Guest Pass App Overview

Guest Pass

1. What it is

Guest Pass manages visitors from registration through check-out. Employees pre-register guests, or guests self-register through a public link. Each approved visitor receives a QR-code digital badge, and the host is told when their guest arrives and departs.

• Enablement: Guest Pass is pay-as-you-go. It is available in Admin → Apps → All Apps with no license to purchase; you are billed per visitor check-in.
• What it is not: Guest Pass tracks who is on-site. It does not reserve rooms, desks, or workspaces — that is Bookings. When a booking includes external guests, Bookings hands them off to Guest Pass for check-in, badges, and screening.

2. Standing it up

1. Go to Admin → Apps → All Apps, find Guest Pass, and enable it.
2. Configure access: in Admin → Access Management, set which audience (departments, locations, or roles) can open the app. Access is governed by platform Access Management, not by a setting inside Guest Pass.
3. Open Guest Pass → Settings and review the defaults. The settings that most affect behaviour are Let hosts approve their own visitors (on by default), Auto-Approve Visitors (off by default), Enable Guest Self-Registration (off by default), Enable Visitor Watchlist (on by default), and the three User Permissions pickers (who runs the front desk, who approves, who opens the security records).
4. For an unattended lobby tablet, open the Check-In Scanner from the Guest Pass Dashboard and leave it on the tablet: visitors scan their badge QR to check themselves in. The scanner works whether or not self-registration is on. If you also turn on Enable Guest Self-Registration, Settings shows two links — one to share with guests for their own phone or laptop, and a lobby-kiosk version for a tablet you leave out front.
5. To confirm it works, pre-register a test visitor from Guest Pass → My Visitors → Pre-Register Visitor. The visitor should appear as Pending, and whoever decides it should be asked.

Self-registered guests always wait for a decision. A guest who registers through the public page is never approved automatically — not by Auto-Approve Visitors and not by a host’s own auto-approve preference — because nobody has vouched for them yet. Their visit waits for its host’s one-tap link (when hosts approve by email) or for an approver in Pending Approval.

3. How it fits together

Visitors and their lifecycle. A visitor record captures who is coming (name, email, company, phone, purpose), who is hosting them, and the expected arrival and departure window. Every visitor moves through a status lifecycle:

Pending → Approved → Checked In → Checked Out

A visitor can also be Declined, Cancelled, or Expired (a no-show whose expected departure has passed). Only approved visitors can be checked in. Checking in records the actual arrival time; checking out records the actual departure and deactivates the badge.

Example: Jan Kolar from Acme Corp visits on Tuesday. The host pre-registers Jan with an expected arrival of 10:00 AM and departure of 2:00 PM. Jan starts as Pending. The host (or an approver) approves Jan → status moves to Approved and a QR badge is generated automatically. At 10:05 AM the front desk checks Jan in → Checked In and the host is told. At 1:50 PM Jan checks out → Checked Out and the badge is deactivated.

Party size. A single registration can cover a party of up to 50 people. The party size defaults to 1.

Visitor types determine the badge color and default access tier. There are four types: Visitor (standard, blue badge, basic access), Contractor (orange, standard access), VIP (purple, VIP access), and Escort Required (red, basic access — the visitor must be accompanied). The type is set at registration and governs the badge that is generated.

Digital badges. When a visitor is approved, the system generates a QR-code digital badge automatically. The badge carries the visitor’s name, host and company, and keeps working until the visit’s expected departure plus the Badge Expiry (Hours) setting (24 hours by default). The visitor’s approval email links to their badge, which they show on their phone or print. Staff can download a badge as PNG or SVG or print it as a PDF; where Apple Wallet is set up for your organization, people with security-records access can also issue an Apple Wallet pass from the visit page. Google Wallet is not supported. At a self-service kiosk, scanning the badge QR checks the visitor in. Badges can be revoked, reactivated, or regenerated individually or in bulk from Digital Badges. Each badge has an access level from 1 (basic) to 10 (emergency), set automatically from the visitor type.

Watchlist screening. The watchlist is a register of flagged people. Each entry has a name, a risk level (Low, Medium, High, or Critical), a reason, and an optional expiry date. Visitors are matched by name, email, or phone against active watchlist entries at both approval and check-in. A match holds the visit for security review, and only people with security-records access are told which entry matched and its risk level — anyone else is told the visit is held. At a self-service kiosk, a flagged visitor sees only a general check-in refusal, never that they were flagged.

