How does blocklist work?
With Genea's Visitor Blocklist feature you can restrict unwanted guests from visiting your premises. If a person on your block list tries to walks-in or a teammate inadvertently invites them, you can get notified and can take quick action to approve or deny their visits.
Genea's Visitor Blocklist, in its simplest form, is a list of visitor names, visitor email addresses and image of visitor that you want to restrict from visiting your premises. A visitor’s full name and /or email address will be checked against the full names and email addresses of people on your block list when they are invited or walks-in. When a visitor matches someone on your block list, your property administrators will be alerted.
Enabling visitor blocklist
To enable the visitor blocklist, proceed with the below steps:
1. Navigate to Visitor Management > Security from your admin dashboard. & under Visitor Screening > Blocklist, click "Enable".
2. Once enabled, you can start adding visitors to the blocklist profile.
Add visitors to the blocklist
1. Click "+Add" to add a visitor to the blocklist.
a. Enter the Visitor Name and Visitor Email address. As you type email addresses, application provides suggestions matching to your contacts. Plus, if the recipient is in your visitor profile, simply select the suggested 'Visitor Profile' to autofill their name, email, and even their image. If required, correction can be made to auto-filled information.
b. Visitors will be checked against the fields based on the “Matching Method for Blocklist” you select.
Match all of the above fields: Blocks the visitor if the entry matches exactly with both the Visitor Name AND Email address in the blocklist category.
Match any of the above fields: Blocks the visitor if the entry matches exactly with either the Visitor Name OR Email address in the blocklist category.
Blocklist record dashboard
After completing the setup and clicking the 'Save' button, system will promptly generate a blocklist record, visible on the dashboard of the blocklist page. Below is a sample record for your reference.
Users can conveniently amend the data by selecting the 'Edit' button under the 'Action' menu. Additionally, users have the option to delete the record if necessary, following the same process using the 'Delete' button. Only users with the appropriate permissions and access rights to the Security page can perform edit operations.
Moreover, our system diligently captures any improvements made, along with the responsible party and timestamp. To view the Record Owner and last update details, simply click on the 'Blocklist User' hyperlink, granting you access to the Blocklist Visitor Profile.
Exporting blocklist records
Application offers a convenient feature to export stored blocklist records to CSV file formats. To initiate the export process, simply click on the 'Export' button, and the CSV file will be promptly exported to your local directory.
It's important to note that if any filters are applied, such as by 'Name' or 'Email Addresses', only the filtered records will be exported.
The exported records will contain all available fields from the profile, except for Visitor image data, ensuring comprehensive yet secure data export functionality.
The created record operates at the location level, requiring replication for use at additional locations.
Matching method
Matching methods look for exact matching of individual fields, includes punctuation and the order of words; however, matching is not case sensitive.
Visitor Details | Blocklisted Entry | Matches with Matching Method: All? | Matches with Matching Method: |
Visitor Name: Anna Williams | Visitor Name: Anna Williams | Yes | Yes |
Visitor Name: Anna Williams | Visitor Name: Anna Warren | No | Yes |
Visitor Name: Anna Williams | Visitor Name: Anna Williams | No | Yes |
Visitor Name: Anna Williams | Visitor Name: Anna williams | No | Yes
Visitor name matches with the blocked visitor. Matching is not case-sensitive. |
Visitor Name: Anna Williams | Visitor Name: Anna Warren | No | No |
Visitor Name: Anna O Williams | Visitor Name: Anna O' Williams | No | No |
Visitor Name: Anna Williams | Visitor Name: Anna williams | Yes | Yes |
c. Enter the reason for blocking the visitor.
d. Complete the configuration by uploading the image in the final step, even if auto-populated through the Visitor profile, you have the flexibility to customize it according to your preferences. then click 'Save' to ensure all changes are applied. Click "Save".
Creating invites matching blocklist records
When users or hosts attempt to invite visitors via the web app whose details match those of blocklisted visitor records, application issues a warning alerting them to the matching details and presents the relevant blocklist visitor records, including photos, for review.
If, despite this warning, users or hosts believe the visitor should be invited, they can proceed by clicking 'Create Invite.'
However, the invitation will then be subject to approval. The authority will review the details and determine whether to grant confirmation for the visitor to be invited.
Approving and denying the blocked visitors
When any blocklisted visitor gets invited or walks-in, the invite gets listed under invitations with the status "In Review".
Members with Admin, Security, and Front Desk roles can either approve or deny the visit request from the web app or from their Genea mobile apps.
Approving and denying invited visitors:
When a blocklisted visitor invite is approved, they receive an invitation email and the process will continue normally through the check-in link received by the visitor through email. Invitation status now transits to "Invited".
More on different Invitation statues can be read here.
When the invite is denied by the admin, visitors will not receive an invitation email. The host will be notified that the invitation was canceled and that they can contact the administrator who denied the invite if they have questions.
Approving and denying walk-in visitors:
When a visitor walks-in and Genea finds the visitor be matched with blocklist entry, the visitor will be notified that they will receive an email with registration confirmation status at the end of the flow.
If the invite is approved, the visitor will receive an email with visit confirmation details, Genea prints the visitor’s badge and notifies the visitor’s host of their arrival.
If the invite is denied, the visitor will receive an email about the visit being canceled and the visitor’s host will also get a notification with the visit status.
Visitor blocklist notifications
If you are a system administrator, you can configure your Genea system to notify yourself or others when any visitors match with blocklist entry.
Notifications are currently available via email, however, you can also opt-in to these notifications via the Slack or Microsoft Teams integrations as well.
Follow the steps below to enable notifications via email.
How to Enable Visitor Blocklist Notifications:
Only system administrators will be able to configure system alerts. Front Desk, User Manager, and Security sub-admins will not have the ability to configure system alerts.
1) Click on the 'Alerts' tab within your Genea admin dashboard.
2) On the 'Alerts' page, scroll down to the 'Visitor Screening' section. You will be able to input which specific administrators or users should receive notification for 'When visitor matches to your block list.'
Sample Email Notification:
If you would like to learn more about Genea's Visitor Management feature, please send inquiries to acsupport@getgenea.com.