Understand What Screening Checks
Screening runs in the Confirm Visitor Identity step, so it covers adults: visitors, vendors, volunteers, and guardians picking up students. The Visitor and Parent/Guardian Pickup templates start with this step. Students confirm their identity with a different step, and Visitor doesn’t screen them. The step has 2 security checks, both on by default. Visitor runs the ones turned on in the form each time a visitor completes the step. See Choose Screening Settings for a Form.- Sex Offender Registries: Visitor searches sex offender registries for the visitor’s first name, last name, and date of birth. Registry data comes from a third party, and GoGuardian does not independently verify it.
- Watchlists: Visitor checks your site’s watchlists for the visitor’s identity. For the matching rules, see Watchlists.
Tell Security Checks Apart from Form Reviews
Forms can also hold a check-in or check-out for a staff review that isn’t a security check. These reviews give front desk staff a chance to look at an answer or a pickup and decide, following your school’s procedures, whether it should go ahead. They’re routine, and they never alert a notification list.- Flagged Answer: raised when a visitor or student chooses an answer you marked with Flag? in an Ask Question (Choice) step. For example, a form might ask whether they feel sick, so staff can decide whether they should come in today.
- Confirm Students: raised by the Select Students step, so staff confirm every pickup before it completes.
Follow a Check-In Through Screening
Screening works the same way on a kiosk and at the Front Desk, and for pickups it applies to the check-out.- The visitor confirms their identity, either by scanning a government ID or by entering their details.
- Visitor starts the checks right away. The visitor keeps going through the form and doesn’t see that screening is running.
- If there’s a possible match, the alert appears on the Front Desk for staff at that check-in point right away. The visitor keeps filling out the form while staff review it.
- Staff confirm the visitor’s identity against their government ID, then compare them with the possible match.
- When the visitor finishes the form, the check-in completes if nothing is waiting for review. If staff haven’t decided yet, the kiosk asks the visitor to wait until they do.
- If staff choose Not a Match, the check-in completes. If they choose Confirm Match, Visitor denies the check-in and alerts the matching notification lists. On a kiosk, the visitor is asked to see the front desk.
Choose Screening Settings for a Form
Screening settings belong to each form, so different forms at the same site can screen differently. To find them, go to Forms, open the form, and open its Confirm Visitor Identity step. The checks are under Security Checks.
A form with both security checks off doesn’t screen anyone. Flagged answers are set separately, on each answer in an Ask Question (Choice) step. For every step and its options, see Form Steps Reference.
For a confirmed match to alert anyone, the site needs a default notification list, and each watchlist needs at least 1 notification list with members. See Notification Lists.
Plan for Returning Visitors
Two features keep returning visitors from being stopped for the same review on every visit: saved checks, which you set on the form, and permanent dismissals, which staff choose while reviewing a match. Both depend on Visitor recognizing a returning visitor. Visitor treats a check-in as the same visitor only when the first name, middle name, last name, and date of birth all match an earlier visit exactly. If a detail differs, such as a middle name entered on 1 visit and left out on the next, Visitor treats them as a new visitor.Save Cleared Checks
With Save cleared sex offender checks on, Visitor skips the registry check when the same visitor completed a check-in with the same form at the same site in the last 60 days, and the registry check ran on that visit. A visit where staff chose Not a Match counts as cleared.- The 60 days start from the last completed visit where the check ran. Visits where the check was skipped don’t extend the window, so a regular volunteer is still checked at least every 60 days.
- Saving changes to a form starts over. Any saved change to the form, in any step, means returning visitors are checked again on their next visit with it.
- Watchlists still run. Saved checks apply only to the sex offender registry.
Dismiss a Match Permanently
When staff choose Not a Match on a Possible Offender Match alert, they can also select Permanently dismiss these matches for this visitor. Visitor then stops raising those registry records for that visitor at your site, on every form, with no time limit. A registry record Visitor hasn’t seen before still raises a possible match. Permanent dismissals apply only to sex offender registry matches. Visitor raises watchlist matches on every visit. A dismissal can’t be undone in Visitor, and the check-in’s Activity Log details show who dismissed the matches and when.See How the Settings Work Together
Review Alert Types
Each alert holds the check-in or check-out at the end of the form until staff at the check-in point decide. Only a confirmed sex offender registry or watchlist match alerts a notification list.
A Screening Error isn’t a match. Skip Screening lets the check-in complete without the checks that had an error, and the Activity Log shows who skipped them. Follow your school’s procedures before skipping screening.
For who receives alerts and how, see Notification Lists and Respond to a Visitor Alert.
Review Screening Statuses
Every check-in through Confirm Visitor Identity shows a screening status on the Front Desk and in the Activity Log.Understand How Visitor Protects Screening Data
- Visitors don’t see screening. The kiosk shows only that a staff member is reviewing the check-in, or that the visitor should see the front desk.
- Access is limited. Only Site Admins and staff assigned to the check-in point see its alerts and screening details. Notification list members receive alerts for confirmed matches. See Users and Permissions.
- The most sensitive data is encrypted twice. Like all Visitor data, it’s encrypted where it’s stored. Visitor photos, government ID images, and sex offender registry results also get their own layer of encryption before they’re stored.
- No one under 16 is checked in. Confirm Visitor Identity doesn’t accept anyone under 16. The kiosk shows “You must be 16 or older,” and Visitor deletes anything already captured for them, such as a scanned ID.
- Registry data is third-party. GoGuardian does not independently verify it, which is why staff confirm every possible match before Visitor takes action.