Kiosk check-in
What a visitor sees on the kiosk, screen by screen, from the welcome screen to their badge, and how to set up each step.
Agoo is in early access. This page describes the feature as it ships to early-access organisations; screens are illustrative.
The kiosk is designed for someone who may be standing, in a hurry, and using it for the first time. It asks one question per screen, in large type, with big buttons. A typical walk-in finishes in under a minute; a visitor with a pass, faster still.
Agoo Kiosk, for iPad and iPhone and for Android tablets and phones, works the same with or without a network: it keeps a copy of what it needs (your hosts, the teams visitors may choose, visitor types, forms, documents and passes) and saves each check-in on the device first, then sends it in order when it can. The Android app has the same screens as the iPad and iPhone one. A short animated intro welcomes whoever sets the kiosk up, the first time it opens.
A front-desk computer can be a kiosk too, in its web browser: the same check-in, passes, check-out and feedback, with a steady connection and without the apps' extras. See Set up a kiosk on a computer.
The visitor's journey
Welcome
The welcome screen greets visitors with your logo, colours and welcome message ("Welcome to Volta Bank.") and offers these choices:
| Button | For |
|---|---|
| Check in | Walk-ins visiting someone today |
| I have an invite | Invited guests: scan the QR pass from their phone |
| Delivery | Couriers and food riders log a parcel and the recipient is told; recipients collect with their code. See Deliveries |
| Staff clock-in | Employees clocking in by staff QR badge, PIN or card (face clock-in is planned) |
| Check out | Visitors leaving: optional, for kiosks near the exit |
| Tell us how we did | A feedback stand: anyone can rate their visit (Leave feedback in the Console) |
You choose which buttons appear, per kiosk, in Console → Devices → (device) or from Manage in the Workspace app. When reception is closed, close the kiosk for now: instead of the buttons, it says Closed for now, with your note, and sends visitors to reception. Help tells visitors to ask at reception or the security desk, and leads staff to the device menu.
Visitors with a pass skip most of the steps below: Agoo already knows who they are and whom they're seeing.
Tell us about you
The visitor enters their name, their company if they have one, and, if they like, their phone number (a local number such as 024 123 4567 is fine). With a phone number, Agoo recognises a returning visitor and keeps their visits together, and can text them when their host is ready.
Then, under What brings you in?, they choose why they're here (their visitor type: Meeting, Interview, Delivery, or a type you've added such as Parent pickup), from tiles that each show the type's icon and name. With only one visitor type turned on, the kiosk doesn't ask.
Who are you here to see?
The kiosk asks this once it knows the visitor type, because each type has its own rules for the question. Owners and Admins set them in Console → Settings → Forms → (visitor type), in the Who are you here to see? panel (see What visitors are asked).
| The type's rule | At the kiosk |
|---|---|
| Always | The visitor says who, from what the type offers, before they go on. |
| They can skip it | The visitor says who, or chooses No one in particular. |
| Never | The step is skipped. Reception receives the visitor, or the person or team the type names. |
What the visitor may answer is what the type offers:
- One person. They type three letters of a name and tap the right one, and the kiosk moves on. Each result shows the person's job title and department ("Kwame Mensah · Head of Treasury · Finance"), so visitors pick the right Kwame. Search also matches departments, so "Finance" finds everyone there.
- Several people. After the first name they add another, up to five. Each name shows on the screen and can be taken off again, and the first person named leads the visit.
- A team. The teams you've marked for visitors at this site, to tap: Admissions, Accounts, Treasury.
- No one in particular. For someone without an appointment, or who isn't sure who to ask for. Reception receives them, or the person or team the type names.
A type nobody has changed asks for one person, as the kiosk always did.
Only people at this site with Receives visitors turned on appear, without anyone you've left out of the visitors' search, and never as a list: names show only once three letters are typed. If the visitor can't find their host, the kiosk asks them to see reception.
The question works with no connection, like the rest of the check-in. A walk-in for someone whose visitors go through their office waits with their office, and the kiosk never tells the visitor why they wait: see Who a visit is for.
