🚀aReception BASIC - Quick Start

Welcome to aReception. This guide takes you from unboxing the terminal to live operation.
Expect 2–3 hours of work, ideally split into two sittings: first gather your data and
configure the portal, then set up the terminal and test it.

📹 Video walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3gE3dwlatk

What the BASIC plan includes

What the terminal can do in BASIC:

• Visit — the visitor says or picks an employee’s name and the avatar connects them by phone
• QR code — check-in of an announced visit from an invitation
• Mail/courier — calls an employee to collect a parcel
• Answering questions — the avatar answers whatever you put into Avatar Instructions
  (parking, opening hours, where the toilets are…)
• Language switching and emergency/evacuation mode

Beyond the scope of BASIC (handled by a higher plan or as a project): health & safety
training with electronic signature, on-site navigation, DTMF options during the call (the
host decides on their phone what should happen), custom workflows and dialogues, integration
with attendance or ERP systems, turnstiles and barriers, card printing, ID card readers. Also kiosk mode on the terminal (we deliver it via AirDroid) — it locks the tablet down to a single application so nobody can leave it; it also includes device monitoring and remote management on our side.

If you are interested in any of these, contact your sales representative, the partner you buy aReception through, or write to info@areception.ai.

Phase 1 — What to prepare in advance

Have these ready before you log into the portal for the first time. This is where you save
the most time.

• List of employees the avatar should be able to call — first name, last name, phone
  number (ideally mobile, in international format +44…), email. Best straight in a CSV.
• A second phone number for those employees who have one (a desk line next to the mobile, etc.) — it is tried when the avatar can’t reach the main number. Add it to the same CSV as another column.
• A shared backup contact — reception, front office or the gatehouse, where calls
  land when there is no clear host. Name and phone number.
• A contact for receiving deliveries — who the terminal calls when a courier arrives
  and doesn’t name anyone.
• Languages you want to offer on the terminal.
• Welcome sentences — 2 to 5 short sentences that will rotate on the welcome screen.
  They are shown before the language is chosen, so you can freely mix languages.
• A short company description for the avatar — what you do, address, reception
  opening hours, where to park, where drivers report, where the toilets are.
  10–20 sentences is enough.
• Email addresses of the people who will have portal access.
• A list of your email domains (e.g. company.com) — used to tell a colleague
  from a visitor.

💡 Keep the contact list short and current. 40 people who actually receive visitors
works better than 400 rows exported from the corporate directory.

Phase 2 — Portal configuration

The portal runs at portal.areception.ai. You log in with
a link sent to your email — no password is entered or set. We create the first account
for you; you then add further users yourself.

Portal roles:

The Internal and Visitor roles are assigned automatically based on contacts and
visitors — you don’t need to set them manually.

💡 Steps 1 to 4 are required for the first start. Steps 5 to 9 you enable depending on what
you use.

Step 1 — General account settings

Account Settings → General

• Timezone — set this right at the start. It affects visit times and the automatic
  closing of visits that were never checked out at the end of the day.

Step 2 — Contacts

Contacts

Contacts are the only source the avatar offers people to call from. Without them the
terminal will not call anyone.

For every contact fill in at least:

CSV import (the Import Contacts button) is faster than typing. The file header defines
the columns (displayName, firstName, lastName, phoneNumber, email, contactSubtitle, backupPhoneNumber , note). For the backup number (see Step 3).
A row with id filled in updates an existing contact, a row without id creates a new one —
so the same file can also be used for regular updates.

STT Boosting — helps the terminal transcribe a name correctly when a visitor says it out loud. Use it only for names that are unusual or that can be transcribed from speech in more than one way — foreign names, names that sound like an ordinary word, unusual spellings. Common names don’t need it, recognition handles them on its own.

⚠️ Don’t create a contact without a phone number. The avatar will offer them to the
visitor but won’t get through — the call falls back to the backup contact and the visitor
is needlessly confused.

Step 3 — Backup contacts for calling

Don’t skip this — it’s the most frequently overlooked setting. When the host doesn’t pick
up or has no number filled in, the call must have somewhere to go. Otherwise the visitor is
left standing at the terminal with no answer.

