• Enroll visitors when they arrive, or pre-book visitors ahead of time and send them reminders via email of their upcoming visit
  
• Print visitor badges using a Brother label printer and scan visitor passes using any barcode scanner
  
• Alert hosts at your business via email and SMS when visitors check in
  
• Blacklist visitors and companies if you need to deny access to your facility or campus
  
• Add names to a watch list, and raise alerts if a visitor is added using a variation of that name
  
• Send automated emails to managers if visitors remain at your facility after their visitor pass expiration date and time
  
• Users of SOVA mobile can scan a visitor pass from their mobile devcie to get details about the visitor, and check the valididty of their printed pass
  

Visitor Setup Overview

• Add visitor companies
  
• Add visitor types
  
• Add visitors that frequent your business and assign equipment permissions for these visitors (if any)
  

Security Level Explained

If your facility is using both the Visitor and Equipment modules in SOVA, this information will be useful. If not, please proceed below to "Adding Companies". In SOVA we use the concept of Security Level, or "SL" for short, to define equipment permissions for visitors and other equipment users. Visitors receive a SL, set by you, when they are added to SOVA. By default, visitors are set with SL1, the lowest security level. SL is also set for each equipment item. Once the system is fully setup, a visitor would need an SL equal to or higher than the SL of the equipment that they want to checkout.

Adding Companies

1. Navigate to Visitor > Companies. 
   
2. Click the green "Add Visitor Company" button at the top right
   
3. Enter company details, like name, address, phone, and the name of the admin at the company that is your primary contact in the event of a billing question, issue with one of their employees who has visited your facility, etc.
   
4. Click the Save button and repeat the process to add other companies. You can always return to this screen at any time to add or edit companies
   

Adding Visitor Types

1. Navigate to Visitor > Visitor Types.
   
2. Enter a new visitor type in the box at the top and save
   
3. Repeat for other visitor types
   
4. In the list below, you can deactivate visitor types, or edit them by clicking the action icon (looks like a gear)
   

Adding Visitors

1. Navigate to Visitor > Add Visitor.
   
2. Enter the visitors name
   
3. Determine if the visitor should be sent a notification of their scheduled visit, and check the box if needed. Visitor notifications would typically be used when prebooking visitors, and SOVA would automatically send a prebooked visitor an email 24 hours in advance of their visit, with details of the visit
   
4. Add any information needed in the "Visitor Other Information", by clicking the plus icon to expand the drawer
   
5. If the visit is being prebooked, expand the "Prebook Visitor Information" drawer and enter the host's details, and indicate if the host should be contacted via email when the visitor arrives at the facility
   
6. Using a webcam or saved image, add a visitor image using the controls at the upper right
   
7. Select the visitor type, company, and Security Level (SL)
   
8. Indicate if the visitor requires an escort, by using the dropdown
   
9. Set the visitor status (Pre-book or New)
   
10. Set the pass issuance date and time (system will default to show the current date and time), and set the pass expiry date and time (defaults to the same time tomorrow, for a 24 hour pass). Some clients set the expiry for 30 days or longer, for vendors that frequent the business, so they do not need to print a pass for the visitor each time they visit. Other clients print durable plastic visitor badges that are used for several months
    
11. Set any equipment permissions for this visitor. You will only be able to add permissions to equipment at or below the SL of the visitor (review point 7 above in this list)
    

Below is a screen showing a visitor that was added. Note I selected an SL2 for this visitor, and gave them permission to checkout the "Flashlights" equipment type:

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