Your questions
The visitor answers the visitor type's questions, one per screen, from the form you build in Console → Settings → Forms. Questions you've marked for certain sites, or to show only after a particular answer, appear only then. Keep it short: name, phone and company are often enough. See Forms and fields.
Your privacy notice is shown in full, and the visitor confirms they've read it with a tick.
Photo and ID
Each site decides whether the kiosk photographs its visitors, in Console → Settings → Sites → (site) → Check-in rules → Visitor photo at the kiosk: not at all (the default), offered (the visitor can skip it) or always. The kiosk takes it with the front camera (Switch camera turns to the back one), inside an arch-shaped frame with a short countdown, and the visitor can take another before using it. A form can also ask for a photo of something else, such as the work area, or a document such as a permit, which the kiosk scans and straightens.
ID is asked for by the visitor types that need it: add an ID document question to their form and choose how the kiosk takes it. The visitor first chooses their ID ("Which ID do you have?", Ghana Card first).
A Ghana Card is never photographed. With Scan, the kiosk reads its number from the card's machine-readable lines on the device and lets the picture go at once: nothing of it is saved, uploaded or kept offline. With the other options, or if the visitor taps Type it instead, they type the number on a large keypad (GHA, then nine digits and one more) and check it when the kiosk shows it back ("Is this right?"). Nobody compares the card with the visitor.
| Option | What happens | Available |
|---|---|---|
| No ID question | No ID is asked for. | Now |
| Typed | The visitor chooses the ID type and types the number. | Now |
| Photo | The kiosk photographs a passport or another ID, then the visitor types its number; a Ghana Card's number is typed. | Now |
| Scan | The visitor holds a Ghana Card or a passport's photo page up to the camera and the kiosk reads its number from the machine-readable lines, on the device, even offline. For a passport it keeps a photo of the page; for a Ghana Card it keeps no picture at all. Every check digit must agree, so a misread is never accepted; the visitor can type the number instead. Other IDs are photographed, then typed. | Now |
| AI scan | For IDs without machine-readable lines, such as a driver's licence, Agoo AI reads the printed number (Pro and Enterprise). Never a Ghana Card. | Planned |
Agoo records the ID the visitor gives; it doesn't check who they are. ID numbers are sealed: screens, reports and exports show only the type and last four characters, such as "Ghana Card ending 4567". The full number is encrypted on its own, and Agoo keeps a one-way fingerprint of it so it can still be matched against your watchlist. Owners, Admins and Security leads can see a full number on the visit's page when they need it: they give a reason, and every look is recorded in the audit trail. The API, integrations and exports never get it. ID photos open only for Owners, Admins and Security leads, each opening recorded, and are deleted automatically after 1 day, or on the schedule you set in Console → Settings → Data & privacy (30 days at most). See ID documents.
Sign (Pro and Enterprise)
If the visitor type needs an NDA, waiver or site rules, the document appears in full; the visitor types their full name and signs with their finger. Electronic signatures are valid under Ghana's Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772). Agoo keeps the document's version and a fingerprint of its wording with the visit, with their name, signature, the time and the kiosk, and the visitor can get a PDF copy. Anything they already signed on their pass isn't asked again.
You choose when people sign again: every visit, after a number of days (such as once a year), or only when the document changes. NDAs, waivers and site rules are part of Pro and Enterprise; your privacy notice is accepted with a tick on every plan. See Documents to sign.
You're checked in
The kiosk confirms ("You're checked in, Ama.") and says who the visit is for, in the words a pass uses: the host's name, or the names of several, "Here for Treasury" for a team, or "Ask at reception" for no one in particular. At the same moment:
- the host is notified by push, WhatsApp, SMS or email, in your chosen order. When the visit is for several people or a team, each of them is told, and a visitor with no one in particular to see is announced to reception, or to the person or team the visitor type names;
- the badge prints, if the gate has a badge printer (Growth and above; badge printing is planned), showing the visitor's photo, name, company, host, validity and a QR code for check-out;
- the visit appears in the live register in Console → Visitors → On site;
- if you share your guest Wi-Fi with this visitor, the screen shows a code their phone's camera joins with in one scan, with the network's name and its password (unless you show the code only), for 30 seconds. The kiosk apps show it offline too.
