DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A VISITOR MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

1.1 Introduction

A Visitor Management System (VMS) is an evolving concept defined as a systematic collection of visitor’s information. It is a record in digital format that is theoretically capable of keeping track of list of visitors and their personal details for effective service from both clients and the company. Visitor Management System is a software application that manages the entry and exit of the vehicle of employees and visitors. Visitor Management System is an efficient system to keep track of each vehicle entry and exit. This system tracks the usage of a public office by gathering increasing amounts of information. A visitor management system can record the usage of the facilities by specific visitors and provide documentation of visitor’s whereabouts. Since a visitor management system provides a record of office used and the person visited, these systems are frequently used to complement office security systems and access control systems. Visitor Management System (GPMS) allow you to manage all Incoming and Outgoing items from your office or company. Visitor Management System is available for use and it is easy to use and manage. This system is defined as a gate pass security system and its main aim to secure company from outside visitors, contractors and the departments, company vehicle security, material, visitor scrap information, contractor.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

Visitor Management System helps the organization as well as a visitor to manage the Gate Passes. Frequently Visitors have data entry in top level to make them easily entry and exit. Visitor Management system provides a way to effectively control, record & track your organization’s visitor traffic. It helps to prevent the entry of any unauthorized or unwanted person in the premises. The flexible architecture of Visitor Tracker System allows various people in the organization to directly access the data they need, integrated with various hardware’s like web-cam, fingerprint scanner, bar-code scanner and printers, email (SMS / popup alerts) for visitor notification available in client-server & Enterprise versions.

Visitor Management System has 3 modules with user specific roles:

Administrator Module: This module is generally installed on the Security Administrator PC. It consists of the menu where administrator can define, Companies, Host details, User Right Management, Set Gate pass formats, Generate Reports

Host Employee Module: The host employee can check the visitor details on the web pages. Pop up client is also available which notifies the host about the visitor. Host can send the response to the security gate staff.

Security Gate Module: The Security Gate module is installed at the entrance of the premises. It facilitates the staff at security gate to register the visitor’s details with photograph and also send the notification to the host employee inside the premises. The system will print visitor pass with name of visitor and other details as per designed gate pass format. Security can handover generate gate pass in required format to visitor.

Various industries/institutes take a gate pass to enter the premises as well as while leaving the premises before time. The gate pass is generally either a written chit of paper or a receipt sheet. This sheet remains of no use once out of the premises and there is wastage of paper. Our system proposes to give the “Paper Saving Idea” for the same. It consists of a design where the visitor can enter the required details viz. visitor id, name, contact, reason to enter/leave, and where he/she will enter this on a touch screen enabled kiosk system where this information will be further redirected to the higher authority in the organization. The higher authority would contain the details of the visitor from database. If this is true then details of visitor would be saved into database & once it is done the permission is granted, then the respected visitor will get a confirmation that he/she is allowed to enter/leave the premises before time.

As electronic visitor management systems become more common and more powerful, these systems are taking over many of the functions of office security and access control like gathering information manually. Managing visitors is an essential access control activity traditionally handled through paper logs or guest books, where visitors sign in at the front desk. Synergis’ Visitor Management module allows you to modernize your approach, go paperless, and become more efficient. Enroll visitors, assign physical access rights, and track their movements with ease. A digital visitor management system does the core job of checking in visitors. But it also does many things pen and paper cants which include: maintain a cloud-based visitor log and take photos of your visitors to help you identify them.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that after carefully analysis of the project the researcher observed that the following problems are mainly encountered by different organization

1. The present method of visitors management system is mainly based on manual recording,
2. The present system makes use of small or no database for recording of visitor’s information.
3. Due to lack of comprehensive database, accountability is usually very difficult,
4. The present system is time consuming,
5. Owing to the paper and pen method of recording information visitors may not give out its full information needed at a particular time,
6. Queuing may occur at the cause of entering information needed.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to analyze, design and implement an online Visitor Management System for Ogun state Institute of Technology, Security Unit. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will:

1. Retrieve information stored in a database is vital and must be ready to get back from the database when needed so that the purpose of storing the data must be accomplished;
2. Store visitor’s information for easy retrieval and annual report analysis;
3. Give account of visitors that visited the organization per day, week and yearly;
4. Track the reasons why the visitors visited, whether the message is relevant or not;
5. Provide adequate assessment of staff base on the amount of visitor (Client) and their reason; and
6. Provide easy access of searching and navigation for time saving: the system have a special way of retrieving data from the database like search the visitor using its identification number.

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1.5 Significance of Study

The proposed system offers numerous values in business premises and revenue payment. The relevance of the study is stated as follows:

1. Visitors get high quality service: since the recording requires human information, with use of computer more concrete information will be provided.
2. It will be easier to generate overall report: comprehensive and relational database will make the report generation easy and faster.
3. High Security Environments: Assign and print credentials for your visitors like any other employee, define detailed access rights, specify visitor escorts, and give your staff full control over access to your facilities.
4. It will provide efficient, effective and timely services,
5. It will reduce corruption and contributes to the entire organization security.

This study will also be of immense benefit to researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

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1.6 Scope of Study

The scope of this research is focused on the Design and Implementation of an Online Visitor Management System using Ogun state Institute of Technology, Security Unit as a case study.

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1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

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1.8 Definition of Terms

Management: The organizing and controlling of the affairs of a business or a sector of a business

System: A combination of related parts working together to achieve a particular aim.

Data: Numbers, Text or image which is in the form suitable for Storage in or processing by a computer, or incomplete information.

Information: A meaning full material derived from computer data by organizing it and interpreting it in a specified way.

Input: Data entered into a computer for storage or processing.

Output: Information produced from a computer after processing.

Information System: A set of interrelated components that collect (or retrieve), process, store and distribute information to support decision making and control in an organization.

Computer: Computer is an electronic device that accepts data as Input, processes data and gives out information as output to the user.

Software: Software is set of related programs that are designed by the manufacturer to control the hardware and to enable the computer perform a given task.

Hardware: Hardware is a physical part of a computer that can be touched, seen, feel which are been control by the software to perform a given task.

Database: Database is the collection of related data in an organized form.

Programming: Programming is a set of coded instruction which the computers understands and obey.

Technology: Technology is the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use technical and their interrelation with life, society and the environment, drawing upon such as industrial art, engineering, applied science and pure science.