Do you ever give tours of your business and want to upload your visitors to the system beforehand? What if you're hosting several VIPs in a few hours and want to print their badges before they arrive? With our Groups feature, you can do all that and more!

Groups function similarly to our Pre-Registration feature, and you'll need that feature turned on on at least one of your buttons to get started using it. Then, you can upload batches of incoming visitors for your team's internal reference and early badge printing!

Please note that, when using this feature, visitors will not interact with the iPad, and you will be unable to collect check-in information from them. If you still want visitors to check themselves in, check out our Pre-Registration feature.

First, contact the Support team using the orange chat bubble below to get this feature turned on for your account. Then start on the web portal and make sure that Pre-Registration is turned on for at least one of your Buttons. Additionally, if you plan to print badges, ensure badge printing is enabled. Once the relevant features have been turned on, you'll see a new Groups button on the left-hand side of the screen.

Selecting that page will bring you to a page displaying any incoming groups and the opportunity to upload a new Group CSV file. You can name the Group for ease of internal reference and add an estimated arrival time. Please note that if the CSV file you upload includes a different arrival time for any visitors, our system will prioritize the CSV file's arrival time over the arrival time that you enter on this page.

This page also includes a button to download an example CSV file. Use that file to add all visitors to your Group and upload it back to The Receptionist. Make sure you edit the columns in the Example CSV to match the Name Visitor Field on the corresponding Pre-Registration button. That means you'll have one "name" column if you're collecting a full name Visitor Field, or you'll have two columns for "first name" and "last name" if you're collecting first and last name in separate Visitor Fields.

Once the CSV has been uploaded, all visitors on that spreadsheet will be loaded into The Receptionist system, though they are not yet checked in.

Once you've uploaded the CSV file, you'll see the Group you just added.

Selecting the three dots to the right of the page presents links for printing badges (which will print badges for all visitors in that Group, assuming you have badge printing turned on), editing the Group (where you can update the group name and their arrival time), appending visitors (adding visitors to the Group via a CSV) and deleting the Group (which will also delete all visitor records associated with it).

Editing the Group and updating the expected arrival time will change the arrival time for all visitors in that Group.

The "Visitor Count" button on the Groups page links to the Visit Log and shows only the visits associated with that Group.

When visitors in a Group arrive at your location, you'll want to get them signed in. A User on your team can manually check visitors from the visit log. Select the orange check-in button from the visit log to move the visitor into a checked-in state.

If all visitors check in at once, you can also select the three-dot dropdown to check all members of the Group in at once. If some but not all visitors are already checked in, you can also check-in all remaining visitors from this dropdown.

This allows your visitors to bypass using the iPad, making the check-in super seamless for them. Please note that when you manually check your visitor from the log, all visitor fields will be blank for that visit. For this reason, we recommend Groups for visitors from whom you don't need much additional information.

Visitors who checked in as part of a Group can check themselves out as they leave, or a User can check them out from the web portal. To check visitors out individually, navigate to the Groups page and select the number icon of the Group you want to view. Alternatively, you can also check out all visitors at once by selecting the three-dot menu.

Account Owners and any Users not scoped to a single location can view and upload Groups for all locations. Other Users, such as Location Owners, can only view and upload Groups at their associated location.