A backup number for each host

The contact custom field Backup Phone Number is intended as a second number for the same person — typically a desk line next to a mobile, or a work number next to a private one. When the avatar can’t reach the main number, it tries this one.

If you don’t see the field on contacts, add it: Account Settings → Contact Custom Fields,
type Text. It then appears on every contact’s detail and in the CSV import.

💡 You can put another person’s number here, but with some limitations. It technically works, but the call still presents itself as a call to the original contact — the terminal and the call show the original host’s name, not the name of whoever’s phone is actually ringing. If everyone should share the same stand-in (assistant, reception, front office), use secretariatCallList below instead — that’s what it is for.

A shared backup contact (reception / front office)

On top of that you can configure a shared list that catches calls which can’t be
attributed to a specific host:

1. Create a contact for backup calling — e.g. Reception, Front Office, Gatehouse.
   It’s an ordinary contact under Contacts, it just represents a role rather than a person.
   Fill in its display name and phone number.
2. Register it in the list — Device Settings → Custom Settings, key
   secretariatCallList. The value is a list of contact display names in quotes and
   square brackets:

   ["Reception", "Front Office"]

   They are called in the order listed — the first one to answer takes the call.

3. Set the deliveries contact — key deliveriesCallList, same format. Who gets called
   when a courier arrives and doesn’t name a specific person:

   ["Deliveries", "Reception"]

SMS to a host who missed the call

Key missedCallSmsText (Custom Settings). When the avatar can’t reach the host, it sends
them an SMS. You can insert $visitor_name into the text:

Reception: $visitor_name has just arrived and is waiting at reception, but I couldn't reach you.
Please save my number — I'll be announcing future visitors from it too.

Step 4 — Welcome screen

Device Settings → Welcome Screen

• Start conversation with
  • Language Buttons — the recommended option. One button per configured language;
    the visitor picks the language and the conversation starts in it right away.
  • Text Button — a single button with alternating text; the conversation starts in the
    default language. Used less often.
• Welcome Messages — one sentence per line, they rotate on the screen. They work best as
  short statements about what the terminal can do:

  Welcome to Example Ltd.
  I'll announce your visit.
  I'll check you in from your invitation.
  I'll take your delivery.

• Start Conversation Button Texts — max. 2 lines, only shown with the Text Button
  option.
• Avatar Mood and Mood Intensity — the default facial expression before anyone
  arrives. Closed Smile with intensity 0.4 works well.

💡 The welcome texts are shown before the language is chosen and they rotate, so a
single shared set is used for all languages. If you get visitors who don’t speak your
language, it’s a good idea to mix sentences in several languages into it — say two in
English and two in German.

Step 5 — Avatar instructions

Device Settings → Avatar Instructions

This is the System Prompt — the text that defines the avatar’s personality and what it
knows about your company. There is a separate tab per language.

The prompt should contain:

• who the avatar is and what its name is, how formal it is, how long its answers are
• where it is located (company, address, building)
• the information visitors ask about: where to park, where trucks report, opening hours,
  where the toilets are, when lunch is

A proven skeleton:

You are a digital receptionist at Example Ltd, 1 Industrial Road, Manchester.
You communicate in English and German. You are an avatar on a kiosk at the entrance, speaking by voice.
Your name is Nela. You address visitors formally.
You respond briefly, maximum 50 words, in paragraphs of up to 20 words, without formatting.

### Information about the company ###
Reception is open from 6:00 to 18:00.
Visitor parking is to the right of the main gate.
Trucks report to the gatehouse at gate 2.
The toilets are down the corridor on the left.

Three rules that save a lot of pain:

1. Don’t delete the “Special actions” and “Buttons” blocks. The prompt contains a
   section listing commands (MEETING, VISIT, DELIVERIES and others). That is how the
   avatar triggers scenarios. If it is deleted or overwritten, the terminal stops connecting
   calls and checking in invitations — and no error message appears anywhere, it just stops
   working. Only edit the text part above it. The complete block is in Appendix B.
2. Don’t tell the avatar what it can’t do. A sentence like “you have no access to a clock
   or calendar” will reliably make it refuse even a question about the time that it would
   otherwise handle — it receives the current time automatically with every query.
3. Be specific and brief. The model takes the prompt literally. “You respond in a maximum
   of 50 words” works; “answer nicely” doesn’t.

