PassportScan

Start the project

When we travel on vacation, the last thing we want is to spend extra time at the hotel reception during the check-in process. Now we have PassportScan, an app that allows travelers to seamlessly check in to hotels via mobile and tablet devices.

The story begins when David Palo, CEO of PassportScan, was looking for an answer to a basic but simple question “should I develop an iOS or Android app for an existing software?”.

To find the answer, he searched the web and came across our blog post on the topic. After reading our article, David still had specific unresolved issues, so he decided to contact us and learn more about the mobile app development process.

When we contacted David, he told us more about his challenges. David already had existing hotel front desk software to scan and sort documents, but he needed an app for tablets and mobile devices to automate the rest of the human-controlled check-in process. Hotel staff do it manually.

Therefore, we began a long-term partnership and developed the PassportScan app for iPad and Android devices, a web service for hotel staff, and a check-in web portal.

What is the PassportScan app?

Using PassportScan, hotel staff can scan guest documents, enable guests to sign digital registration cards, manage information via the app, and send data to the property management system or system. Hotel customer relationship management.

PassportScan helps eliminate paper documents and reduce the number of human errors in customer records by leveraging optical character recognition (OCR) features and an integrated Address Validator.

Our target 

• Develop applications for iOS and Android. We need to develop an application for tablets and iPads that allows managers from different hotels to log in to the PassportScan system through their personal accounts, scan guest documents and send the data to the facility. hotel database.
• Integrate applications into customer ecosystems. Each hotel has its own internal system to track check-in and guest information. Therefore, the application sends scanned data and other guest information to the hotel database seamlessly and without errors.
• Build a data management system. In addition to scanning passports, users need a platform to manage data, set up owner and branch settings, payment information, and user access.
• Allow users to make payments. Since PassportScan adopts a subscription payment model, we needed to create an e-commerce module for online payments via credit cards.
• Protect personal data. Because the app handles sensitive data (customer data, document images, and biometric signatures), we needed to apply enhanced security measures and make the app compatible with regulatory requirements. New European regulations on personal data privacy, such as GDPR.

Our solution – PassportScan App 

PassportScan consists of three main parts.

Passport Scanning Workspace 

Workspace is a web portal designed to manage apartment reservations in hostels and hotels. Workspace stores guest records, reservation details, ID information, and signed documents.

PassportScan Workspace holds data received from

• PassportScan mobile application
• PassportScan desktop software
• Hotel PMS (Property Management System)

PassportScan Workspace supports integration with Oracle products, such as Suite 8 and Opera, to import and export data. The web portal also includes a support ticketing system so hotel staff can communicate with the developers in case of errors or system failures.

PassportScan payment system 

This is a web-based application for PassportScan users to pay for their subscriptions through the Stripe payment gateway. Initially, users have a one-month trial period. At the end of each month, users will receive an automatically generated invoice based on the number of scans and symbols added to the system as well as the number of gigabytes used.

PassportScan’s payment system includes the following features:

• Verify payment details
• Check the validity of your credit card
• Pay online via Stripe payment gateway
• Edit payment method
• “Payment history” with digital invoices

PassportScan native app for iPad and Android tablets 

Native apps allow hotel staff to scan guest documents using iPads and Android tablets, then send the data to Workspaces.

The apps for both platforms include the same feature set:

• Search for available reservations in the PassportScan system
• Scan the front and back of documents
• Edit guest information
• Digital signatures
• Passport Scan privacy policy
• GDPR-compliant data usage agreement
• List with additional hotel services

PassportScan’s registration takes six steps:

Step 1.   Hotel staff begins the registration/check-in process and finds the guest’s reservation

Step 2.   Hotel staff updates guest information by scanning documents with the PassportScan application

Step 3.   The application recognizes the image from the visitor’s passport, captures the data, then classifies and verifies it

Step 4.   Hotel staff edits identified elements if necessary

Step 5.   Guest agrees to the privacy policy with a GDPR-compliant Data Use Agreement

Step 6.   Guests place an electronic signature and can request additional hotel services

Our challenges and solutions

System diagram

Due to the complexity of the system, we developed the project’s back-end system taking into account high load capacity by adopting a microservice architecture approach that allows the system to have billions of vertical and horizontal ratio.

In this way, the application is divided by functionality (vertical scaling) and each microservice can run as multiple instances behind a load balancer (horizontal scaling). In addition, we have achieved a more efficient consumption of computational resources, since under high loads the architecture scales horizontally.

• The public API   provides an interface to the back-end for the native application, as well as integration capabilities for 3rd party external systems
• Admin panel   with control panel for configuration management
• The Workspace  , a system management web interface for hotel staff

Security

For every type of application user, the system provides an authentication process with personalized credentials and password security provided by the Administrator. The system interacts with the outside world via SSL with 128-bit keys. The services have no external connection, located on a private cloud, completely isolated from external access. The system protects sensitive customer data by encryption using the AES 256 algorithm.

Timeline

The biggest challenge we faced was adhering to tight deadlines during the development phase. The main reason for such a rush was that David and the PassportScan team were scheduled to present the app’s MVP at several RoadShows and Hospitality conferences. So there is no room for error.

We completed the project release on time, thanks to defined Milestones, a well-prepared microservices and backend project architecture. Thanks to microservices technology, we managed to develop multiple modules simultaneously, and the orchestration of adding modules helped us avoid any kind of server downtime. Therefore, if any module fails, other modules will quickly help (under 5 seconds) to retrieve all data.

Project technology stack 

• Symfony 4.3 for payment systems and web-based workspaces
• The SDK reads documents to identify letters and numbers in the passport
• Signature module SDK for capturing digital signatures
• Scan module SDK for passport scanning
• Storage module SDK for sending data to cloud storage
• Module and license management SDK to manage owner, hotel data, and root client device identity
• User management API to set different user access levels
• Stripe SDK is an online payment gateway
• JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) to create custom invoices
• Google Maps API for address validation
• Google Cloud Platform Storage for secured data storage
• Amazon Web Services Mailer for streamlined ticketing and technical support
• Google Cloud Platform Pub/Sub messaging to connect microservices architecture components
• Swift SDK for iPad app version
• Android SDK and Android Studio for Android-enabled devices

Team composition

• 4 Back-end programmers
• 1 DevOps
• 2 Project management
• 2 iOS developers
• Android developer
• 2 QA engineers
• 2 Business Analysts

Result

PassportScan is shaping the hospitality industry by showing how technology can eliminate routine tasks and paperwork for hotel staff.

Thanks to clear project goals and timely communication with David and the PassportScan team, we built the first version of the app in just one month from project launch. We’re proud to be a part of products like PassportScan because they improve the world we live in today. Watch the video where we share our thoughts on the PassportScan project.

We recently launched a Self-Check-in app discovery phase for PassportScan to allow guests to check-in via the app using their own mobile devices. This is very important right now with the COVID-19 Pandemic situation, allowing the possibility of contactless services in the Hospitality industry.