Computer Lab Sign-In and Waitlist Software

When a lab is busy, the front desk decides how quickly students get to a computer. With paper logs or a spreadsheet it is hard to tell which workstations are free, who is sitting where, and whether the person at the counter has been banned for misuse. Students queue up in a full room while another room down the hall still has free machines.

VeraLab gives lab staff one place to sign users in and out, see occupancy across all rooms, reserve rooms for classes and manage waitlists. It supports both attended counter sign-in and self-service sign-in with your campus directory, checks every user against your Alert List, and records each session in an access log you can search later.

On this page
  1. Counter sign-in
  2. Self-service sign-in with LDAP, Active Directory and SSO
  3. Room occupancy and class reservations
  4. Waitlists
  5. Station availability
  6. Access restrictions and access logs

Counter Sign-In from the Lab Assistant Dashboard

In the counter scenario, every incoming user signs in through a Lab Assistant, who assigns them to a workstation. From the Dashboard, the Lab Assistant enters the user's School ID, picks a workstation in one of the counter's rooms and clicks Assign; Unassign ends the session. The number of guests accompanying a user can be recorded as well. To speed up sign-in, the Dashboard can be integrated with card readers that read student ID cards.

Sign-in can also drive workstation locking: in Strict mode a workstation stays locked until a user is signed in to it and locks again at sign-out.

VeraLab Lab Assistant Dashboard for counter WAB53 with a School ID field, Assign and Unassign controls, and vacant, in-use and unavailable counts for each room
The Lab Assistant Dashboard: assign users by School ID and see vacant, in-use and unavailable workstations in every room.

Self-Service Sign-In with LDAP, Active Directory and SSO

In the self-service scenario, registered users walk up to any available workstation and log in with their campus credentials. VeraLab Guard, the client on each workstation, notifies the VeraLab Server of every login; the server checks the user against the Alert List and checks that the workstation is available, and if either check fails, the user is logged out. Session start and end, and both successful and failed login attempts, are stored for reporting, and idle sessions can be signed out automatically.

VeraLab connects to your existing LDAP directory or Microsoft Active Directory, so there is no duplicate data entry. It can store directory attributes such as student, staff, faculty or alumni for reporting, and warn users on-screen when their status is about to expire. Single Sign-On (SAML) can be enabled for the VeraLab web application. See VeraLab LDAP integration, the counter vs. self-service sign-in white paper, and the LDAP and SSO (SAML) setup guides.

Since VeraLab 26.1, one unified client covers every sign-in method. How each workstation signs in is set per room or department from the server under Setup → Client Modes:

Changing a room's mode takes effect without reinstalling or restarting the client.

VeraLab Client Modes task listing rooms with their sign-in mode and autologon account
Set each room's sign-in mode and autologon account from the server.

In self-service rooms, Lab Assistants watch the lab with the Monitoring task: signed-in users, Alert List notifications, occupancy and availability for each workstation.

VeraLab Monitoring task for room Li2064 - Classroom listing workstations with In Use, Available, Locked and Occupied By columns
The Monitoring task shows which workstations are in use and who is signed in.

Room Occupancy and Class Reservations

When a lab spans several rooms, the Dashboard shows the occupancy of every room (vacant, in use, unavailable and reserved for a class) and the waitlist at each counter, so staff can redirect incoming users from over-occupied rooms to under-occupied ones.

Lab Assistant Dashboard with room WAB53A reserved for a class of 15 and a Lab Status table showing vacant workstations in other rooms
Lab Status shows vacant seats in other rooms, so staff can send users where there is space.

An entire room can be marked as reserved for a class. In Class Registration the Lab Assistant enters the instructor ID, the number of students and the room, then clicks Start Class. The instructor decides whether other users may take the remaining workstations by checking Instructor permits individual registrations during the class. End Class releases the room.

Class registration form with instructor ID, number of students, room, the option to permit individual registrations, and an End Class button for room WAB53A
Reserving a room for a class, with or without individual registrations allowed.

To let users reserve individual computers or rooms in advance, add the optional VeraLab Booking App.

Waitlists

When no workstations are available, users can be added to a waitlist with their user ID and a nickname. Users can choose what they are waiting for: any machine in the room, a machine of a particular type (image), or a particular machine. Lab Assistants are notified as soon as a waitlisted user can be assigned to a workstation, and Waitlist reports show aggregated waitlist statistics per room by day of the week (see reporting).

Manage Waitlist form with User ID and Nickname fields and Room, Image and Workstation set to Any
Adding a user to the waitlist for any available workstation.
Manage Waitlist form with a specific room, image and workstation selected
Waiting for a particular room, image or workstation.

Station Availability

Out-of-order workstations can be marked unavailable, which prevents user sign-in in every sign-in mode. The Workstation Availability task shows each station's availability, a reason such as Reimaging, and its locked state, and unavailable counts appear on the Dashboard. Technicians can also take a station out of service from an issue; see issue tracking and maintenance.

Workstation Availability table for room WAB53A with Available checkboxes, Reason drop-downs such as Reimaging, Locked status and Lock and Unlock buttons
Marking workstations unavailable, for example while they are reimaged.

Access Restrictions and Access Logs

Known violators can be added to the Alert List, and Lab Assistants are warned when they try to sign one in. An entry can identify a counter user by ID or a self-service user by user name and domain, and can reject self-service sign-in altogether. See alert lists and threat levels.

Edit Alert form for a self-service user with the Reject self-service sign-in option and Green, Yellow and Red alert levels
An Alert List entry can reject self-service sign-in for a specific user.

Every sign-in and sign-out is saved to the access log. Staff can search registrations by School ID, date range, room and station to find who occupied a particular workstation at a particular time, or which workstations a particular user has occupied. Results can be exported to Excel or CSV. A security setting hides Student ID and Instructor ID values in the Check-In, Waitlist and Class registration dashboards by default.

Search Counter Registrations form with School ID, date range, room and station filters above a table of individual registrations with start and end times
Searching the access log to see who used which workstation and when.
Workstation Locking and SecurityLock screens, alert lists, remote screenshots, process control and messages to workstations. Staff Clock-In and PayrollShift clock-in, employee schedules, coverage charts and payroll reports with Excel export. Issue Tracking and MaintenanceLog hardware and software issues, notify technicians and take broken stations out of service. Reports and AnalyticsBuilt-in usage, waitlist, payroll and maintenance reports with charts and Excel export. Booking AppOptional module for reserving individual computers or whole rooms for classes.

Back to the VeraLab product overview, or browse the full VeraLab feature list with screenshots of every module.

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