Keeping Employees Safe During a Pandemic

Toward the middle of the pandemic, as restrictions began to ease, safeguards had to be put in place for employees that wanted to visit the office in person.

Employers had to keep in mind the restriction on how many people can be in the office at any given time, how many times a month each employee was allowed to come in, what their temperature was when entering or leaving and whether or not they had a valid ART (Rapid Antigen Test) result. In addition, all this had to be reported to Singapore's Ministry of Health in a very specific format.

In order to make the lives of our Safety Management Officers easier, we built PATH; a tool to keep track of all this information, while being as noninvasive as possible.

As a user, the journey all takes place through a telegram bot. You ask the bot if there's availability for you to visit the office, state your reason, and pick your dates. The bot then sends a notification to the SMO (Safety Management Officer) and asks for approval. Once acted upon, you receive a notification of approval or denial directly within telegram. Upon entering the office, the bot first checks if you have valid permissions. It then instructs you to use the thermometer at the door, which has been integrated into the PATH system. It then logs your temperature and opens up the door. Upon leaving, you're prompted to log your temperature once more. If you try to book an appointment without a valid ART, you are asked to submit a valid test result, which can be verified by admins.

On the admin side, all the information is portrayed to you in a simple, easy to use dashboard. You get an overview of who's been in the office on any given day, who's in there right now, who plans to come in, and what their statuses and reasons are. You have the ability to go check the history of each employee as well as their ART results. You also have the ability to export all the necessary data, in the exact format required by MOH. In addition to that, you have the ability to check on all of these via the Telegram bot as well.