Book the visit
In the admin app, enter the visitor, host, site, date, time and purpose. Add up to 20 more people with the same details under "Others coming with them". Each person gets their own QR pass, shown on screen to print or share.
Feature
Visitor pre-registration with emailed QR passes.
Pre-registration tells reception who is coming before they arrive. You book the visit, the visitor gets a QR pass by email, and they can sign your NDA, answer your safety questions and finish their induction from that pass at home. At the door, checking in is a scan. It suits offices with planned meetings, sites that host regular contractors or suppliers, and anyone who wants screening and approvals settled before the visitor is in the lobby.
How it works
From booking to arrival, step by step.
Email the pass
Tick "Email the visitor their check-in link" and the visitor gets their pass by email. It is off by default for each booking, so you decide who gets an email.
Visitor prepares
From the pass, the visitor answers your sign-in questions, signs your agreement and completes the induction set for their visitor type, before the day of the visit.
Reminder
Expected visitors are emailed a reminder with their pass 1 day before by default. You can change it to 2 hours, 2 days or 3 days before, or turn it off.
Arrival
The visitor scans their pass at the kiosk with "Scan your pass", or reception checks them in by hand. The host is notified. A visit whose day passes with no arrival is marked No-show.
Phone check-in (optional)
If your workspace allows it, visitors can check in from the pass on their own phone. This is off by default; without it, the pass is shown or scanned at reception.
You can edit or cancel an expected visit at any time. Returning visitors can be picked from Recent visitors, or found by email, and their details are filled in along with whether their agreement is still on file.
Screening and approvals
Problems found before the visitor travels.
- Screened when booked. Each person's name and company is checked against the OFAC SDN List, the US Consolidated Screening List, the UN Security Council Consolidated List, the EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List, the UK Sanctions List and your own watchlist. A strong match can only be booked with a written override reason, which is recorded.
- Screened again at check-in. Scanning the pass runs the check again, and a strong match is refused at the kiosk whatever happened at booking.
- Re-screened while they wait. Turn on re-screening and upcoming visits are checked again after the lists refresh each day. You can also press "Re-screen now". A new match raises a Security alert.
- Approvals by email, Teams or Slack. If an answer on the pass needs approval, the visit is held and the host is emailed, and your Teams or Slack channel gets a post, with Approve and Deny buttons that work for 12 hours. The visitor sees that their host has been asked. Sanctions and watchlist holds can only be cleared by an admin in Approvals, and overrides need a reason.
- Questions belong on the pass. Sign-in questions are not asked when a pass is scanned at the kiosk. If you rely on a question, such as a safety declaration, email the pass so the visitor answers it before arrival.
More on the lists, scores and audit log: sanctions screening.
Repeat, multi-day and group visits
For the cleaner every Tuesday and the 40-person training day.
- Repeating visits. Set a visit to repeat every weekday, weekly or every two weeks, with an end date up to six months away (at most 60 visits). Each visit gets its own pass: the first is emailed straight away and each later one the day before. You can cancel one visit, or that visit and every later one.
- Multi-day pass. Instead of repeating, give the visit a "Valid until" date and one pass lets the person check in and out each day until then. A visit can repeat or be multi-day, not both.
- Group pre-registration. Upload a CSV or TSV file, or paste rows straight from Excel, for up to 200 people at a time. A header row is optional (Name, First name, Last name, Email, Company, Phone, in any order), and an email is only needed if you want to send an invite. Everyone shares the host, site, date and purpose you choose, and a group can also repeat.
- Groups are screened one by one. Anyone with a strong watchlist or sanctions match is skipped and listed, so you can book them separately with an override reason if that is right. The host gets one summary email, and invites go out in a paced queue rather than all at once.
Calendar pre-registration
Microsoft 365 meetings become expected visitors.
When a host invites an outside guest to a meeting they organize in Outlook, BeckonDesk expects that guest at the meeting time and emails them their pass. Nobody has to book the visit twice.
