Reception: Approve Walk-in Visitors

Approve walk-in visitors at reception

Open Reception from the admin navigation. Everything waiting on a decision is in one queue.

What arrives in your queue

Three kinds of request, and it is worth knowing which is which because they need different judgement.

Escalated from a host. A visitor named an employee, that employee did not respond within the timeout, and the request came to you. You can see who was asked and when. Usually the right move is to call or message the employee, because they may simply be in a meeting.

No named host. The visitor did not know who they needed to see, so the guard sent it to you. A sales caller, an interview candidate with only an HR email address, a vendor who is not sure which department raised the order. These need you to work out who the right person is.

Company delivery. A parcel addressed to the company rather than a named employee. You take custody and get a pickup code.

Approve or deny a request

1. Open the request. It shows the visitor's name, phone, purpose, photo if the guard captured one, and who was asked if it was escalated.
2. Choose Approve to admit, or Deny to turn away.
3. The guard sees your decision on the booth tablet immediately and admits or refuses on that basis.

Your decision is recorded against your name in the audit log and cannot be edited afterwards. This is deliberate: when the question later is who authorised an entry, there needs to be an answer.

Handle a visitor with no named host

There is no rule that fits every case, but this order works:

1. Ask the guard to get the purpose in the visitor's own words. "Meeting about the AMC renewal" is actionable. "Meeting" is not.
2. Search the employee directory by department if the visitor knows one. The directory shows department and designation, which is usually enough.
3. If it is a scheduled interview, the candidate almost always has an email from someone in HR. Route it there.
4. If it is an unscheduled sales call, decide by your own policy. Many offices deny these by default, and there is no reason to be apologetic about it.
5. If the visitor cannot say who or why, deny. A visitor who cannot state their purpose is exactly the case the process exists for.

Take a request that a host has not answered

When a request escalates to you, the employee was already asked and did not respond. Before approving on their behalf:

• Check whether the visitor was expected. If the employee had pre-approved them, there would be a pass, so an escalation usually means this was unplanned for the host too.
• Try the employee directly if you can. A thirty-second call avoids admitting somebody the host did not want to see.
• If you cannot reach them and the visitor is plainly legitimate, approving and telling the employee is reasonable. If there is any doubt, deny and ask the visitor to arrange a time.

Do not leave requests sitting. A visitor standing at a desk with no decision is the failure the timeout was meant to prevent.

Hand over a parcel

1. Open the parcel in the reception queue. It carries a pickup code.
2. When the employee collects it, check the code matches.
3. Select Mark collected.

The handover is recorded. If a parcel goes missing later, there is a record of whether it was ever collected and when.

Blocked visitors

If a visitor is on the blacklist, the guard sees a warning at the desk before anything reaches you. You can still approve if the block was a mistake, and the override is recorded.

Use the blacklist for people who should not be admitted again, not as a note-keeping tool. It shows a warning to a guard who may not know the background, so the entry should be one you would stand behind.

When the queue is not being watched

Reception is not always staffed. Requests escalate to all administrators, so somebody sees them, but that is a fallback rather than a plan.

If your front desk is regularly unstaffed, either increase the host timeout so employees get a longer chance to answer, or agree who covers the queue at those times. A queue nobody is watching is the same problem as a phone nobody answers.

Frequently asked questions

Can I approve a visitor for an employee who has not responded? Yes, that is what escalation is for. Try to reach the employee first, and deny if there is doubt.

What if I approve somebody by mistake? Tell the guard immediately, because the visitor may already have been admitted. The approval itself cannot be edited afterwards, by design. Deny any subsequent request and use the blacklist if the person should not return.

Does the visitor see that their request was denied? The guard sees the decision and tells the visitor. Plinth does not message the visitor directly.

Can I see who is inside the building right now? Yes. The gate view has a currently-inside list based on entries without a matching exit.

Do I need to be an administrator to work the reception queue? Today, yes. Approving visitors requires the admin role, which also allows changing settings and editing the roster. A narrower reception-only role is on our roadmap.

What happens to visitor records over time? Visitor data is purged automatically after the retention window. It is not kept indefinitely.

Related: Set up office visitor management · Employee: pre-approve a visitor · Visitor data privacy rules