Replacing a sign-in sheet with an electronic system?

[LRSFC_DanJ]

Wasn't quite sure which forum this needed to go in, please let me know if there's a better one it should be in.

 

Currently our sports hall uses a paper sign-in sheet for students to sign in, which staff then transfer to a homegrown Access database.

 

We'd like to bring this into the 21st century. Students already have mifare cards as ID cards, so we were wondering if there's something (preferably inexpensive) which could be used for this purpose?

 

Thanks,

Dan Jackson (Senior ITServices Technician)

Long Road Sixth Form College

Cambridge, UK.

[Blue_Cookeh]

What are you trying to achieve from the sign in system? Is it specific to your sports hall?

 

We've got InVentry, which is pricey for what it is but works very well.

[LRSFC_DanJ]

What are you trying to achieve from the sign in system? Is it specific to your sports hall?

 

My understanding is it's just for the purpose of measuring utilisation of the gym area. We don't need a big expensive flashy visitor management system (we can't afford such a thing anyway) but were wondering if there's anything better than just a ramshackle Access database available.

[Blue_Cookeh]

Raspberry Pi with a MiFare reader that automatically fills in a webpage that submits to a remote MySQL database?

 

Home grown, cheap and cheerful, can do anything once it's in a database.

[LRSFC_DanJ]

Raspberry Pi with a MiFare reader that automatically fills in a webpage that submits to a remote MySQL database?

 

Home grown, cheap and cheerful, can do anything once it's in a database.

We'd definitely be open to something like that, but has anyone already written software that can do that? We unfortunately don't have any developers on our staff.

[mjk]

...can do anything once it's in a database.

 

You just gave me an idea...

I was thinking of connecting our Freeradius server up to said database. If student's don't bother to sign in, the radius can prevent them from authenticating against the wifi and content filter.

[dhicks]

Students already have mifare cards as ID cards

 

What system are the existing cards used with? That's the place to start, if you can - there'll be a database of some sort with cards matched to students. Ideally, that system would already have the sign-in feature you want (you'd think it'd be a pretty obvious feature for that sort of system), but if not then hopefully it'll have an API to let you implement the functionality yourself.

 

You are a sixth form college, and this would make a perfect A-level type project, plus you can pretty much see Raspberry Pi HQ from your building, so maybe getting students to implement this for you might be an idea.

[LRSFC_DanJ]

What system are the existing cards used with? That's the place to start, if you can - there'll be a database of some sort with cards matched to students. Ideally, that system would already have the sign-in feature you want (you'd think it'd be a pretty obvious feature for that sort of system), but if not then hopefully it'll have an API to let you implement the functionality yourself.

 

You are a sixth form college, and this would make a perfect A-level type project, plus you can pretty much see Raspberry Pi HQ from your building, so maybe getting students to implement this for you might be an idea.

 

They're used with our printing system and our cashless catering system, neither of which have any sort of sign-in feature available. You're right that they do have the card numbers stored in those databases, however they're both MS SQL databases rather than MySQL, can Raspberry Pis talk to MS SQL?

 

I imagine we could do it as a student project but I was just wondering if anything already existed.

[dhicks]

They're used with our printing system and our cashless catering system, neither of which have any sort of sign-in feature available.

 

Okay, which printing / cashless catering systems do you use? Does either one have any sort of API /data export facility available? Do the two systems share data at the moment, or does each card need to be separately registered on each system?

 

If you wind up implementing your own system, the underlying database used isn't going to matter - you'd probably aim to have something server-side to get data from your existing systems and manage data, with multiple client-side devices in locations where you want users to sign in. A Raspberry Pi might well work nicely as the client-side device, but other devices are available.

[peej2k]

Osborne Technologies have got their EntrySign system which uses MiFare cards

EntrySign Visitor Management System

You just need to put the MiFare ID number into a record against the person. Can intergrate with MIS systems too.

 

We've got one of their computers at the front of the building, and two of the extension readers at the other entrances.

They work pretty well, although we are looking at a separate system for visitors and keeping the EntrySign purely for contracted staff. GDPR and all that!

Edited June 27, 2018 by peej2k