Creating Stations

Creating Stations

A station is the tablet, kiosk or screen your visitors use. This article shows you how to organize stations by location, create and configure a station, choose its buttons, and connect the device.

1. Start with a location

A location is a building or address where you have one or more stations. Virtual Front Desk lets you manage many locations from a single account.

Click Stations in the main menu to open the Locations page. Each location appears as a card listing its stations, their status (Online or Offline) and a Call button to call a station directly. The cards at the top show how many stations are online, your busiest station and your busiest location this week.

The Locations page

To add a location:

1. Click Add location at the top right.
2. Enter the Name of the location. This is the only required field.
3. Optionally add an image and the address. Images and addresses are for internal use only and are never shown to visitors.
4. Click Create location.

Creating a location

On each location card you can drag the handle to reorder locations, click the copy icon to duplicate the location, or click the pencil icon to edit it. A location’s page has three tabs: Details, Stations and Printers.

2. Create a station

On the location card, click Add station. The Create station page walks you through four steps:

1. Settings: name your station and configure its basic settings.
2. Branding: customize the welcome screen and station branding.
3. Buttons: choose the buttons visitors will see.
4. Connect the device: enter the connection code at station.virtualfrontdesk.com on the device you want to use as a station.

The Create station page and its four steps

Click Create station to save.

3. Configure the station settings

The Settings tab includes:

• Station name (required) and Default station language.
• Inactivity timeout: how long the station waits, with no activity, before returning to the welcome screen. Between 30 and 3,600 seconds; 300 seconds by default.
• Display translator: lets visitors switch the station to another language from the welcome screen. You choose which languages are available and can pin up to three.
• QR code on welcome page: shows a code visitors can scan to open a link on their phone.
• Split your screen with an iFrame or Video: shows a web page or a looping video beside the call buttons.
• Show search bar for buttons: adds a search field above the buttons so visitors can filter a long list.
• Remove VFD logo: hides the Virtual Front Desk branding from the station screens.

Station settings

Once a station is created, its page also has AI agent and Payment tabs. Use AI agent to set up the AI receptionist (see the AI Agent Setup Guide) and Payment to pair a Stripe terminal and take card payments during a video call.

4. Brand the welcome screen

The Branding tab controls what visitors see: your logo, the background image or video, a color overlay to improve readability, the welcome message, the message displayed while a call is ringing, and the default button colors, number of columns and alignment. For details, read Customization, logo and background images & videos.

5. Add buttons

The Buttons tab lists the buttons shown on the station. Drag buttons to change their order, and use the icons on each row to preview, edit, duplicate or delete a button.

The Buttons tab

Click Add button, enter a Button name and choose a Button action. Each button can also have a Schedule that controls when it is visible: always, within a date range, during daily hours, on a weekly schedule or on a custom schedule. Under Button styling, set the text and button colors, a background image, opacity, width and text size.

Choosing a button action

The available button actions are:

• Video call group: notifies a group of users, either all at once or one after another (call queue), based on the group’s settings. For Microsoft Teams users, groups use a call queue by default. See MS Teams integration for how to enable group calling in Teams.
• Video call user: calls one or more specific users, in the Virtual Front Desk dashboard or in Microsoft Teams. Choose several users to create a submenu, and choose whether the station shows the list of users directly or a search field. If a user does not answer, the system can send an SMS or email, or call their phone, based on that user’s settings.
• Video call station: starts a video call with another station.
• Phone call: places a standard phone call to the number you enter.
• SMS & email: sends a notification by email and SMS.
• iFrame: displays a web page, online form or web app on the station. Add the URL in the Content library first. iFrames do not support redirects: if the page sends visitors to another domain, the iFrame stops working.
• PDF: displays a PDF from the Content library. Select several PDFs to create a submenu. Tip: add a QR code to your PDF so visitors can take it with them.
• QR code: displays a QR code from the Content library. Select several to create a submenu.
• Visitor sign-in: starts a visitor sign-in form. Select several forms to create a submenu. Pre-registered visitors can use Express sign-in with a QR code or a 4-digit code.
• Sign out: lets signed-in visitors sign out by typing the first three letters of their name and selecting it from the list. Sign-out must be enabled in your visitor sign-in form.

6. Connect the device

After creating the station, go to station.virtualfrontdesk.com on the device you want to use as a station and enter the station’s connection code.

If your organization uses another region, use the matching station address. For example, if your dashboard is at app.virtualfrontdesk.global, use station.virtualfrontdesk.global.

Connection codes can be used only once. If a station asks for a new code, for example after its browser cache was cleared, open the station’s menu (the three dots next to it) and click Duplicate to create a copy with a new code, then delete the old station. Billing is per activated station, including stations that are offline, so delete stations you no longer use.

The station menu

The same menu lets you Edit, Duplicate, Refresh or Delete a station.

7. Set up printers

Badge and document printers are set up per location, since several stations can share one printer. Open the location, go to the Printers tab and click Add printer. If you want one printer per station, create a separate location for each station.

Printers for a location