- Built in, read every hour. BeckonDesk reads your synced hosts' calendars every hour, 14 days ahead, for up to 500 hosts. "Sync now" reads them straight away, and the settings page shows when calendars were last read and anything that went wrong.
- External attendees only. A guest is anyone outside your company domains (or, if you list none, outside your hosts' email domains). Colleagues in the meeting are ignored. A meeting with several of your hosts is registered once, under the organizer.
- Follows changes. A meeting that moves moves its visitors. A canceled meeting, or a guest taken off the invite, cancels their visit if they have not arrived.
- What it needs. Microsoft Entra directory sync must be set up, because calendars are read with the same app registration. Give that app the Calendars.Read application permission with admin consent, then choose the default site and visitor type for calendar guests.
- Screening. Calendar visitors are not screened when the meeting is read. They are screened when they check in, like everyone else, and by re-screening if you have it on.
Google Workspace and other calendars
There is no built-in Google Calendar connection. Instead, BeckonDesk has a calendar API: your own flow, for example in Google Apps Script or Power Automate, posts a meeting (organizer email, subject, start time and attendees) to POST /api/v1/calendar/events with an API key. Attendees outside your company domains become expected visitors at the default site, and someone already expected that day is skipped. You build and run the flow. The API creates visits only; it does not follow later moves or cancellations, so change those in BeckonDesk.
The details
Limits and settings at a glance.
| Topic | How it works |
|---|---|
| Guests per booking | The visitor plus up to 20 others with the same details. Groups of up to 200 by CSV or paste. |
| Repeats | Every weekday, weekly or every two weeks; up to six months and 60 visits. |
| Multi-day | One pass, valid for check-in and check-out each day until the "Valid until" date. |
| Invite email | Off by default per booking. Contains a link to the pass; no .ics calendar file. The wording can be rewritten in the email template editor. |
| Reminders | 1 day before by default; 2 hours, 2 days, 3 days or off. |
| Before arrival | Sign-in questions, agreement signature and the visitor type's induction, all on the pass. |
| Calendars | Microsoft 365 built in (hourly, 14 days ahead, up to 500 hosts, needs Calendars.Read). Google and others through the calendar API and a flow you build. |
| Approvals | One approver: the host, by email or a Teams or Slack channel post (12-hour link), or your team in Approvals. No multi-step approval chains. |
| Price | Included in the single plan at $79 per location per month, and in the 30-day free trial. See pricing. |
Frequently asked
Does BeckonDesk work with Google Calendar?
Not directly. There is no built-in Google Calendar connection. You can build your own flow, for example in Google Apps Script, that posts meetings to BeckonDesk's calendar API with an API key, and outside attendees become pre-registered visitors. Microsoft 365 calendars are read natively.
What does the Microsoft 365 calendar connection need?
Microsoft Entra directory sync must be set up first, because calendars are read with the same app registration. In Entra, give that app the Calendars.Read application permission and grant admin consent, then turn calendar pre-registration on and choose the default site and visitor type for calendar guests.
Can visitors check themselves in from their phone?
Only if your workspace allows it, and it is off by default. Otherwise the visitor shows or scans their pass at the reception kiosk. Either way, they can sign your agreement, answer your sign-in questions and complete their induction on the pass before they arrive.
Does the invite include a calendar attachment?
No. The invite email has the visit details and a link to the visitor's pass. There is no .ics file.
Are pre-registered visitors screened against sanctions lists?
Yes. Each person is screened when the visit is created, and a strong match can only be booked with a written override reason. They are screened again at check-in, where a strong match is refused. Visitors created from Microsoft 365 calendars are screened at check-in. With re-screening turned on, upcoming visits are checked again after the lists refresh.
Send yourself a pass and scan it.
Start a 30-day trial with every feature and no card, pre-register yourself, and check in on a tablet. Or book a demo and we will show the pass, the pre-arrival steps and the Microsoft 365 calendar setup.