Door tablet
A door tablet is a tablet mounted at a shop entrance that lets arriving customers add themselves to the waitlist without staff help.
Also called: entrance tablet, check-in tablet, sign-in tablet
A door tablet is the digital version of the sign-in clipboard by the entrance. A customer walks in, taps a few fields, and sees their place in line. The staff never stop what they are doing, and nobody has to decipher handwriting.
Placement matters. Mount it at eye level near the door, in portrait, and lock the device to one screen so customers cannot wander into settings. Turn off auto-lock, since a sleeping tablet looks like a broken one.
It also helps with privacy. A good one clears itself after each person, so the next customer never sees the previous name. That is a quiet improvement over a paper sheet, where the whole list is on show.
How NextUp Walk-in handles it
The Door Tablet runs on any iPad or Android tablet from a link on the Locations page. Customers type their name, can pick services, and see their position, estimated wait and a QR code to carry their place on their phone. It never keeps one customer details for the next.
Questions
What tablet do I need for self check-in?
Any recent iPad or Android tablet with a browser works. Put it in a stand or mount at the entrance and lock it to the check-in page.