EvolvePlus Blog

We've recently introduced an enhancement within the BookingsPlus Resource Bookings module to set different rates when booking a facility.

For example: when booking a community facility a Council may charge a standard rate for commercial & standard customers/patrons and a different community rate for community groups and not-for-profit organisations.

In the latest version of BookingsPlus version 18, you can configure this for each resource or facility within the "Content Management" administration module.

Our battery-powered Customer Feedback Counters gather valuable customer satisfaction information with five separate smiley buttons that automatically send data to the choice of a Cloud or On-Premise Dashboard.

We've recently enhanced our EvolvePlus ePortal Cloud Dashboard with new visual data analytic charts to assist organisations in gaining insights into client feedback and building customer loyalty across different locations.

The new performance analytics charts include:

The EvolvePlus ePortal web application provides data-driven analysis with dashboards and reports across people counter data from Overhead 3D, Wireless, USB and LoRaWAN people counters across specified date and time periods. This valuable information reveals in-depth traffic insight to determine optimal operating hours, staffing requirements and peak visitor times.

Our latest API for ePortal application is a RESTful API service to deliver EvolvePlus Overhead 3D and Infrared footfall data from the EvolvePlus Cloud Service in JSON format.

It enables customers to visualise count data from the EvolvePlus people counters into their own analytics applications such as Zoho Analytics and Microsoft PowerBI. Use your business intelligence dashboard to gain a richer insight by combining data from multiple sources into a centralised view, including sales results, financial statements, library statistics, event sales and people traffic counts.,  

For enhanced people counter analysis of visitor and customer numbers our Overhead 3D People Counter sensors can provide separate footfall statistics for Adults & Children.  

The onboard Artificial Intelligence (AI) detects the height of each person and counts as either an Adult or Child based on the height. You can configure the sensor with the height that you wish to use to differentiate each detected person as an Adult or Child.

The result is a more detailed analysis of customers and visitors, which is displayed via reports and charts within the EvolvePlus Dashboard.

EvolvePlus has been accredited to supply ICT Services to NSW Government customers as part of ICT Services Scheme SCM 0020.

As a prequalified supplier, it enables government agencies a quick and easy way to purchase IoT people counters solutions from EvolvePlus, with the choice of Overhead 3D with in-built artificial intelligence and battery-powered infrared footfall counting technology. 

Our IoT People Counting and Smart Building solutions are available for both indoor and outdoor environments including government facilities, office buildings, libraries, galleries, public toilets, park entrances, pedestrian paths and more. The EvolvePlus Dashboard & Analytics provide data-driven analysis delivered via an Australian data centre with the option for an on-premise software platform. The range of connectivity options available for data delivery includes LoRaWAN, Wireless with Ethernet LAN, 3G/4G mobile broadband, and USB.

In our January 2021 article we described how our Overhead 3D People Counter solution can identify employees and exclude them from the footfall traffic counts. This provides greater accuracy of people counter analysis for sales conversion ratios, visitor numbers, etc. 

Whilst our Wireless and USB Infrared People Counters do not support using specially designed name tags to exclude staff from statistics, our EvolvePlus Reporting & Analytics platform does provide a daily statistics report to display total footfall traffic counts and an adjusted total based on your own calculated staff ratio.

For more information on accessing the Daily People Counter Reduced By Staff Ratio Report contact EvolvePlus.

EvolvePlus is pleased to announce updates to its LoRaWAN People Counter, which includes support for the AS923 band. The advantage of the LoRaWAN AS923 band is that it is being widely used for IoT devices across both Australia and New Zealand, and more broadly supported by LoRaWAN network operators and gateways.

Our battery-powered LoRaWAN People Counting solution enables organisations to easily count people at both indoor and outdoor entrances that may be located hundreds of metres from the nearest mains power source and have the data automatically transmitted to an online cloud platform for analysis and reporting.

Some of the facilities where the battery-powered People Counter sensors can be implemented include parks, footpaths, sporting facilities, public toilets, cemeteries, information centres and more. Organisations can choose to push the data to either the EvolvePlus Reporting & Analytics platform or to their own reporting platform being used for other IoT projects.

The September 2021 release of the BookingsPlus PC & Resource Booking and Print Management solution has completed the initial beta testing and is now available for general release.