Automated housekeeping. Three background jobs run on schedule:

• An hourly reminder job sends overdue-checkout alerts to hosts (re-alerting every 4 hours, for up to a day after the visitor was due to leave) and one-time visit reminders to approved visitors arriving within 24 hours.
• An hourly no-show sweep expires visitors still pending or approved past their expected departure, moving them to Expired and deactivating dangling badges.
• A daily retention job purges visitor records (and their badges, photos, and access logs) older than the configured Data Retention (Days) setting.

Host notifications. The host is told when a visitor is registered, arrives, departs, and when a check-out is overdue. Arrival and departure notices follow Notify on Visitor Arrival and Notify on Visitor Departure in Settings, and each host can turn any of these off, or switch off a channel, in their own Host Preferences. Approved visitors receive an email with a link to their badge and a calendar (.ics) invite. When Let hosts approve their own visitors is on, the host of a pending visit is asked to decide it: their email carries one-tap approve / decline links that work without signing in, the same ask appears in their Inbox, and they can decide from the visit’s page. A visit that was declined or cancelled and then edited back to pending goes to the approvers instead — its host is not asked again.

Host preferences. Each employee can set their own preferences: auto-approve known visitors (someone they have hosted before, with the same email, whose earlier visit was checked in — and only where they may approve their own visitors), set a default visit duration (8 hours by default), define their weekly availability schedule and quiet hours, choose notification channels (email, push, in-app, SMS), and set default access permissions for the areas their visitors can reach.

Integrations. Bookings creates a Guest Pass visitor record when a room booking includes an external guest. Appointment Scheduler links appointments to Guest Pass visitors for check-in and badge tracking.

Roles and who sees what

Three of these tiers are set on Guest Pass → Settings → User Permissions; the other two are fixed. Business admins and Guest Pass app admins always hold every tier.

Tier	Who	What they can do
Everyone in the app	Any employee with app access	My Visitors (visits they host or registered) and Host Preferences. Pre-register visitors for themselves; edit their own visit while it is Pending, Declined or Cancelled; cancel their own visit while it is Pending or Approved.
Front desk	Who can run the front desk? (default: managers and above), plus anyone holding the Guest Pass “Contributor — records only” grant	The Dashboard, the Visitors lists (All Visitors, Expected Today, Checked In), Import Visitors, the Check-In Scanner link, registering visitors for any host, and checking visitors in and out.
Approver	Who can approve a visitor? (default: managers and above)	Pending Approval — approve or decline any pending visit. When Let hosts approve their own visitors is on, a visit’s own host can also approve or decline that visit, from the email link, their Inbox, or the visit page.
Managers	Managers and above, plus Guest Pass app admins (fixed)	The Dashboard (even outside the front desk), the Security Dashboard, Reports and Analytics, the Check-In Scanner link, and cancelling anyone’s pending or approved visit.
Security records	Who can open the security records? (default: admins and Guest Pass app admins)	Real-Time Status, Access Logs, Digital Badges, the Watchlist, the Security Audit report, and editing any visit at any status.
Settings	Admins and Guest Pass app admins (fixed)	Settings, Reset to Defaults, and sample data.

An employee with only basic access sees My Visitors and Host Preferences. They can pre-register visitors they host themselves but cannot open the org-wide front-desk board.

4. Running it

Approving visitors

1. Go to Guest Pass → Visitors → Pending Approval (an approver who does not run the front desk sees Pending Approval on its own in the menu).
2. Review the visitor’s details, purpose, and host.
3. Click Approve or Decline (with an optional reason, which is emailed to the visitor).

On approval, the system generates a digital badge and emails the visitor a link to it and a calendar invite. On decline, the visitor receives a declined notice. Where hosts approve by email, a host decides their own visitor from the one-tap link, their Inbox, or the visit’s page.

Checking visitors in and out

The front desk checks visitors in and out from the Visitors lists or the visitor’s detail page: Check In records the arrival time and tells the host (when arrival notices are on), and Check Out records the departure time and deactivates the badge. At an unattended kiosk running the Check-In Scanner, visitors scan their badge QR to self check in.

Bulk pre-registration

Go to Guest Pass → Visitors → Import Visitors to upload a CSV or paste rows. Each row creates a visit under the same rule as a visit an employee registers: it starts Pending and waits for a decision unless auto-approval applies.

Managing the watchlist

Go to Guest Pass → Security → Watchlist (security-records access; visible when the watchlist is enabled). Add entries with a name, risk level, reason, and optional email, phone, or expiry. Entries can be resolved, deactivated, or made permanent. Active entries are checked automatically at approval and check-in.

