2021 – Year in Review

Software Updates & New Features

Throughout 2021 our development team continued to work on new features and advance existing ones. In July, we released a major software update introducing new and improved functionality, including:

• All cloud features consolidated into a single platform – OneCloud
• A simpler and more automated licensing process
• Better customisation for the sign in screen interface

• Improvements to the photo capture feature
• A new feature to set requirements for entry
• Two-factor authentication for increased security

Our development team are always working hard to provide the latest features to help you efficiently sign in your staff, visitors and contractors. In 2022 this is set to continue with lots of new updates and features coming throughout the year! Check out our latest software updates here.

New Office Space

We officially moved into our new headquarters at the end of 2020. Due to UK lockdowns and restrictions, not everyone got to experience our new setup straight away, but as the year went on and the working from home restrictions were removed, we definitely made it our new work home. Of course, we had to stay grounded in our Yorkshire routes, after all, we only moved a stone’s throw away from our old offices. It’s safe to say everyone loves the new, modern office space. The offices also help to accommodate hybrid working, something we have all become accustomed to over the last couple of years.

Customer Feedback

93% of customers surveyed gave our service and support 4 stars or above in 2021 and we aim to improve this figure in 2022. We also received some great feedback from our customers:

“EntrySign has been a great addition to our entry system.  It is a very good tool for keeping track of visitors, staff and children with no fear of losing the records that can be accessed as opposed to paper copies.  Also, from a safeguarding and GDPR viewpoint, data is much more secure as it isn’t visible to others.  All in all we are very happy with the system.“

 G Peacock – Hey with Zion Primary

“The product has worked well across the Trust, as a unified solution where staff can gain access to multi-site with a single card. Easy to use and importantly provides effective fire alarm registers for all staff, students and all visitors. There was no resistance to the products implementation internally, and the setup across the Trust was relatively swift and painless.“

 M Rushworth – Pioneer Educational Trust

Trade Shows

We saw the return of trade shows and events this year and we were excited to finally meet people face-to-face again. Our first trade show since the pandemic started with the Naidex show in September. It was great having the team back together showing people what we love about EntrySign. The highlight for us has to be winning an award at the show!

In October we attended The Big Sustainability Expo in Southampton. A smaller show for us, but with a very big message! We love attending this show because it emphasises the importance of reducing our environmental impact. If you are still using a paper visitor book, EntrySign can help to reduce paper-based waste by going digital.

We are always looking at ways to improve our environmental impact as a business and in 2021 we decided to cut down on paper and printing by going paperless with our brochures and business cards! Working from home, virtual meetings and demonstrations also helped with less time on the road, meaning less carbon emissions. In 2022 we will be looking at more ways we can reduce our environmental footprint.

Partners

We loved working with our partners last year to bring EntrySign to many more schools and businesses across the world. We continued to support our partners at shows and events where possible and provided training, sales and marketing support. Here are some of our partner highlights from 2021:

STANLEY

In 2021, we continued to grow our partner network, teaming up with companies who share our vision. In the first quarter, we were excited to announce our partnership with STANLEY, global leaders of integrated security, health and safety solutions and services. As the year progressed, so did our partnership and STANLEY have since become a key strategic partner, actively selling EntrySign as part of their product range. STANLEY have successively completed several projects over the year to provide EntrySign systems to organisations across the UK.

Tom Atkinson, Director had this to say about the partnership with STANLEY:

“Successfully building key strategic long-term partnerships with local, national and global organisations is an important part of our growth strategy.

 EntrySign is a well-established market leader in visitor management with more features and scalability than other solutions and we’re proud to see that organisations recognise that as our partner programme continues to grow from strength to strength.”

Tom goes on to say “A Global leader in providing security solutions, Stanley Security were looking for a market leader in the VMS space to provide a scalable, secure, robust and reliable solution to their customers. After lots of discussion, trials and meetings with providers, EntrySign was the clear choice for them. We’re very proud of this partnership and we’re excited at what the future will bring.”

Education Software Solutions (ESS) | SIMS

If you are not already aware, we are the only VMS provider to partner with ESS SIMS – the UK’s leading school management systems provider, with a customer base of over 19,000 schools. Throughout the last 12 months our partnership has gone from strength to strength, working together to deliver EntrySign to countless schools across the country. We’re excited to see what 2022 brings!