Step 6 — Help screen

Device Settings → Help Screen

The Help Text shown after tapping help. It should cover how to talk to the avatar and
information about personal data processing. We pre-fill a default text for you; usually you
just add your company name.

Step 7 — Visits and invitations

Account Settings → Visits

• Invite email body — what reaches the visitor along with the QR code.
• Internal Domains — your email domains. Attendees from these domains are not treated as
  external visits (important for invitations by email, see Phase 4).
• Invite Valid From Offset (minutes) — how many minutes before the meeting the QR code
  starts working.

Step 8 — Evacuation

Optional feature. Switch it on if you want an overview, during an emergency, of who is currently on site and whether they are safe.

How an evacuation runs:

1. An authorised user (role EMERGENCY_ADMIN) declares an emergency in the portal.
2. All currently ongoing visits on site or in the building immediately receive an SMS with a link.
3. Opening the link gives the visitor evacuation instructions including a map.
4. From the same page they report back whether they are safe or need help — and what kind of help.
5. In the portal you see in real time who has responded, who is safe, and who hasn’t responded at all.

Account Settings → Emergency

• Enable Emergency Feature
• Assembly Point Code — the code people at the assembly point enter to confirm they are safe
• Evacuation Map URL and General Instructions — shown on the evacuation page

If you use the evacuation feature, also switch on requiring a phone number from visitors —
Device Settings → Custom Settings, key requireVisitorPhoneNumber = true. The avatar then
asks every visitor for their number on arrival, and when an emergency is declared an SMS with
instructions is sent to it. Without a number the system has nowhere to send the information.

Step 9 — Device custom settings

Device Settings → Custom Settings

Switches that tune the scenario’s behaviour for your installation. They are added as
Key / Value pairs. The complete list is in Appendix A.

Rules:

• The key must match exactly, including capitalisation. A typo = the setting is ignored.
• The value is always text. Write on/off options in lower case: true / false.
• A change takes effect in the next conversation, not in the middle of an ongoing one.
• You can drag items to reorder them; it has no effect on behaviour.

The minimum to set right away:

Recommendation on name entry: voice is the fastest but makes mistakes in a noisy
environment; form is the most reliable and we recommend it wherever the name is written
into the visitor book.

Phase 3 — Getting the terminal running

We ship the terminal preconfigured. Your job is to prepare a spot, network and power for it,
and to pair it with the portal.

Placement

• At the entrance, at eye level — the visitor must see the terminal before they start
  looking for a bell.
• Not facing a window or strong backlight — the display gets hard to read.
• Not in a noisy corner — the microphone also picks up the surroundings. A hall with
  forklifts, or open gates behind the visitor’s back, is a problem.
• Not next to another terminal, a TV or a loud speaker playing speech — the terminal
  would transcribe the speech from those devices and take it as visitor input.
  Background music is fine; spoken word is not.
• Free space around it — the visitor needs to reach the display and have somewhere to
  put a bag down.

Connections

• Power — permanent, in a socket that isn’t switched off with the lights.
• Network — Wi-Fi or Ethernet, with internet access. We recommend cable, it’s more stable.
• Sound — test the volume in real operating conditions, not in the quiet after hours.

Pairing with the portal

If the terminal isn’t mapped to your account yet, it will ask for it itself after the first
start.

1. In the portal open Device Settings → Credentials and display the QR code.
2. Scan that QR code on the terminal.
3. The terminal links to the portal and pulls down your configuration.

First start

1. Switch the terminal on and wait for the welcome screen with the avatar to come up.
2. Check that your welcome texts are shown — if you see the original demo texts, end the
   conversation and try again; settings are loaded when a conversation starts.
3. Tap a language button (with the Text Button option, the start-conversation button) —
   the avatar speaks up and greets you.
4. Say “hello” out loud and watch for a blue bar with the transcribed text at the top of the
   screen. That means the terminal can hear you.
5. Try the on-screen buttons as well — Visit, I have a QR code, Mail/courier.
   They trigger exactly the same scenarios as a spoken request.

⚠️ Watch out for the “push to talk” button. It is on by default: the visitor has to
hold the on-screen button down the whole time they are speaking and release it when
they finish. It’s the most common reason a new user thinks the terminal can’t hear them.
Bear it in mind during testing and tell any colleagues who will be demonstrating the
terminal.