Running reports

Go to Guest Pass → Reports → All Reports (managers and above). Four reports are available, each downloadable as CSV or PDF; the Security Audit report needs security-records access:

• Visitor Summary — visitor volume and trends
• Security Audit — security events and compliance trail
• Host Activity — host engagement and approval activity
• Badge Usage — badge issuance and scan activity

Reviewing the access log

Go to Guest Pass → Security → Access Logs (security-records access). Every visitor action (registration, approval, check-in, check-out, badge scan, watchlist match) is logged with a timestamp, the acting user, and success/failure status. Failed access attempts and watchlist matches are flagged as security events and appear in the Security Dashboard.

Using the Security Dashboard

Go to Guest Pass → Security → Security Dashboard (managers and above). The dashboard shows recorded activity, failed activity (all time and today), the visitors currently flagged for security review, and recent security alerts. To see who is on site right now — during an evacuation or a security incident — go to Guest Pass → Security → Real-Time Status (security-records access).

Analytics

Go to Guest Pass → Reports → Analytics (managers and above). Visitor volume trends, popular visit times, host activity summaries, badge usage statistics, and a compliance score are available for 7-day, 30-day, or 90-day windows.

5. Settings

Settings are at Guest Pass → Settings (admins and Guest Pass app admins).

Setting	Default	What it changes
Enable Guest Pass Agent	On	Whether people can use the Guest Pass Agent in Ask AI to register visitors, check them in and out, and look up visits.
Auto-Approve Visitors	Off	When on, a visit an employee registers is approved at once and its badge issued — unless it matches the watchlist. While Let hosts approve their own visitors is on, it applies only to visits a host registers for themselves. Guests who self-register always wait for a decision.
Enable Guest Self-Registration	Off	When on, opens a public registration page where guests enter their own details and pick their host, and shows its two links (for a guest’s own device, and for a lobby kiosk).
QR Code Badges	On	Whether visitor digital badges carry a QR code.
Badge Expiry (Hours)	24	How many hours a digital badge keeps working after the visit’s expected departure. A badge always covers its own visit, however far ahead it was approved.
Include Visitor Photo	On	Whether the visitor’s photo is shown on their digital badge, the printable badge and the lobby check-in screen. Photos are optional.
Notify on Visitor Arrival	On	Whether the host is told when their visitor checks in. Each host can still turn this off for themselves in Host Preferences.
Notify on Visitor Departure	On	Whether the host is told when their visitor checks out.
Send Visitor Welcome Email	On	Whether the visitor gets a welcome email when they check in.
Send Visitor Thank-You Email	On	Whether the visitor gets a thank-you email when they check out.
Who can run the front desk?	Managers and above	Who sees every visit, registers visitors for any host, imports visitors, and checks visitors in and out. People holding the Guest Pass “Contributor — records only” grant are included automatically.
Who can approve a visitor?	Managers and above	Who works Pending Approval and can approve or decline any pending visit.
Who can open the security records?	Admins and Guest Pass app admins	Who opens the watchlist, access logs, digital badges, Real-Time Status and the Security Audit report, and can edit any visit. It does not include Settings.
Let hosts approve their own visitors	On	Whether each pending visit’s host is asked to decide it, with one-tap approve / decline links, an Inbox ask, and the buttons on the visit’s page. Approvers can always decide in the app. While on, Auto-Approve Visitors applies only to visits a host registers for themselves. It does not decide whether visitors need approval — Auto-Approve Visitors does.
Data Retention (Days)	365	How long visitor records (and their badges, photos, and access logs) are kept before the nightly retention job purges them.
Enable Visitor Watchlist	On	Whether visitors are screened against the watchlist at approval and check-in.
Email Security Alerts	On	Whether security alerts (denied access, watchlist hits, overdue check-outs) are emailed to the security team.
SMS for Critical Alerts	Off	Whether critical security alerts are also sent by SMS.
In-App Security Alerts	On	Whether the security team also gets security alerts in-app and by push.
Notify the Host’s Manager	On	Whether the visitor’s host’s manager is also alerted (not every manager in the business).
Alert Security on Overdue Check-Out	On	Whether the security team is alerted when a visitor stays past their expected departure. Off, only the host is told.
Security team (who handles security alerts)	None	The group that receives security alerts, alongside the visitor’s host. With none selected they go to Guest Pass app admins — and if nobody holds that role, to every admin in the business.

6. More help

• Guest Pass FAQ — specific setup, operating, and troubleshooting questions.
• Ask AI — the Guest Pass Agent can register a visitor, look up visits, approve or decline the ones you may decide, check visitors in or out if you run the front desk, and answer questions about Guest Pass from these articles.