Data Files samples / Building front desk

Copperfield House

Visitors, hosts, badges, contractor inductions and permits, deliveries and fire roll calls for an office building's front desk.

Download 409 KB13 tables, 13 queries, 9 reports, 5 print templates and 13,107 invented records, dated back from 2026-10-22.

Rutba Data Files with Copperfield House, the building front desk sample, open at its print template Visitor pass: a page laid out with the business's own name and address at the head and one of its records filled in, beside the list of the database's tables and how many records each holds — Copperfield House in Rutba Data Files, made with its invented records and open at its print template Visitor pass.

Overview

For the front desk or reception of a building shared by several companies: a multi-let office block, a business centre, a co-working building, a science park, or a single company's head office with many departments. It keeps who is expected, who is in the building now and who they are with, which badge each has, the parcels waiting for collection, the contractors and their inductions and permits, and the fire roll calls.

Copperfield House is an invented seven-storey office building by a canal in Manchester. Nine companies rent its floors, from a design studio of a dozen people to a firm of a hundred, and the building's own management team sits on the ground floor with the front desk. On a working day the desk signs in about twenty-five visitors: clients and suppliers for the tenants, interview candidates, and contractors for the building and its tenants. It takes in about ten deliveries, from letters to pallets, and holds a fire drill each quarter.

The records cover thirteen months of working days up to the day the file is made, with the next two weeks' booked visits. Most visitors are booked in by their host beforehand; the rest walk in. A few booked visitors never come. Most sign out and hand their badge back, a few forget, and a few badges go missing. Contractors take the site induction once a year and need a permit for hot work, work at height and the like. Most parcels are collected the same day; some wait while their addressee is away.

A visitor's record holds only a name, the company they come from and, for those who drive, a car registration, here in a made-up pattern (ZX-1234-A) that no real plate has. All of it is invented.

In Rutba Data Files, choose Building front desk on the start screen, then With sample records to look around, or Empty for the same design with nothing in it.

It suits, with small changes

A multi-let office building or business centre
A co-working space with members and their guests
A company head office with several departments as its tenants
A science park or innovation centre
A school, college or clinic reception that signs visitors in
A factory or depot gatehouse with contractors and deliveries

Read on

Tutorial: the everyday tasks: 7 everyday tasks, step by step, each naming what to open.
Tables, fields and relationships: every field of 13 tables, and how they are related.
Queries, forms, reports and print templates: what each one shows, its criteria and calculated columns, and when to print it.

Things you should know

Everything in a sample's records is invented: the business, the people, their addresses, e-mail addresses on example domains that reach nobody, and phone numbers from the ranges kept for drama and fiction. Tax, company and bank numbers are placeholders of zeros.
The dates count back from the day the file was made, and some run on into the weeks after it, as real bookings and due dates do. Made from the Data Files start screen, a sample is dated from that day. Queries that compare with today (overdue, due this week) show more as a downloaded file gets older.
To start empty, choose the same business on the start screen and then Empty: the same tables, queries, forms, reports and print templates, with nothing in them but the Start Here guide.
Your records live in one file on your computer. Keep copies: File, Save As makes one, and a copy on another drive or in your own cloud storage keeps it safe if this computer is lost. Close the database before copying the file by hand.
Every change to the design (a new field, a renamed table) is a numbered step that Data Files keeps, so you can see what was changed and when.
In the building now looks at visits signed in today or yesterday that have no Signed Out time. Someone who left without signing out stays on it until the desk sets their Signed Out or their Status; check it before trusting it in an evacuation.
The query and report work from the clock: Expected today and tomorrow and In the building now change through the day as visitors come and go, so the sample shows the building as it was when the file was made.
A print template prints every record of its table, so choose the visit, delivery or induction you want before pressing Print, or it prints them all.
Contractors in the sample take a new induction on their first visit after the last one ran out. The older induction is kept, with Renewed ticked, so the history stays.
Badges here are reused: the same badge appears on many visits. A badge not handed back is Missing for a month and then Written off, and a new number is added.
Only what the desk needs about a visitor is kept: a name, a company and a car registration. Do not add home addresses, dates of birth or ID numbers; delete old visits when you no longer need them (see the ways to adapt the sample).
The building's own management team is a tenant on the ground floor, so contractors working on the building itself have a host like anyone else.

Starting with your own records

Start with Business, the building's own name and address, which every document prints. Then Floors, from the ground floor up, then Tenants on each floor and the Hosts who work for them, and the Badges in the tray. Visitors are added the first time they come or are booked, and each arrival is a Visit. Contractors need an Induction before they start work, and a Permit for risky work. Deliveries are entered as they arrive. Each drill or alarm is a Roll Call with its lines.

Making it yours

Every change to the design is a numbered step in Data Files, so a change can be seen and undone.

For a co-working space, make each member company a tenant and each member a host; add a Desk field to Hosts for their usual desk.
If visitors must accept the building's rules or a confidentiality agreement at the desk, add an Agreed yes/no field to Visits and tick it at sign-in.
To keep a record of the tenants' own staff in the building, add a Staff Badges table and sign them in and out like visitors; the roll call can then list them by name.
For a site with several entrances, add a Desk field to Visits and Deliveries, and group the visitor book by it.
If visitors may only come with a valid ID check, add an ID Checked yes/no field to Visits; do not record the document's number.
Add a Vehicles field to Permits for contractors who need the loading bay, and a query of loading bay bookings for the next 7 days.
To delete old visitor records after a year, run the visitor book query with a Days Ago criterion of more than 365 and delete the visits it lists, then visitors with no visits left.

Questions people ask

How do I print the list of who is in the building for a fire alarm?: Print the report Fire roll call list. It lists every visitor and contractor signed in and not signed out, a page for each floor, with their host and badge.
How do I print one visitor's pass?: Open the visit in the Visits form, or open the print template Visitor pass from Print templates and choose that visit, then press Print.
A visitor left without signing out. What do I do?: Type the time they left, if the host knows it, in Signed Out; otherwise set Status to Not signed out. Leave Badge Returned unticked if they took the badge, and it will show in Badges not returned.
How do I know a contractor may start work?: Open the query Contractor inductions and find them: their latest induction must show Valid. If it has expired, give the induction again before they start, and issue a permit for any risky work.
Why is the car registration in such an odd pattern?: So that no plate in the sample could be a real person's. Type real registrations as they are written in your own country.
Where do the tenants' own staff go in the roll call?: Each tenant's fire warden counts their staff at the assembly point; the desk adds one Staff line for each tenant with the number in People.
How long should visitor records be kept?: Only as long as you need them, which many buildings set at a year. Use the query Visitor book, last 7 days with its Days Ago criterion changed to find older visits, and delete them.

Data Files is free

It comes with Rutba Office, with no account and no trial.

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