Overview
In a workplace where employees and visitors are constantly on the move—shifting between meetings, work areas, and common spaces—it is critical to ensure everyone's safety during an emergency. By "taking over" your Visitors' kiosk, Envoy leverages the existing screens in your visitors' area to broadcast emergency alerts and instructions.
This feature works alongside Rooms tablet takeover to cover more workplace areas.
Not an emergency? You can also use the Visitor kiosk displays to show non-critical announcements. These non-critical messages can be minimized to a banner, allowing you to communicate with your team without disrupting their workflow. Only available with Workplace Premium Plus.
How to take over the Visitors Kiosk
Prerequisites
At least one Visitors Kiosk paired and online.
Emergency Notifications must be enabled at your location.
You must have a Visitor's Enterprise subscription to send emergency notifications. This specific feature will not be available to customers on lower tiers of Visitors.
The option to takeover a Kiosk will be available when sending an emergency notification. You can use the web dashboard or mobile app to send emergency notifications or announcements. If you have Rooms kiosks paired, they will also be taken over.
Using the web dashboard
Main article: Sending an Emergency Notification [Web]
Navigate to Communications > Message log
Click on Send new message in the upper right-hand side.
You can also navigate directly to Communications > + New message.
The message window will open. Type in your Message and Message title (optional). The Message title will be displayed as a header on the tablet. Messages are limited to 320 characters.
If it's an emergency, check the box next to Emergency message to reveal additional priority options, like Asking for responses.
Check the box to Takeover all Envoy tablets in this location.
For those with Visitors + Workplace Rooms, all kiosks and rooms displays will be included.
Select the employee(s) and/or visitor(s) you want to notify.
Select your Delivery method(s). Choose from SMS, Envoy mobile push notification, email, Slack, and/or Microsoft Teams.
Click Send now to send your Notification.
After sending, you should see a takeover banner in the sent log, and all paired Visitors kiosks will display your message.
Using the mobile app
Main article: Sending an Emergency Notification [Mobile]
Navigate to the location you need to notify by selecting the dropdown caret next to the location name at the top left.
Click the plus icon at the top right and choose Send an emergency notification.
Tip: Use a template to automatically populate your message.
A new window will pop up where you can type in your Message and Message title (optional). The Message title will be displayed as a header on the tablet. Messages are limited to 320 characters.
Decide if you want recipients to respond. (For example: mark themselves as safe.) Note: Recipients will not be able to respond via tablet.
Select Yes under Takeover Envoy tablets in this location.
Select at least one Delivery method.
Select the employee(s) and/or visitor(s) you want to notify.
When you are ready to send out the notice, tap Send in the upper right-hand corner.
You will see your notice under the Announcement section of the Home tab - with a 🟠LIVE banner signaling the current takeover.
Ending a tablet takeover
Any Global or Location admin can end a tablet takeover from web or mobile. You don't need to end the takeover from the same device it was sent from.
On web
Navigate to Communications > Message log.
If there is an active takeover, a banner will display at the top of the page.
To end a takeover, just click End takeover.
On mobile
The emergency notification will display under the Announcements banner on the app's home tab. To end a takeover, tap the notification, then tap End.
You'll receive a success message once the takeover has ended.
Adding Tablet takeover to templates
Main article: Templates for Emergency Notifications
You can increase emergency preparedness by creating pre-populated templates for use on both the web and mobile. This makes it easy to standardize communication across locations and incident types.
Templates can only be created and managed on the web dashboard.
Navigate to Communications > Templates.
Click Create new template or edit an existing template by clicking on it.
If unchecked, Check the box next to Emergency message to reveal additional priority options, like asking recipients to respond.
Check the box next to Takeover Envoy tablets in this location.
Make any other changes (if desired), then Publish to [x] locations for your updates to go live.
The next time an admin uses this template, all Visitors Kiosk tablets will be taken over by default.