⚠️ Avatar hears you but doesn’t react to the words? Get in touch. It’s usually the
ambient-noise suppression setting for that particular microphone and we tune it remotely —
no need to deal with it on site.

Phase 4 — Testing aReception

Now try the whole thing from the visitor’s point of view. Before you put the terminal into
live operation, walk through all the scenarios.

How to send an invitation

There are two ways to issue an invitation. Both lead to the same result: the visitor receives
an email with a QR code they use to check in at the terminal.

A) From the portal

Visits → New Invite

1. Select or create the visitor (name, email).
2. Select the host — the contact the visit belongs to.
3. Set the date and time of the visit.
4. Send. The visitor receives an email with a QR code.

Good for planned visits entered by reception or an assistant.

B) By email via invite@areception.ai

The fastest route for regular employees — they never have to open the portal.

When creating a meeting in Outlook or Google Calendar, add invite@areception.ai as
another attendee. The system processes the meeting and sends every external attendee an
email with a QR code.

How it works:

⚠️ The meeting organiser must exist in the portal as a contact — otherwise the system
doesn’t know which account the invitation belongs to and sends them an error message back.
Before you announce this route to employees, check that they are all under Contacts.

If a meeting has only internal attendees, no invitation is created — which is correct, only
external visitors need a QR code.

Try it: create a meeting, add invite@areception.ai and your private email address as an
attendee. A QR code will arrive at your private email shortly.

How a visit is handled — from the visitor’s point of view

The visitor walks up to the terminal, taps a language button and the avatar greets them.
From there they either say what they need or pick one of the buttons below the avatar.
Both lead to the same scenario.

🔹 Visit (unannounced)

The “Visit” button, or simply saying “I’m here to see Mr Smith”.

1. The avatar asks who the visitor is here to see. They can say the name out loud or pick
   it from the contact list on the display.
2. The avatar asks for the visitor’s name (by voice, via a form or via the keyboard,
   depending on the setting).
3. The avatar calls the host, tells them “Jane Doe is at reception, putting you
   through” and connects the call straight away — the host talks to the visitor through
   the terminal.
4. If the host doesn’t answer, the call is forwarded to their backup number, or to the
   shared backup contact (reception / front office), and the host receives an SMS telling them
   someone was looking for them.
5. The visit is recorded in the portal under Visits.

💡 In higher plans step 3 can be replaced by DTMF options — the host presses a key on
their phone and thereby decides what happens (connect the call, open the door, dispense a
card, “I’m on my way to reception”). In the BASIC plan the call is connected directly.

🔹 I have a QR code (announced visit)

The “I have a QR code” button.

1. The visitor holds the QR code from the email up to the reader on the terminal.
2. The terminal finds the invitation, greets the visitor by name and confirms who they
   have a meeting with.
3. The avatar calls the host and connects the call — from here on it’s the same as an
   unannounced visit.
4. The visit is recorded in the portal, linked to the invitation.

The QR code becomes valid shortly before the meeting starts (per the setting in
Account Settings → Visits) and stops being valid when the meeting ends. If the visitor
arrives earlier or much later, the QR code won’t pass — then they use the Visit button.

🔹 Mail and courier

The “Mail/courier” button, or “I have a delivery”.

1. The courier says they are delivering a parcel.
2. If they name a specific person, the avatar calls that person.
3. If they don’t name anyone, it calls the contact from the deliveriesCallList.
4. The avatar tells the courier what to do — where to leave the parcel, or that someone is
   coming for it.

🔹 Questions about the company

The visitor can ask the avatar anything you put into Avatar Instructions — where to
park, where the toilets are, when reception is open. They can also ask for the current time.

🔹 Evacuation

Declared from the portal (Emergency), not from the terminal.

1. Once declared, the terminal switches into evacuation mode.
2. Visitors who have a phone number in the system receive an SMS with instructions.
3. At the assembly point people confirm they are safe by entering the assembly point code.
4. In the portal you see in real time who has been evacuated and who hasn’t.

Checklist before going live

Go through this on the terminal itself. It takes 15 minutes and catches most problems.

