There are four different ways that you can setup a badge printer with Visitor Aware. Feel free to pick the one that best suits your facility and your associated hardware. There is a fifth option listed below detailing how to manually print badges via a web browser.
1. Wifi Enabled Badge Printer
If your facility owns a badge printer with wifi printing capabilities similar to the one listed on our recommended hardware page you will be able to print via a wifi connection.
Note: Brother QL series wireless badge printers require 2.4 GHz wireless networks and do not work on 5 GHz wireless networks.
Make sure the badge printer has power and that you followed the printer's installation manual's directions for accessing/setting up the wifi connection.
Once that printer is setup on the wifi connection, you can access the list of available printers by following these steps:
- Tap and briefly hold the gear icon in the lower right of the check-in application screen
- If a pin has been setup, enter the pin code
- Within the gear menu, tap the "Printer Settings" option
- Tap the "Brother" tab and then "Search Brother Printers"
- Select the Brother printer you'd like to use for badge printing
- If your printer isn't found/listed:
- Tap "Manual Entry"
- Manually enter the printer's IP address and select the printer model
To search for a printer on your wifi, tap the magnifying glass to search you network for available printers. Select the printer that you would like the badges to print from and enable printing.
2. Bluetooth Enabled Badge Printer
The Brother QL-820NWBC has the ability to be configured to print via bluetooth. Follow the steps outlined in this help article to connection a bluetooth printer:
3. AirPrint
Airprint can be used to print to a wifi enabled badge printer. Devices running iOS 17 will likely run into issues not being able to recognize the printer that is connected to wifi. This is a known issue due to the iOS update made in version 17. Please reference this help article for additional support:
For iOS devices that are not yet on iOS 17 or if the badge printer manufacturer now supports iOS 17, AirPrint may be a viable option. Follow these steps:
- Tap and briefly hold the gear icon in the lower right of the check-in application screen
- If a pin has been setup, enter the pin code
- Within the gear menu, tap the "Printer Settings" option
- Tap the "AirPrint" tab and then "Select Printer"
- Select the printer you'd like to use for badge printing
- If the printer isn't found/listed:
- Tap "Manual Entry"
- Manually enter the printer's IP address and (optionally) enter the printer port
4. Cable Connected Printing via Print Helper Application
This option is ideal for situations where you have a badge printer such as a Dymo LabelWriter that must be connected to a windows PC computer. The desktop application allows you to check in visitors with your choice of kiosk and then it will automatically print the visitor's badge to the printer connected to the computer running the desktop application. You will not need to manually print the badge.
Once you install it and log in, there are additional instructions within the application itself to make it as easy as possible to use.
Just keep the application running on the computer that is connected to the badge printer and it will auto-print badges immediately when visitors check in!
5. Manually Printing from the Browser
This option is a backup for the aforementioned options. Ideally you'd want to implement option 1 or 2 listed above so that everything is automated. However, there are times when technology just won't cooperate (if this happens please reach out to us).
In these situations you can manually print badges for visitors through the admin dashboard. This can be done by clicking on the visitor's profile and selecting the print button shown below.
A popup window will then show up on your screen. From here, make sure the printer information looks correct and hit print. If the badge isn't printing properly, please read our "Badge Size Setup" article for assistance.
