Welcome to The Receptionist! 🎉 We know that any new system can be challenging, so we've compiled some resources and training materials designed to get you started. You can sign up for a free 14-day trial to test the features as you follow along!

Once logged in, you can follow the guide below or click here to launch an interactive onboarding checklist to walk through these steps and much more! Have questions as you peruse? Hit that orange chat button in the bottom right corner to livechat with a team member; we can help!

The Receptionist is a tool you'll use and customize in two places. There's the iPad app, which can be downloaded and, in the case of software updates, updated from the iPad's App Store. This app is what visitors will use to sign in!

The web portal, however, is where the real magic happens. You can access the web portal at https://app.thereceptionist.com, and this is where you manage your account, from the way your iPad displays to the questions visitors answer to the employees visitors can come to see.

This article will focus on the web portal and assist you with setting up the check-in flow of your dreams. If you're looking for assistance physically setting up a new iPad, check here!

Once you've logged into your account on a computer, the web portal is where you can view your visitors, change how your iPad is configured, choose billing plans, and much more. Almost all of your account settings are handled here; you'll be managing your account from the web portal on a computer, not from your iPad.

Different Users have different access levels, but the first User on a new account will automatically be an Account Owner, who has full access to everything the web portal offers.

You can view your Visit Log here, and it's the first page you'll see when you log in. This page tracks who has used your system to check in/out. What information displays on your Visit Log will depend on your check-in flow, but you can always view visitor names and their check-in dates.

You can also export the Visit Log, either manually or automatically. Automatic Visit Log exports can occur daily, weekly, or monthly. This is a great way to keep a record of the log and share check-ins with others. This article will walk you through exporting your visitor log.

Account and Location Owner Users have a great deal of control over how The Receptionist will look on your iPad and the check-in flow your visitors will experience.

Home Screen

The home screen is the first screen visitors will see when they walk in! Most people start by customizing the home screen to match their company's branding. Once visitors have passed the home screen, they'll be brought to the Buttons screen. If you've got a particular vision in mind and need assistance to make it a reality, let us know and we can help!

Buttons

You can have up to 6 active buttons at a time. Buttons are how visitors, employees, delivery people, or other types of visitor check-ins!

Buttons come in all sorts: check-in buttons, delivery buttons, and more! For example, you may need a button for walk-in visitors, another for appointments, and another for delivery drivers. This article explains the types of buttons and how to tailor them to the visitors you expect to see.

Most buttons can have Visitor Fields, which are questions you can ask incoming visitors. These can be anything from the visitor's name to their temperature; it's truly customizable. Based on your preferences, fields can be set as required or skippable. This article explains more about Visitor Fields.

You can also enable some buttons to print badges for visitors to wear once they check in; this article explains how to configure your badge layout.

Contacts are people, usually employees, who can be notified when a visitor checks in using one of the buttons you've set up. In addition, if your employees will be using The Receptionist to clock employees in and out, those employees will need to be Contacts.

Depending on their preferences, Contacts can be notified via email, text message, Slack, and/or MS Teams when visitors check in to see them! You can determine how a contact will be notified via Messaging Rules and even set backup notifications, so if one Contact is unavailable, someone else will be notified about a visitor instead.

If you have additional Contacts to add, you can add them manually one at a time or via a CSV import. This article walks you through how to add Contacts.

Unlike Contacts, who are notified when a visitor checks in, Users are administrators with the ability to monitor the visit log, configure your account, or change billing. If you've just made an account, you, too, are a User!

You may need to add new Users to the account if you want to allow others to view the visit log or make changes; this article shows you how.

Account Owners can go here to change their plan, update credit card information, and more.