As 2020 begins to wind down, American citizens have learned many lessons about how to navigate their everyday lives during a pandemic; in the coming year, we will all need to continue to apply these lessons to remain safe. Chief among those lessons is our need to sacrifice the number of human interactions we have as individuals and reduce how many occupants we have in our office spaces and facilities. Companies have to make tough decisions about how many employees can occupy their workplaces and who they should be. And if that wasn’t enough, there is still the obstacle of navigating facility visitors during the COVID era.

Managing the visitors for a busy facility would be considered a daunting task during any other year; this year, it is a mission-critical process. Keeping your facility safe will mean limiting the number of people who dwell within it and knowing exactly where each person is at all times. That rule is especially important for visitors, as they may not observe the same health protocols as a facility’s employees. To effectively manage visitors, facilities will need a robust visitor tracking workflow to handle visitor requests and track all visitor movement.

What is Visitor Tracking?

Visitor tracking is defined as the process of monitoring and overseeing the activity and movement of facility guests. Any facility can use this process, but it’s particularly useful if you have to report on your facility’s visitors.

How Does Visitor Tracking Work?

Visitor management started-off as a relatively simple process in which a guest would sign into a visitor log with some basic information. Gone are the days of the standard sign-in sheet. Today, most facilities use dedicated applications for visitor tracking or implement an add-on visitor functionality to their existing in-building logistics platform. With the Intra Visitor Tracking workflow, facilities use Intra’s web portal to provide users with customized access to visitor request forms, create ID badges, and run detailed reports based on visitor duration, location, and past visiting history.

Why is Visitor Tracking Important?

There are several reasons why visitor tracking is essential; however, one is timelier than any other reason: Contact tracing. Using tracking reports, facilities who learn about an employee or former guest who tests positive can alert anyone who may have come into contact with that person – including any unlucky one-time visitors. If the person testing positive is a guest, visitor tracking provides the facility insight into who the guest was in contact with and how long they were present. You can also review other critical information about a guest’s visit, such as the locations or spaces they occupied during their stay and how many times a guest may have visited your facility. Once you’re able to understand the scope of their visit, you can begin to isolate those that may have had interaction with that visitor and disinfect affected spaces before allowing staff back into them.

How are you handling your facility’s visitors during the COVID era? Are you interested in using Intra to track guests in your facility? Let us know in the comments or email us at [email protected].