Niklas Berg & Jakob Florell

Automated check in to aid communication at large organizations

Abstract

Many workplaces have an in/out board at the entrance where employees sign in and out as they come or leave the office. This information is important if a person, for example, quickly wants to contact a colleague. We believe such a board would be simpler to use and more reliable if the “checking in” would work automatically. An automatic system can avoid the risk of a user forgetting to sign in and assist those who find it annoying or simple does not care. In/out boards are scattered over the workplace and contain different information which could be replaced by a central system that can be accessed through the Internet.

We will in this paper study the conditions, difficulties and opportunities that arise with the introduction of an automated check-in service in larger organizations by developing a prototype and testing it at KTH. The prototype consists of an android application and a web page that shows information about the users geographical position.

We reached the conclusion that the system worked well at KTH due to its well established WiFi network and a high concentration of smartphone users. We think that our system could easily be introduced in another location with similar conditions. We also suggest how our prototype could be developed in order to better protect the users’ integrity while still supporting communication between users.