Printer, Printing Badges and Documents

Printer, Printing Badges and Documents

Virtual Front Desk can print visitor badges at the end of a visitor sign-in, and send documents to a printer during a live video call. Badge printing and document printing can run from the same station. Printing is only available with the Enterprise plan.

Printing works through the Virtual Front Desk Printer app, a small Windows app that receives print jobs from Virtual Front Desk and sends them to your printers. It runs in the background, with only an icon in the Windows system tray. Right-click the icon to change its settings or close it.

The Virtual Front Desk Printer app icon in the Windows system tray

Tip: If the computer may be left signed out or unattended, use the app’s Service Mode so printing keeps working without anyone signed in to Windows. See Run the app as a Windows service below.

How it works

1. Your printers are connected to a Windows computer near the station, or to the station itself if it runs on Windows.
2. The Virtual Front Desk Printer app is installed on that computer and linked to a location with its Location ID.
3. Printers are added at the location level, so every station in that location can use them. If you need one printer per station, create one location per station.

Step 1. Prepare your printers

Badge printer

Visitor badges are designed for the Brother QL-820NWBc label printer, with a black-and-white DK-2205 roll, 2.4 inches wide. Other label printers with the same roll size may work, but we recommend the Brother QL-820NWBc for the best results.

1. Install the printer driver on the Windows computer, following the Brother QL-820NWBc Quick Setup Guide.
2. Connect the printer to the computer by cable or over the network.
3. Open the printer’s Printing Preferences and set:

• Paper size: 2.4 inches.
• Quality: Give priority to print quality.
• Graphics (Advanced tab): For general labels containing images.

Brother printing preferences: paper size and quality

Brother printing preferences: graphics

Document printer

1. Install your document printer’s driver on the Windows computer.
2. Connect the printer to the computer by cable or over the network, following the manufacturer’s instructions.

Step 2. Install the Virtual Front Desk Printer app

1. On the Windows computer connected to your printers, download the Virtual Front Desk Printer app from the Microsoft Store and install it. Make sure you have the latest version.
2. When the app opens, it asks for a Location ID and the email address of your organization’s owner. Step 3 shows where to find the Location ID.

The Virtual Front Desk Printer app in the Microsoft Store

Step 3. Add the printer in Virtual Front Desk

1. In the main menu, click Stations, then click the pencil icon on the location where you want to add a printer.
2. Open the Printers tab and click Add printer.
3. Copy the Location ID shown in the window and enter it in the Virtual Front Desk Printer app on your Windows computer. The Install printer application link opens the Microsoft Store page if you have not installed the app yet.
4. Under Select a printer, choose the printer detected by the app.
5. Choose the Printer purpose: Document printer or Badge printer.
6. Enter a Device name and click Add printer.

Adding a printer to a location

The printer now appears in the location’s Printers tab with its status. Operational means it is ready to print. Every station in the location can now send print jobs to it. Repeat these steps for each printer.

The Printers tab of a location

Print visitor badges

Badges print automatically at the end of a visitor sign-in. To turn on badge printing and design the badge, open your visitor sign-in form, go to the Options tab, and turn on Visitor badge (printer needed). You can choose the badge header, the fields printed, a footer, your logo, the visitor’s selfie, and the date and time. Click Test print badge to print a sample.

To learn more, read Visitor sign in, sign out and Express QR code sign in.

Print documents during a live video call

During a live video call, open the document tools in the call window, then:

• choose a PDF from your Content library, or upload one from your computer, and
• click Send to printer. The document prints right away on the station’s document printer.

To learn more, read Live Call Features.

Run the app as a Windows service (optional)

By default, the Printer app only works while someone is signed in to Windows. Service Mode installs it as a Windows service that runs in the background at all times, starts automatically with Windows, and keeps printing even when no one is signed in. This is ideal for dedicated print computers, kiosks and Windows Server.

Turn on Service Mode:

1. Install the Virtual Front Desk Printer app and complete its setup with your Location ID and owner email.
2. Right-click the app’s icon in the system tray and select Enable Service Mode.
3. Accept the administrator permission request. The app installs the service and closes. The service now runs in the background, including after a restart.

Turn off Service Mode:

1. Open the Virtual Front Desk Printer app as an administrator.
2. Right-click the tray icon and select Disable Service Mode. The service is removed and the tray app takes over printing again.

Requirements:

• Printers installed for all users. The service can only use printers installed system-wide, not printers installed for a single Windows user. To check, run Get-Printer in PowerShell as an administrator.
• Label size set system-wide. For label printers such as the Brother QL series, setting 2.4 inches in Printing Preferences is not enough. Also open Devices and Printers as an administrator, right-click the printer, select Printer properties > Advanced > Printing Defaults, and set the roll width to 2.4 inches. Otherwise, badge print jobs fail.

Limitations:

• Sleep mode: when the computer sleeps or hibernates, the service stops too, and print jobs sent during that time are not printed. Turn off sleep on any computer used for printing around the clock.
• Updates: the service does not update itself. When the tray app shows that an update is available, turn off Service Mode, update the app, then turn Service Mode back on.

Troubleshooting

The printer status shows “Not Operational”

This usually means one of the following:

• The Printer app is closed or not working. Close and reopen the app. If the problem continues, uninstall and reinstall it, and make sure you have the latest version from the Microsoft Store.
• The printer is disconnected from the computer or the network. Check the cable or network connection, then refresh the dashboard. The status should change to Operational.

Error: the app requires “.NET Desktop Runtime 8”

This Windows component is not always installed by default.

1. Go to Microsoft’s .NET 8 download page and scroll to .NET Desktop Runtime 8.
2. Download the x86 (32-bit) version for Windows and run the installer.
3. Restart your computer.

For printer hardware details, read Printer app technical specifications.