When a small office decides to get rid of the clipboard, Google Forms is usually the first thing someone tries. Fair enough. It doesn’t cost anything, most people already have a Google account, and you can have something running before lunch. I’ve seen plenty of front desks start this way, and for a quiet office it can hold up for a long time.
Below is the setup I’d use if I were doing it today, followed by the places it starts to fail. Knowing those up front is what keeps a “quick fix” from turning into a problem at your next fire drill or audit.
Step 1: Create the form and keep it short
Go to forms.google.com, start a blank form, and title it something visitors will recognize, like “Visitor sign-in – Northwind Dental”. Then add the fields. A good rule of thumb: every extra field makes the line slower and gets skipped more often.
For a general office visitor log:
- Full name: Short answer, required.
- Company: Short answer, optional.
- Who are you visiting?: Dropdown with your staff names, required. A dropdown beats free text because you’ll actually be able to sort and filter it later.
- Reason for visit: Multiple choice (Meeting, Interview, Delivery, Contractor/Maintenance, Other).
- Phone or email: Short answer, optional. Turn on response validation (Text → Email address) if you ask for email.
- Agreement checkbox: “I agree to follow the site safety rules” (or your NDA wording), required.
You don’t need a “time in” field. Google records the submission timestamp automatically, and that’s more accurate than whatever someone types.
For clinics and dental offices, ask for less. A patient sign-in should be first name and arrival time and nothing else. Don’t include reason for visit, date of birth or insurance. More on why below.
Step 2: Lock down the settings
Open Settings (the gear or the Settings tab):
- Collect email addresses: set to Do not collect, unless you really need it. Otherwise visitors get pushed into signing in with Google.
- Limit to 1 response: keep it off. It forces a Google login, which breaks a shared tablet.
- Allow response editing: off.
- Presentation → Show link to submit another response: on. This one matters on a shared tablet because the next person can start fresh.
- Confirmation message: something useful, like “Thanks! Please take a seat. We’ll be right with you.”
Step 3: Send responses to Google Sheets
On the Responses tab, click Link to Sheets and create a new spreadsheet. Every sign-in now lands in a row with a Timestamp column in the first position. That’s your visitor log.
Some small improvements that help:
- Freeze the header row and turn on a filter so you can sort by date or host.
- Add a “Signed out” column next to the responses. Staff can type a time or check a box when someone leaves. Google Forms has no sign-out step, so this is a manual workaround.
- Make a “Today” tab with a formula like
=FILTER(Form_Responses!A:F, INT(Form_Responses!A:A)=TODAY())so reception sees only today’s visitors and doesn’t have to scroll through months of rows. - Check the timezone. In the spreadsheet go to File → Settings and make sure it matches your office. If it doesn’t, every timestamp is off by hours.
Step 4: Put a QR code at the door
Click Send → the link icon → Shorten URL. Paste that link into any QR code generator and download the code as a PNG or SVG.
Print it big. Put a short headline on it (“Visitors: scan to sign in”) and stick it at eye level near the door or on the reception desk. A few lessons from posters that work and posters that get ignored:
- Leave a white margin around the code. Phones need that quiet zone to read it.
- Skip glossy lamination under bright ceiling lights, because the glare stops cameras from reading the code.
- Test the printed copy with both an iPhone and an Android phone before you put it up.
- Always keep a paper fallback. Some visitors won’t use their phone, and that’s fine. A short printable sheet at the desk covers them. If you need one, our printable sign-in sheet generator makes a clean PDF (visitor, sign-in/sign-out, contractor, or a HIPAA-friendly patient version) with no signup.
Step 5 (optional): Put the form on a tablet at reception
If you’d rather visitors use a device at the desk than their own phone, open the form on an iPad and add it to the Home Screen. Then turn on Guided Access (Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access) so nobody can leave Safari. Triple-click the side button to start and stop it.
That works, with some friction, which I cover next.
Where a Google Forms sign-in breaks
None of this is a knock on Google Forms. It’s a great survey tool. Visitor management just isn’t a survey, and the gaps appear once you rely on it day to day.
1. No sign-out, so no “who’s on site right now”
A form records arrivals and nothing else. Unless someone is disciplined about that manual “Signed out” column, you can’t answer the basic question “who is in the building right now?” That matters most during a fire alarm, which is the moment nobody has time to cross-check a spreadsheet.
2. The privacy model is backwards
The good part is that visitors never see each other’s entries, which is already better than a clipboard. The bad part is that the response sheet is a regular Google file. It gets shared with a front-desk account, then with a manager, then forwarded “just for today.” Over time, nobody is quite sure who has access to a log full of names, phone numbers and visit reasons. Review the sharing settings on that sheet more often than you think you need to.
3. No host alert and no badge
When a visitor signs in, nobody is notified. Reception still has to walk over or send a message, and the host still has to look up who is waiting. There’s also no badge, so staff can’t tell a guest from a new hire. You can hack notifications together with Apps Script or add-ons, but now you’re maintaining code at the front desk.
4. HIPAA is a real problem for clinics
If you run a medical or dental practice, be careful here. A free personal Google account is not covered by a Business Associate Agreement, so it shouldn’t hold patient information. Google Workspace can cover Forms under its BAA, but only if your organization has accepted that BAA and configured things properly, and third-party Forms add-ons are not covered. Even with that in place, the safest patient sign-in still collects the least: first name and arrival time. If you’d like a simple paper version, the patient sign-in sheet template is designed around that idea. It has no reason-for-visit column, no date of birth and no full name. (I’m not a lawyer. Check your own setup with whoever handles compliance for your practice.)
5. Kiosk mode on an iPad is fiddly
Guided Access works, but someone has to start it every morning, the form can time out, the Google session can expire, and the “Submit another response” link is small for older visitors. When the iPad restarts after an update, you’re back to an open browser on the front desk.
6. The data doesn’t turn into anything
There’s no evacuation list, visit history per person, contractor view, NDA record or multi-location view. You have rows, and anything more you have to build yourself.
When it’s time to use a dedicated kiosk
Google Forms is a fine fit if you get a few visitors a week, nobody needs to be alerted, and you don’t handle patient information.
It’s worth moving to a dedicated visitor sign-in kiosk when any of these is true:
- You need to know who is still on site (fire drills, contractors, after-hours work).
- Hosts keep getting surprised by visitors waiting in the lobby.
- You want badges, NDAs or photos without bolting on scripts.
- You’re a clinic that wants patient check-in off a shared spreadsheet.
- Someone is spending real time each week fixing the iPad or cleaning up the sheet.
That’s the gap we built frontkiosk for. It’s a browser-based sign-in kiosk for small offices: open a private link on an iPad or any tablet, and visitors sign in without an account. The host gets an email when their guest arrives, a badge prints from the same tab with a QR code for sign-out, and the “who’s here” list and evacuation list update on their own. There’s nothing to install. Plans are paid, either $29 per location per month or a one-time $250 lifetime purchase for one location; see the pricing section.
If you want to see what that looks like at a front desk before you change anything, the 30-second iPad demo shows the full visitor flow. If you’re not ready to switch, keep the Google Form, add the paper fallback, and fix the sharing settings on that sheet this week. That alone puts you ahead of most front desks.
Quick checklist
- Form has 4–6 fields, host is a dropdown
- Email collection off, “submit another response” on
- Linked to Sheets, timezone checked, “Today” tab added
- Manual “Signed out” column + someone responsible for it
- QR poster tested on two phones, matte paper
- Paper fallback at the desk (printable PDF)
- Response sheet sharing reviewed
- Clinics: first name + arrival time only