Inventry - how well does it cope with queues?

[jthompson]

Hi all

 

We've recently had a demonstration of the Inventry visitor management system, but would like to know how well it copes in the real world when sixth-formers are queueing up to scan in/out at busy times. If it's not super-speedy, I can see people not bothering to scan, or using it as an excuse for lateness, etc. Their publicity specifically mentions that it'll be nice and fast for parents evenings and the like, and the demo hardware certainly seemed speedy at each swipe, but we'd like to be as sure as we can that the system won't get laggy.

 

Those of you who've been using it, has it slowed up at all when processing lots of scans (or slowed up at all at any time, really)?

 

Thanks

[Chuckster]

There is a slight delay when signing-in.

 

For example, you sign in and it'll say "Joe Bloggs Signed in" followed beneath your name with the time. If someone tries to sign in immediately after you, then it doesn't work. You need the screen to return to normal and then the next person can sign in. The same is also true when signing out. It's annoying for some people, especially when they're racing against time to be on time, but they get used to it.

[jthompson]

Thanks. I guess it's reasonable to have to have at least some delay designed into it to give the confirmation screen time to be read. What we're hoping to avoid is having a system that gets stuck at all, with some sort of spinning "Please wait..." with a queue of people waiting for it.

[GuyJD]

There is a slight delay when signing-in.

 

For example, you sign in and it'll say "Joe Bloggs Signed in" followed beneath your name with the time. If someone tries to sign in immediately after you, then it doesn't work. You need the screen to return to normal and then the next person can sign in. The same is also true when signing out. It's annoying for some people, especially when they're racing against time to be on time, but they get used to it.

Yep I have the same problem here, it's not much of a delay but can be frustrating.

[djrscally]

Hi all

 

We've recently had a demonstration of the Inventry visitor management system, but would like to know how well it copes in the real world when sixth-formers are queueing up to scan in/out at busy times. If it's not super-speedy, I can see people not bothering to scan, or using it as an excuse for lateness, etc. Their publicity specifically mentions that it'll be nice and fast for parents evenings and the like, and the demo hardware certainly seemed speedy at each swipe, but we'd like to be as sure as we can that the system won't get laggy.

 

Those of you who've been using it, has it slowed up at all when processing lots of scans (or slowed up at all at any time, really)?

 

Thanks

 

The only time we tend to get queues is if a couple of visitors arrive at the same time as staff. The first time visitor sign in process is obviously a bit longer (subsequent visits by the same person are faster as it remembers them), and then yes you do tend to get staff wander off instead of waiting to swipe in. We don't use it for attendance since the smaller consoles won't write back to the MIS, so it's only a problem when you get an unlucky rush. Certainly never noticed any lengthy delays in normal operation.

[BrynJones216]

There seem to be two processes which are being confused in this thread, manual sign in/out on the console and automatically using barcodes.

 

Staff, and I assume Sixth Form (we don't use ours for students), manually signing in or out on the console touchscreen takes between 10 to 30 seconds: Press Staff, Press first initial, press your name, choose reason for signing out (nothing here for signing in), a few seconds for the screen to say " signed in", etc.

 

Visitors are prompted to type their name, who they are visiting, car reg, then take a picture (5, 4, ..., click), are you happy with this?; this obviously takes longer than staff. As they type in their name, it prompts them with people who have visited before, and if they choose one, it offers them the choices from last time as a default. It always takes a new picture. Manual sign out is similar to staff, but they are offered a screen of images to choose from (the one they took on arrival), and should take less than 30 seconds, probably less than 10 if they've used it before. You can pre-fill this for visitors you know will be arriving, and skip them from picking a name on the screen to the picture step (you can skip the picture too but their badge won't have a picture on, which kind of defeats most of the point).

 

The barcode process: to sign staff in, and sign both staff and visitors out on the console is quick, staff are prompted for the reason they are leaving, and then it displays " signed out" message, probably under 5 seconds for the whole process (getting the barcode to scan is usually the longest part as people usually just push it right up in to the light, but it can only read from about 5 cm, 10 to 30 cm is better).

 

Staff, and I assume sixthform, can sign in and out on Windows CE powered QuickScan units (looks like a Motorola MK500). It just displays " signed in" or " signed out" for a few seconds (no prompt for a reason for leaving). While is is displaying the message it won't allow the next person to scan. It's just slow enough that a queue can't file past and scan through, but if you are following someone walking past, it's not usually a problem. Visitors cannot sign out this way (I asked the InVentry Support, and they say it is currently impossible to allow this).

 

Hope that helps.

Edited November 21, 2016 by BrynJones216
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[BrynJones216]

The only time we've had a problem is when someone dumped a parcel on the floor under a QuickScan unit. The parcel had a barcode on the top, and the QuickScan repeatedly scanned and re-scanned it each time displaying an invalid barcode message. For some reason it slowed the main console down to the point where the reception staff called us to say it wasn't working. Removing the barcode from the view of the scanner solved the problem.