge can be seen at a glance.
7. Efficiency
Entryway bottlenecks are common at schools when multiple bodies are trying to push through in a rush. You can’t afford a visitor backup in your entryway, and you won’t with a visitor management system. One of the reasons these tools are becoming so common is because they’re fast. With TEMPBadge, you can have an ID badge printed in just three clicks.
8. Ease of Use
When investing in new technology, one always has to do a cost analysis of how much time and resources it will take to get employees trained on the tool. Fortunately, TEMPBadge was designed to be user-friendly. So getting started will be as quick as step up.
9. Avoid Disruptions
Learning is a sacred thing and young minds need to be allowed to focus. By implementing a visitor management system at your school, you can avoid parents or visitors merely strutting into their children’s classes and disrupting their work. Instead, a visitor management system allows a school staff member to not only ID the person, but give them clear instructions regarding campus rules and decorum to avoid throwing off the flow of class work.
10. Take Control of Campus
Perhaps the greatest benefit of installing a visitor management system is being able to take control of a campus and put strategies in place to effectively keep it safe. From the IDs to the security guards, red alert systems to active shooter drills, all of these protocols together can make a school safer.
For more information on how SpecialistID’s TEMPBadge Visitor Management System can help your school, visit specialistid.com.