• The terminal wakes up, the avatar speaks and is audible over normal operating noise
• “Push to talk” — you know the button is held down for the whole time you speak
• Visit by voice — “I’m here to see Mr Smith” → the avatar finds the right person
• Visit by button — the contact list appears and can be scrolled
• The call connects and the person called hears who is calling and why
• No answer — an unanswered call falls back to the backup contact and the host gets an SMS
• QR invitation from the portal — an invitation sent to yourself passes check-in
• Invitation via invite@areception.ai — a meeting with an external attendee creates an invitation
• Mail / courier — the right person is called
• Foreign language — the language button works and the avatar answers in the chosen language
• Question about the company — the avatar answers based on Avatar Instructions
• The visit appears in the portal under Visits within a few seconds
• Evacuation (if you use it) — declaring it switches the terminal over and the SMS arrives

Phase 5 — Enjoy your aReception virtual receptionist

Done. The terminal is running and handling visitors. From now on, maintenance is a matter of
a few minutes a month.

What you change yourself

What we recommend doing in the first month

• Send employees the number the virtual receptionist calls from. It is one single
  number for all calls from the terminal — we will give it to you at handover (it
  differs by country). Have people save it in their contacts: a call from this number
  always means “a visitor has arrived and is waiting at reception”. This markedly
  increases the number of answered calls.
• Tell employees about invite@areception.ai — the more visitors arrive with a QR
  code, the faster the check-in and the fewer calls to reception.
• Review the Visits section after a week — you’ll see who visits most often and
  whether a contact is missing somewhere.
• Add the questions that came up to Avatar Instructions — visitors ask about things
  you never thought of. Every sentence added means one less question at reception.
• Check that contacts are up to date — a dead phone number is the most common cause
  of “it doesn’t work”.

When you’re stuck

Write to us. Anything that isn’t in the portal — a new scenario, an integration, different
hardware, microphone tuning or translations — is on us.

✉️ support@areception.ai
📞 +420 580 000 777
🕗 Mon–Fri 8AM–5PM (CET/CEST)

Appendix A — Custom setting keys

Device Settings → Custom Settings

Keys outside this list are not read by the scenario. The portal also blocks some names as
reserved — if it reports Reserved key name, get in touch.

Contact custom fields (Account Settings → Contact Custom Fields) — these are not the
same thing as device custom settings:

Appendix B — The mandatory block in Avatar Instructions

This block must stay in the system prompt. Without it the avatar will not trigger any
scenario. Only include the language commands for the languages you actually use.

### Special actions you can perform ###
If you want to start a dialogue to select an employee and then connect by phone, append at the end of your response a special command in the form {"command": "MEETING"}.
If a visitor wants to call a specific person and mentions their name, **return only the command** {"command": "MEETING", "name": "<employee name>"}.
If the visitor has a QR invitation or came to an agreed meeting, add the command {"command": "VISIT"} at the end of the reply.
If you want to start a dialogue to call an employee to receive mail, do not say anything and return only the command in the form {"command": "DELIVERIES"}.
If you want to start a dialogue to assign a delivery to a specific employee, **return only the command** {"command": "DELIVERIES", "name": "<employee name>"}.
If you want to change the language to German, do not say anything and just send the command in the form {"command": "LANG-DE"}.
If you want to end the conversation or at farewell, append at the end of the response a special command in the form {"command":"END-CONVERSATION"}.

### Buttons ###
Under the digital assistant avatar are buttons for quick selection. The same functionality can be requested verbally by the user and if this happens, then add a special command according to the requested button to your response. Here is a list of buttons:
# Visit - the visitor has the option to say or select from the list the name of the employee and then connect with them by phone {"command": "MEETING"}
# I have a QR code - the visitor scans the QR code from the invitation and then connects by phone to the host {"command": "VISIT"}
# Mail/courier - information for people delivering a parcel {"command": "DELIVERIES"}

Optionally you can add routing to specific people by area of responsibility after the block:

If the visitor wants to resolve a specific matter, connect them to the employee responsible for
that area by adding the command {"command": "MEETING", "name": "<employee name>"} at the end of
your response. A list of employees and their areas follows.
Jane Doe: invoicing, orders
Peter Smith: complaints

Appendix C — Common problems