A while ago, I created this visitor check-in form, and I figured it may come handy to other community members. The scenario is an hypothetical co-working space / startup incubator featuring a touch screen at their front desk for users to self check-in.
As a visitor, you are prompted to register with your first / last name and email. Then you can select your hosting startup and notify them of your arrival.
As you type the name of the startup, a filtered list of companies appears. Select the desired one to complete the check-in.
How the filtering works
The progressive filtering of the company names happens as a results of a text is updated trigger in the startup text input field. After each letter is pressed, the new text is being processed by a separate Excel sheet which determines the length of the string. This value feeds another formula in a separate column of the company database, which will be used by Intuiface to populate the filtered asset grid collection.
Real time communications
Using a communication service like Twilio APIs, it’s possible to generate SMS notifications to specific persons / phone numbers associated to each startup. This can be particularly handy, since a self-service kiosk shouldn’t require a real person to call your host and let them know you arrived.
There may be an easier way to accomplish the same results, but that’s what I came up with
In the meantime, feel free to download the XP here (10MB).
@Alex thanks for the pointer. Your approach is much simpler than mine, and it returns any item that contains the string being typed. This may be the best solution for most cases. My example focused on filtering items which name started with the string being typed. Maybe an edge use case. Thanks!
Awesome stuff.
I was looking at doing similar for work but for deliveries, and built the initial concept in MS Powerapps. Given we are using Intuiface for our main reception, I have started to think about
which would entail checking against an excel document from OneDive, or against a SharePoint list… the Delivery person could simply type in a Name, and their Block number… and do a sign/drop off, or even better, scan using OCR Detect text in images  | Cloud Vision API  | Google Cloud.
Great work as usual tosolini, very inspiring mate, and great suggestion Alex.
Thanks @Ryan. I like the idea of the OCR, something to explore for sure. As per OneDrive, I think if the Intuiface XP lives there, then you inherit the benefits of accessing the Excel file remotely too.
Hi @tosolini, I find your project really interesting and I wonder if some more advanced visitor management solution (like the ones offered by Proxyclick and / or Envoy) would be possible to develop using Intuiface. Would it be possible in your opinion? Thanks!
I never heard myself about Proxyclick and Envoy. Based on quick glance at their web sites, they seem pretty robust solutions with a lot of integrations with other platforms. As @seb mentions, it’d be good to know your goals, which would help figuring out if Intuiface could replace them and to what extent.
I know a web dashboard and a mobile interface is not the goal of the Intuiface solution and that those should be accomplished through some HTML programming for example, but regarding the kiosk application I was wondering if it would be possible to not only register visitors exploring an Excel file and letting the local employee know when a visitor arrives through SMS messages but to use other platforms like WhatsApp / Google Hangouts / Microsoft Teams to communicate. Also if it would be possible to take photos of visitors (or reading a QR code on the visitor’s mobile phone) and finally what other database could be used if not using a spreadsheet.
I am not expecting to have all the huge amount of integrations Proxyclick and Envoy have as in my opinion they are not strictly necessary.
Scanning a visitor’s QR Code on a phone is completely doable. We actually used this mechanism for the registration at the Intel event during ISE 2020.
How do you integrate the camera to capture QR codes with the rest of the XP? I just would like to know in which direction to point for running some tests.
We were using a barcode scanner device, not a camera, plugged in USB and appearing as a Serial Port device. I don’t remember the reference used in this particular kiosk, but I have an Elo scanner with me which works the same way. It’s all about configuring the scanner properly to be seen on a COM port.