If the host must approve first, the kiosk says the host has been told and asks the visitor to take a seat. Once badge printing arrives, the badge will print when the host approves. See Host approvals.
A visitor for a team, or with no one in particular to see, is asked to take a seat in the same way until someone takes them. Where the visitor type follows the site's walk-in rule and the site lets walk-ins straight in, such as an event's guests, they're told they're checked in instead. The kiosk never says who has been asked, what they answered or why the visitor waits. Reception works on them from Needs someone.
If the visitor matches your watchlist (Growth and above), the kiosk shows only a neutral "Please take a seat. Someone from reception will be with you shortly.": no welcome, the host isn't named or told, and nothing says why. Reception and security are alerted. The kiosk screens walk-ins, expected visitors and passes this way even when it's offline.
After a minute or so without a tap, the kiosk asks "Still there?" and, if nobody answers, clears the screen and returns to the welcome screen, so the next visitor never sees the last one's details.
Checking in with a pass
Invited guests tap I have an invite and hold their phone's QR code to the camera. Passes are signed, so the kiosk checks them itself, even when it's offline, against your organisation's pass key, the passes cancelled at this site, and the pass's days, hours and gates. It then asks only for any document the visit still needs and checks them in, and says who the visit is for: a name, "Here for" a team, or "Ask at reception". A pass that's expired, cancelled, outside its daily hours, already used or for a different entrance is refused with a polite message saying why and to see reception. A visitor on a multi-day pass scans the same pass each day.
No QR code to hand? The visitor can find their invitation by name instead. To keep today's guest list private, the kiosk shows nothing until they've typed at least three letters, and then only first names and an initial.
Checking out
Visitors leaving tap Check out, type the first letters of their name and confirm. As with invitations, the kiosk shows only first names and an initial. They're checked out at the time they tapped, even offline, and the kiosk thanks them for visiting. If the kiosk has a feedback survey, it asks it straight away, one question per screen; everything after the rating can be skipped, and the follow-up message for that visit isn't sent. See Ask visitors for feedback.
Staff clock-in and the feedback stand
The same kiosk can serve your staff and ask for feedback, when you turn those buttons on:
- Staff clock-in: employees show their staff QR badge to the camera, hold their card to an iPhone kiosk or an Android kiosk with NFC, or find their name and type their PIN. The kiosk greets them, offers Clock in or Clock out and records the time, even offline. See Clock-in methods.
- Tell us how we did: anyone can answer your survey at the kiosk, with no visit. Answers are anonymous and reported apart.
In guard mode
A guard signs in on the device first, with their name and their own PIN or their phone's badge (see Signing in at the gate). Their device then offers Scan a pass, Quick check-in (the same check-in, for someone at the gate), Expected today (everyone due today, to check in by name) and Check out, with full names, as it's in staff hands. On a phone, the guard scans the visitor's pass with the back camera, unless you've chosen another in Which camera it scans with; Switch camera changes it on the spot.
When the network is down
Everything above works offline: the kiosk has your hosts, the teams visitors may choose, visitor types and their rules, forms, documents, passes and today's visits from its last sync, and saves each check-in, signature, check-out, clock-in and feedback answer on the device with the time it happened. It screens check-ins against your watchlist offline too. Photos and documents wait on the device too. When the connection returns, they upload first, then everything is sent in order, and Agoo applies each action exactly once. The status at the top of the screen says Offline: still working, then Syncing. If Agoo can't accept something (a visit that was cancelled meanwhile, for example), the kiosk lists it in its device menu for reception to sort out. See Offline mode.
A kiosk in a computer's browser is the exception: it works online only. With no connection it says Please see reception and comes back by itself when the network does.
Designing a good kiosk flow
- Ask less. Each extra question adds seconds to every visit, and a queue at 8:30 am.
- Use visitor types. Interviews, deliveries and contractors need different things; give each its own short form instead of one long one.
- Collect ID only where your policy needs it. Banks and government sites may; most offices don't. Less data held means less to protect.
- Photograph visitors only if you need to. Offer it, rather than require it, unless your security policy calls for a photo of everyone.
- Test on the device. Stand at the kiosk and check in as a visitor, with a phone in your other hand.