Invite a visitor while booking a room
Register external meeting attendees as visitors directly from the room booking form, set their visiting purpose, and understand when their meeting invitation and QR visitor pass arrive.
When you invite someone from outside your organization to a meeting, you can book the room and register the guest for reception check-in from the same booking form.
1. Add the external guest as an attendee
Start a room booking as usual (see Book a room, desk, or other space). In the Attendees field, type the external guest’s email address and press Enter.
Offision checks the email address against your company directory and the room’s visiting policy. Any address that does not match an existing user account in your directory—and is not on a domain excluded by Business Email Restriction on that visiting policy (such as an internal company domain in Custom restricted domains or a blocked public webmail domain)—is treated as an external attendee.
Once validated, the Invite external attendee as visitor toggle appears directly below the attendee list.
An email address with no matching directory account makes the visitor toggle appear below the attendee list.
The status dot next to the external attendee’s email address turns grey. Because a grey dot is also shown when a colleague’s calendar availability cannot be checked (see Find a meeting time that works for everyone), look for the Invite external attendee as visitor toggle to confirm the address was detected as external.
While the toggle is off, the external attendee receives only the meeting invitation and is not registered at reception.
2. Turn on Invite external attendee as visitor
Turn on Invite external attendee as visitor to register every external attendee on the booking as a building visitor. Their status dots turn purple.
After turning on the visitor toggle, external attendee status dots turn purple.
Keep two rules in mind:
- Applies to all external attendees: The toggle registers every external attendee on the booking. You cannot register one external attendee as a visitor and leave another as a meeting-only guest on the same form. To invite only specific people as visitors, leave this toggle off and use the standalone Invite a visitor form.
- Saves your last preference: Your browser remembers whether you left the toggle on or off and applies that state to your next room booking.
3. Select the visiting purpose and visit details
Turning on the visitor toggle adds visitor registration fields to the booking form:
- Visiting purpose (required): Pre-filled with your organization’s default visiting purpose. The purpose determines whether the visit requires approval and what reception collects at check-in (such as a photo or questionnaire). Change the purpose if your visit is an interview, delivery, or VIP visit rather than a standard meeting.
- Visitor vehicles: Appears if the room’s building allows visitor vehicle registration. See Collect a visitor’s vehicle plate.
- Custom visitor fields: Any additional fields attached to the selected visiting purpose.
The Visiting purpose and Visitor vehicles fields added when the visitor toggle is turned on.
Administrators configure visiting purposes in the management console:
Open Visiting purpose4. Save the booking and visit
Click Book to save both the room booking and the linked visit. The visit uses the booking’s start and end times and the meeting room’s location.
If you later move or cancel the booking, the linked visit updates or cancels automatically.
Because the booking form only asks for an email address, the visit record does not include the visitor’s full name, company name, or phone number unless you edit the visit later or use the standalone Invite a visitor form.
Emails sent to the visitor and host
An external guest invited through a room booking receives two separate emails at different times:
The guest receives the calendar meeting invitation immediately and the QR visitor pass according to your company's badge schedule.
- Meeting invitation (sent immediately): Sent as soon as you save the booking. This is a standard calendar invitation and does not include a reception QR code.
- Visitor pass (sent on your company’s badge schedule): Contains the QR code and registration code for reception check-in. If your organization sends visitor passes 1 day before the visit, a meeting booked 3 weeks in advance will send the visitor pass 3 weeks later.
Unlike the standalone visitor form, inviting a visitor through a booking does not send a separate “You have been invited to visit” email.
As the organizer, you are set as the visit host. You receive an arrival notification email as soon as your guest checks in at reception, and self-service lobby kiosks direct the guest to your booked meeting room. See What happens when a visitor checks in.
Open Visitor managementWhy the visitor toggle is missing or disabled
| Symptom | Cause and resolution |
|---|---|
| Toggle does not appear immediately after typing an email | Wait a few seconds after pressing Enter for Offision to finish checking the directory. |
| Toggle never appears | Either the email address belongs to an existing user in your directory, its domain is excluded under Business Email Restriction on the room’s visiting policy, no meeting room is selected, the room’s building is not enabled for visitors, or staff visitor invitations are disabled. |
| Toggle is on, but one external guest is not registered as a visitor | Your organization’s visiting policy excludes that guest’s domain under Business Email Restriction (for example, an internal company domain in Custom restricted domains or a blocked public webmail domain). Excluded domains are skipped for visitor registration without blocking the room booking. |
| Toggle is on, but Book is disabled | Visiting purpose is required. If your organization has not set a default purpose, select one manually. |
Comparing booking invitations and the standalone invite form
| Method | Best for | Key differences |
|---|---|---|
| From a room booking (this guide) | Booking a meeting room and registering external attendees at the same time | Links the visit to the booking; collects email addresses only; applies to all external attendees on the booking |
| Standalone invite form | Registering visitors when you do not need a meeting room, or when you need full visitor profiles | Collects visitor name, company, phone number, and notes to visitor/reception; lets you select specific visitors |
If you need both a linked room booking and full visitor details (name, company, and phone number), book the room with the visitor toggle turned on, then open the created visit from the Visitor tab on your home page to fill in the remaining details.