Front-Desk Station Check Guide
A reference for the DeskTest.net Front-Desk Station Check. It is a guided checklist that walks a front-desk operator through testing every peripheral on a workstation - check scanner, printer, signature pad, card reader, and barcode scanner - and rolls the results into a single station verdict and a report you can hand to IT. This guide explains why it is a checklist rather than one click, how to run each test, and how to read and share the result.
What the station check does
The Front-Desk Station Check is a launcher and scorecard for the hardware at a reception or leasing-office desk. It lists the peripherals a front-desk workstation depends on, opens the matching single-purpose test for each one in a new tab, and lets you mark each peripheral Pass or Fail after you run it. As you mark items, it tracks your progress ("3 of 5 checked"), computes an overall station verdict, and builds one plain-text report covering which peripherals passed, which failed, and which have not been tested. The page itself is strict-local: it makes no network requests and stores nothing but your light/dark theme preference - it only links out to the tests.
Why it is a checklist, not one click
The Full Workstation Checkup can run itself because everything it measures - the browser, the processor, the network, the clock - is already available to the page. Peripherals are different. A check scanner has to have a check fed into it; a signature pad has to be signed; a card reader has to have a card swiped through it; a barcode scanner has to have a barcode put in front of it. No web page can perform those physical actions for you, and honestly reporting a peripheral as "working" requires a human to confirm it actually did. So the station check does not pretend to be automatic. It removes the busywork - finding and opening the right test for each device - and leaves the one thing only a person at the desk can do: run the device and record whether it worked.
Running the checklist
Work down the list one peripheral at a time:
- Read the one-line description of what that peripheral's test confirms.
- Click Open the test - the single-purpose test opens in a new browser tab, so this checklist stays put.
- Run the test in that tab following its own on-screen steps (feed a check, sign, swipe, or scan).
- Come back to this tab and set the result to Pass or Fail. Leave it on Not tested if you skipped it.
The three-way control for each peripheral is a normal radio group: click an option, or focus it and use the arrow keys. The row tints green for a pass and red for a fail, the progress counter updates, and the verdict at the top re-computes immediately. Reset marks clears everything so you can start a fresh station over.
The five peripherals
Each row links to a dedicated DeskTest.net tool that goes much deeper than a single pass/fail. What each one confirms:
| Peripheral | What its test confirms | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Check scanner | The FIS WebScan service is running, the scanner is connected, and a fed check produces a scan. | Scanner Test |
| Receipt / document printer | A designed test page prints clean, aligned, and complete through the normal print dialog. | Printer Test |
| Signature pad | The Topaz SigWeb service is reachable, the pad is connected, and a test signature is captured. | Signature Pad Test |
| Card reader | A swiped test card decodes Track 1 and Track 2, or the reader is encrypting (P2PE). Card data is masked and never stored. | Card Reader Test |
| Barcode scanner | The keystroke burst from a keyboard-wedge scanner arrives, the symbology and check digit validate, and the terminator is present. | Barcode Test |
If a peripheral test comes back with a problem, open that tool directly for the full diagnostic - it will tell you far more about why than a pass/fail mark can.
The station verdict
The banner at the top turns your marks into one plain-language verdict:
- Station ready (green) - all five peripherals were tested and every one passed.
- Checked, no failures yet (amber) - nothing has failed, but at least one peripheral has not been tested. The station is not fully verified until every device is marked.
- Station not ready (red) - one or more peripherals failed. A single failure holds the whole station back, because a front desk needs all of its hardware working.
The rule is deliberately strict: a station only reads as ready when every peripheral has been tested and passed. An untested device is treated as unknown, not as a pass.
Reading the result and handing it to IT
Below the checklist are three buttons, active once you have marked at least one peripheral:
- Copy report copies a plain-text summary - the station status, every peripheral with its Pass / Fail / Not tested mark, and a link to each test - to your clipboard, ready to paste into a ticket or email.
- Send to your IT opens a pre-filled email containing that same report, with the station status already in the subject line.
- Reset marks clears the checklist to start over.
A View report toggle shows the exact text the two buttons use, so you can read it before sending. The report notes that the marks were set manually by the operator, includes your browser's user agent and the page origin, and contains no card data, files, or other business data.
White-label for IT teams
Two optional URL parameters let an IT team hand front-desk staff a branded, pre-addressed station check - no build step, just a link:
?org=<name>adds a banner naming the organization and stamps that name onto the report.?support=<email>points "Send to your IT" at that address, so the pre-filled email is already addressed to your help desk. When a support address is set, the banner also shows where the report goes.
Combine both in one link. For example:
https://desktest.net/station-check/?org=Acme%20Property&[email protected]
opens the station check branded for Acme Property, with "Send to your IT" pre-addressed to the help desk. The organization name is length-capped and only ever displayed; the parameters are read from the URL and never leave the browser except in the email the user chooses to send.
When to run it
Run the station check when you are opening a new front desk, swapping a workstation, or doing a morning-of readiness pass before the office opens. It gives you a single, repeatable checklist so no peripheral gets forgotten, and a report you can file or send to prove the station was verified. For an everyday "is this PC healthy?" check of the browser, hardware, network, and clock, use the Full Workstation Checkup instead - the two are complementary.
Related tools
The station check is a wrapper around five tools that each go much deeper. Open the one a row points you to:
- Scanner Test - FIS WebScan check-scanner diagnostic.
- Printer Test - test-page print and visual checklist.
- Signature Pad Test - Topaz SigWeb signature-pad diagnostic.
- Card Reader Test - USB magnetic-stripe reader test with masked output.
- Barcode Test - keyboard-wedge barcode scanner capture and validation.
See also the Full Workstation Checkup, About DeskTest.net, and the DeskTest.net home.