Check in by tapping a staff card
Turn the method on, get a card number against every person, and connect the reader. One tap then does whatever the room needs, with no second screen.
A staff card is the quickest way in and out of a room: nothing to type, nothing to scan, no phone. It is also the only credential most people are already carrying, which is why it is usually the method that actually gets used.
It is also the only one that does the whole job in a single gesture. The card says who you are and the panel does whatever the room needs next, without asking a second question.
One tap. What it turns into follows the room, not a menu.
There are four things to set up, and they live on four different screens.
1. Turn on Staff Card for the organisation
Check-in methods are set once for everybody, on User identify settings. Turn on Staff Card — “Tap staff card on card scanner to validate identity”.
Open Check-in method
Staff Card, beside the methods that need a phone or a keypad.
At least one method has to stay on; the page refuses to save with none. Leaving QR code on alongside cards is worth doing anyway — it is what a visitor with no card falls back to.
2. Decide whether this panel follows the organisation
Open the panel’s configuration and go to its Check-in method page. The first switch there is Override the system user identification settings.
Leave it off and the panel uses what you just set. Turn it on and the panel’s own list replaces it, Staff Card included — which is how one lobby panel ends up accepting only cards while the rest of the building accepts everything. The booking pin is the exception: it is set once for the organisation and cannot be overridden on a single device.
Open Panel configurations
With the override on, this panel's methods replace the organisation's.
A configuration is shared by every panel assigned to it, so saving raises a confirmation listing the devices about to change. Read it before agreeing.
3. Give people a card number
A tap is only an identity if the number on the card is stored against somebody. Every person has three slots — User card 1, User card 2 and User card 3 — plus a read-only External synchronized card that a directory sync fills in. Card numbers must be unique across the whole organisation.
Everybody at once
Open Access cards and choose Import.
Open Access cards
Download what you have, fill in the numbers, upload it back.
The import is three steps and reads back what already exists, so the file you download is also the fastest way to correct a lot of records at once. Four things decide whether it behaves:
- Rows are matched on email address, not on name and not on staff ID. An address the system does not hold comes back as No match and is skipped.
- An empty card-number cell removes the card rather than leaving it alone. That is how you take a card off somebody who has handed it back.
- Duplicates are refused before anything is written. Two rows with the same number, or the same address twice, stop the import with a message naming them.
- Choose the mode first. Single card type writes one slot for everyone. All card types lets an address repeat and fills card 1, then 2, then 3 — which is what you want for people carrying more than one card.
Nothing is written until you have seen the preview marking which rows are new, which change, and which will be deleted. Delete cards not in file is off unless you turn it on, so a partial file cannot quietly wipe everyone else.
One person
The person’s own record has an Access cards page carrying the same three slots — the synced one appears under them once a directory sync has filled it. Type the number in and save the record.
Open Users
Three slots per person. Most people only ever need the first.
From your directory
Where the card number already lives in Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or an LDAP directory, point the sync at the attribute holding it with Synchronize card number options and stop maintaining it here. Synced numbers land in the read-only External synchronized card slot, which is a slot of its own — it does not overwrite a card you issued by hand. See Sync people from Microsoft 365.
4. Connect the reader
Whether a panel needs anything plugged into it depends on what the panel is.
Qbic and iAdea read the card themselves. Everything else needs a reader.
| Panel | Reads a card by | Where people tap |
|---|---|---|
| Qbic Android panels running the Offision app | Built-in NFC | The panel itself — bottom centre on a TD-1050, bottom right on a TD-1070 |
| iAdea Android panels running the Offision app | Built-in NFC, including HID Global cards | The panel itself — bottom centre on a WRP-1000 |
| Qbic and iAdea in browser mode | A USB reader | The reader |
| Crestron panels | A USB reader | The reader |
| Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, Cisco Room Navigator, desktop and browser players | A USB reader | The reader |
A USB reader needs no driver and no setting. It behaves as a keyboard: it types the card number and presses Enter, and the panel treats that as a tap. Any reader that works that way will do — which is most of them, and is worth checking on the box before you buy a hundred.
5. Let cards act on the room
The last switch is on the room’s policy: Allow access by registered user cards — “Allow user check-in, check-out and extend booking by registered user card.” It is what tells the panel that cards may act on this particular resource, and it is separate from everything above.
Open Booking policy6. Check it worked
Book the room in your own name, wait for the check-in window to open, and tap your card at the panel. The booking should check in with no further tapping and the panel should show it in use.
Then try the other two states, because they are the ones nobody tests: tap on a free room and you should get the walk-in form; tap during your own meeting and you should get the extend and check-out choice — or the door, if Card scan opens door during meeting is on for that panel.
If nothing at all happens when you tap, work through Tapping a staff card does nothing.
What this does not control
- Who may book the room. A card gets somebody into a booking they already have; it does not give them the right to make one.
- Whether attendees may use it. Only the organiser may act on a booking unless the policy says otherwise — see Checking in at the booking panel.
- Opening the door. A panel wired to a lock unlocks alongside check-in; a panel with no access hardware still checks people in perfectly well. See Connect an AXIS door lock.
- Whether check-in is required at all. That is Require check-in on the resource’s policy.