Unless your company is still thinking old school, you've probably replaced paper registration with digital check-in via a tablet-enabled solution. Or, if you've adopted Sine's visitor management system, people can also check-in via a smartphone app. Regardless, if you've deployed ClearPass, it's likely you're also leveraging Guest to enable your visitors, contractors, interns and employees to self-register their BYOT devices at check in.
What if you could streamline the static check-in and Wi-Fi registration functions by combining them to enable each of these one-dimensional networking activities to become a single seamless, agile and adaptable process for your end users?
Now, by using ClearPass Extensions, you can. Aruba is enabling Sine, and other cloud-based partner solutions, to integrate with native ClearPass capabilities in a fast and streamlined way. Essentially, this provides our customers with the ability to add a guest access solution into their environment, regardless of the wireless infrastructure being used.
New open development platform unlocks software-powered innovation
Here's how it works. Each ClearPass Extension is an Aruba Cloud-connected microservice that runs on your ClearPass platform, but is not baked into the platform itself. As Extensions are nimble to develop, test, deploy and update, they enable leveraging partner innovations as they become available. There's no waiting for the next upgrade to the ClearPass platform.
In other words, Aruba made it possible for the guest Wi-Fi capabilities within ClearPass to continue sitting behind an enterprise's firewall but still interact with our solution via APIs. Of course, this saves each of our clients from building a custom integration to ClearPass, which is impractical at best.
Dynamically addressing real-time requirements
With Sine, whenever a visitor signs into (or out of) our platform, we trigger an event through our WebHooks API. It sends a guest user's identity details to the corresponding customer-deployed ClearPass Extension. The Extension communicates the visitor's data to ClearPass via local API, where an individual guest account is automatically created and the user receives Wi-Fi access details via email or SMS.
Concurrently, Sine creates any needed physical credentials, such as badges, resulting in a significantly enhanced user experience without any added burdens to facilities or IT staff.
Later, when a user leaves a facility, Sine prompts them to check out, and automatically disables their Wi-Fi guest access by sending the sign-out event to ClearPass as well.
Sine can be set to trigger custom guest types from visitors, contractors and staff so various Wi-Fi credentials can be set per visitor type.
Boosting productivity, experience and security – a technology trifecta
In addition to streamlining check-in, which improves both reception and visitor productivity, the Sine/ClearPass integration enhances digital security. Gone are all the sign-in books and the slips of paper that explained how to acquire guest access, which you commonly found littered around corporate campuses.
What's more, you get a much clearer picture of who is on your guest network at any given moment in time.
Antony Ceravolo is CEO & Founder of Sine, a global visitor and contractor software company headquartered in Australia. Sine customers include General Electric, Vodafone, HPE, P&G, Citigroup Centre, JLL, CBRE, Goodman, Stockland, IAG, Knight Frank, Cushman & Wakefield, Brookfield, Arup, Astra Zeneca, Tyro and thousands of other businesses around the world.
