The GuestAdvisor mobile application has been always the best companion for the guests during their travel. With the ID scanning extension for the Online check-in, your guests can scan their documents so they will have to dedicate even less time to the administration.
It will also help you to check in your guests faster as all the necessary data can be collected via the app. No more long ID scanning on the reception, your guests can do it from the comfort of their home before travel.
Required settings
If you would like to activate the ID scanning for the online check-in, please visit the GuestAdvisor Tools menu's Settings submenu. Here you will have to look for the Guest document (ID) scanning option. Here you can decide how sensitive the ID scanning is.
You have 4 options to choose from:
- Disabled: In this case your guests cannot scan their IDs through GuestAdvisor
- Optional: The ID scanning is availabile in the application, but the app does not remind the guests to scan their IDs.
- Recommended: The ID scanning is availabile in the app and if the guests do not scan their IDs we show them a warning message to do so, however the check-in can be completed.
- Mandatory: The ID scanning is availabile in the app and if the guests do not scan their IDs, then they cannot complete the online check-in at all. They are also reminded by a warning message to scan their documents. It is important that the ID scan is only mandatory for the guest profiles where there are some already existing data. For empty, accompanied guests' profiles the ID scan is not mandatory.
Please bear in mind that your guests have to meet some requirements before they could check in online. You can always monitor this with the help of the Reservation check tool of the GAT Health Check menu. Learn more about this by clicking here.
How does the ID scanning work?
GuestAdvisor is using the same technology as SabeeApp's Front Office Manager application.
It is the OCR (Optical character recognition) technology to read the characters from the documents. There is no photo taken of the ID and the scanning happens on-device which means that the information is not forwarded to any third party for processing.
ID scanning in practice
First, our guests will have to log in to the GuestAdvisor Mobile application with the reservation code they received in the email or using the smart download link.
If the online check-in is available, then the guest can click on it and start.
Here they can select for which guest profile they would like to modify the information. By tapping the Enter missing info button, they can start to add all the required details.
Here they can select if they scan their ID or start to fill out their details manually. To start the scan the guests have to click the Scan my ID and autofill data button.
After that, the ID scanning plugin will open up. For the first time, the app will ask permission to use the camera. Please guest has to grant access to start the scanning.
The guest has to point the camera to the document and follow the instructions appearing on the screen. Based on the ID type, the app can ask them to turn the document to its other side.
To ensure the best scanning quality, we recommend completing the scan according to the following points:
- use a clean and flat surface where you can place the document without moving it
- provide proper light conditions
- turn on the backlight, zoom in/out to help the app to read the document.
After the app has completed the scan, it redirects the guest to the screen where they can review the scanned data.
From here the guest can check all the details which have been read from the document. It is also possible to start a New scan (1) if the data is incorrect, (2) Save the data and continue filling out the rest of the fields, or simply leave the ID scanning results without saving (3) by tapping on the X sign. The scan can be repeated as many times as the guest would like to. There is no limitation.
If the guest decides to Save the data, we are filling out their profile with that. Where there is data was scanned from the document we show a small ID icon. The rest of the required and/or optional fields can be completed manually and the scanned information can be also corrected if there is incorrect data.
After completing the guest profile, the guest has to repeat this process for all the guests travelling with them.
To finish the online check-in the guest will have to provide also some additional information (based on your settings), accept the policies and legal notice. As the last step, the information will be sent to the PMS completing the online check-in when the guest taps on the Finish check-in button.
The data will be available in your SabeeApp account from then on. You can check it from the detailed reservation page's guest details section.
Important Notice
The GuestAdvisor Web and the GuestAdvisor Kiosk application currently does not support ID scanning functionality.
The ID scanning extension has some technical requirements. If these are not completed, the guest will not be able to scan their documents.
- iPhone or iPad devices should run iOS 13 or later.
- Android-based devices should run Android 9 or later.