Kisi

Empower your employees and visitors with automated access control and employee check-in through Kisi

Updated this week

This integration can be used to restrict access to certain areas for visitors and automatically check in employees.


How does Kisi work with Envoy?

The Kisi app works with Envoy to streamline access control for employees and visitors. With customization options, you're in control to decide not only which visitor flows receive access but also the level of access they are granted.

Envoy will generate temporary permission shares in Kisi for your enabled employees and visitors based on your criteria with automatic expiration, enforced by permission expiration in Kisi and customization in Envoy. Kisi access is emailed by Kisi to permitted visitor flows based on the email they provide during sign in.

Benefits

  • Automatically assign visitors to access groups in Kisi.

  • Customize your visitors access by mapping multiple groups to different visitor types in Envoy.

  • Automatically expire visitors access after a pre-set duration or during sign out.

  • Restrict Kisi access to only invited visitors.

  • Automatically provide employees with building access after they’ve been approved through Workplace.

PREREQUISITES


You will need administrative or group manage access in Kisi to complete setup. Ensure you have sufficient access or work with a local administrator before proceeding with the following steps.


Kisi + Envoy Setup

Installing Kisi in Envoy

  1. Under Access Control, find Kisi or search for Kisi in the search bar.

  2. Click “Install.”

Step 1: Info

After verifying you have access to an admin account or group manager account with access to the groups you wish to use with the Envoy integration, click "Next Step".


Step 2: API Access

  1. Add an API key in your Kisi Admin panel

    1. In the Kisi Dashboard, click your name (top right) > My Account > API.

    2. Click the "Add API Key" button

    3. Name your API key. We recommend naming it "Envoy Integration" or something to signify this key has been used for Envoy.

    4. Enter your Admin Password and click Add

    5. Copy and save your key in a secure location.

  2. On the Envoy dashboard, enter your key into the 2nd step and click "Next Step"


Step 3: Places

  1. Select the Places (and their related groups from Kisi) where you would like to use the Envoy + Kisi integration.

Places in Kisi represent a physical space (i.e. an office or a building) within an organization that uses Kisi. To learn more about Places, please check out this guide from Kisi: Places.



Envoy Workplace + Kisi

Step 4: Employees (Optional)

Envoy offers two options for Workplace. Select which option you would like to implement.


1. Check-in Required for Access

With this method, once the employee signs into Envoy, their access is enabled in Kisi.

PREREQUISITES

  • The email address and last name must match accordingly across Kisi and Envoy, as those are the fields that the app will use to activate and deactivate employee profiles.

  • Kisi users must start in a suspended state in order for Envoy to grant them access as they check-in. Kisi users (employees) are not suspended by default. Envoy did not want to take on the liability to mass suspend user accounts. In order to do this on your own, you will need to set Suspend Access to true in the Kisi user profile in order to disable your users' access.


Employee Exclusions

Employees selected in this option will not have their access toggled by the integration.

2. Auto check-in with badge swipe.

This method is used for tracking employees who sign in and does not affect employee access. The badge is always active. When an employee swipes their badge, the employee is automatically signed into Envoy.

PREREQUISITES

  • Health check/Registration questions must be disabled. To disable questions, go here, click Employee reservations & auto check-in, then click advanced settings under the Employee reservation flow, and disable the questionnaire.

  • Auto sign-out must be enabled in Location Settings. Go to Manage > Location Settings, and scroll down to find auto sign-out settings. Set any time before midnight to sign out any signed in employee.

    • If auto-sign out is disabled, then employees will remain signed in to the workplace and will not be signed in the next day with their badge swipes.


Employee Exclusions

Employees selected in this option will be excluded from Protect.

Badge Event - Target Place

Select the Place to use for badge events on this Envoy location.

Badge Event - Check In Reader(s)

Select the Access Point to use for badge events on this Envoy location.

Badge Event - Check Out Reader(s) (Optional) [Beta]

Pick a reader that your employees will use to automatically check out of Envoy with.


Auto Check-in and Desk Reservation

A badge swipe signs a user into Envoy whether or not they are scheduled for the day so long as their badge is active.

If there is an existing desk reservation, the employee is checked into their desk. If there are multiple desks reservations, the employee will be checked into the first desk reservation of the day.

If the account is set to automatically assign desks with employee registration [Desks > Settings], Envoy will automatically create a desk reservation and check the employee into that desk. If this setting is turned off, Envoy will sign the employee into the workspace, but they will have no desk.​

Envoy Visitors + Kisi

Grant your visitors credentials when they sign-in or are invited with Envoy.


Step 5: Visitors (Optional)

Select your visitor type and group.

You can add more visitor types as needed based on the sign-in flows you have created in Envoy. Learn more about sign-in flows here.

The sign-in flow must at least require email.

Visitor flows that do not have a Kisi group mappings will not receive Kisi credentials.

Invite Only: Toggling this option on will restrict Kisi permission creation to only visitors with an invite, at time of invite. When this option is toggled off both impromptu visitors and invited visitors receive Kisi access, based on their Visitor Flow in Envoy.


Access Duration: This is the length of time the Kisi permission will work for. After the access duration expires the Kisi permission will be terminated.


Early Access: This option is intended for invited visitors who may need time prior to the scheduled meeting to navigate to the meeting room. This can extend to areas where visitors may need access to enter a larger building or parking garage.


Blocklist Matches: Visitors matching Blocklist entries will not be granted credentials unless their visit is approved by an admin.


Sign Out: Toggling this option will allow Kisi permission to immediately expire upon visitor sign out in Envoy, regardless of the duration defined in "Access Duration". When this option is toggled off access will only automatically expire at the end of the duration defined in "Access Duration".


App Access: Toggling this option on will grant "app access" to Kisi members created by Envoy.


Envoy Guest Indicator: Toggling this option on will add the text "Envoy Guest" to visitors created by the Kisi / Envoy integration.


SMS Sign-in: Toggle this option to share group links via SMS after Sign-In.

How Envoy Visitors entries look in Kisi

In the example below, individual visitors are listed per group in Kisi. This list can be found in Kisi under the Home > Your Place > Groups menu.

How Kisi notifications look in your e-mail


Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: There used to be an unlock button through a link at the bottom of the visitor credential email. Now it's not there anymore. What can I do to get it enabled?

A: Kisi has recently changed the way that link access settings function through the API due to security reasons so they've removed the individual link sharing ability at this time. The Envoy team is working on re-introducing the functionality as soon as possible.

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