There are three key highlights for this release:

• Improve display for the PC Booking Schedule for staff to easily scroll across PCs (if there are a high number of PCs that can be booked at the branch)
• Automatic printing of booking slips
• Emails can be sent using the organisation's own SMTP server - so that the "sender" of the email can be the organisation's own email address

For more information on the cloud delivered BookingsPlus solution, you can visit the dedicated BookingsPlus website at bookingsplus.com.au or contact EvolvePlus to discuss how we can assist your library service.

We have recently published a new video overview of the EvolvePlus Overhead 3D People Counter solution. It shows how the solution counts footfall traffic in different directions whilst using the onboard Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect adults & children (based on height range), exclude staff from counts and provide gender statistics.

Also highlighted in the video is the EvolvePlus Dashboard & Analytics platform, which delivers interactive web-based charts, dashboards and reports that can be exported in a variety of formats including Excel, CSV and Word.

The June release of the Aurora Library Management System (Cloud Edition) has been released to all library customers. Highlights of version 11.6.16 include:

Electronic Resource Management

• The ERM module has been updated with the stage two enhancements, this module now includes the ability to upload eSound and eVideo Marc records which can be linked to a supplier. The module also now includes an activation tab that allows works to be loaded with a ‘Freeze’ status. These works have an activation and/or deactivation date set that will auto change the works from or to the freeze status on selected days. The activation process requires a schema update which AIT will rollout over the coming month.
• Works that are set to freeze status can be seen in the manage access tab.
• The matching routine can now be selected in the ERM module rather than relying only on the default matching routine selection in the suppliers details.

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The challenge faced by many organisations is how to effectively count people at entrances and facilities that may be located hundreds of metres from the nearest mains power source and have the data automatically transmitted to an online cloud platform for analysis and reporting.

Our LoRaWAN People Counting solution solves this challenge by installing battery powered People Counter sensors at the remote locations (e.g. parks, sporting grounds, public toilets, footpaths, buildings, libraries, visitor centres and leisure complexes) and automatically transmitting the footfall traffic data to a LoRaWAN gateway that is located hundreds of metres away from the entrance (and in some cases a few kilometres away with a high powered base station and long range antennas).

The counting principle is based on the interruption of a horizontal infrared beam from the Transmitter causing the LoRaWAN Receiver to record incremental counts. When the outer edge of the wide horizontal infrared beam is interrupted in either direction, e.g. by a person, car, bike, pram etc. the LoRaWAN Receiver detects this disruption and will send this information to the LoRaWAN Gateway. The allowable max distance between the Transmitter and LoRaWAN Receiver is up to 8 metres.

EvolvePlus have a range of outdoor people counters featuring secure, robust casing, ideal for environments such as public toilets, park entrances, festivals, footpaths and more.

The outdoor casing is moulded from the finest commercial grade plastic and designed to withstand the harsh outdoor elements whilst providing superior security for the battery powered people counter sensors. There are two different types of robust outdoor casing available:

• With black front cover to suit entrances up to 3 metres wide
• With clear front cover to suit entrances up to 5 metres wide

The people counter models available with the robust outdoor casing are:

Our ePortal web application enables insights of people counter movements via dashboards and analysis reporting across our various traffic counter sensors including Wireless, LoRaWAN, USB, Overhead Thermal and Overhead 3D with AI.

The ePortal module is available for Cloud editions of our People Counter solution, with version 3 featuring new interactive charts and monitoring of the sensor status.

Version 11.1.20 of the Aurora LMS (Cloud Edition) has been released to all library customers. Highlights of the release include:

Electronic Resource Management

The new ERM module allows operators to easily manage eResources by:

For enhanced people counter analysis of sales conversion ratios, visitor numbers, live occupancy, client dwell times, etc. our Overhead 3D People Counter solution can identify employees and exclude them from the footfall traffic counts.  The onboard Artificial Intelligence (AI) detects staff wearing specially designed name tags without having to use additional computers or devices.

This results in more accurate customer counts, sales conversion ratios and live occupancy dashboards that don't require manual adjustments to exclude staff from the counts.

How It Works

• Ensure the Overhead 3D People Counter sensor is installed at the recommended mounting height (3.0 to 3.5 metres for model PC2S) with suitable lighting levels
• Create Staff Exclusion tags for staff to wear (refer below specifications)
• Enable the optional Staff Exclusion plugin on the 3D sensor and configure the detection area to check either the left or right of the frontal upper torso of a person for the staff tag

Staff Tag Specifications

Height, width and shape:

EvolvePlus have expanded our range of IoT People Counter sensors with the introduction of the Overhead 3D People Counter solution. Available in both indoor and outdoor models, the Overhead 3D People Counters fit discreetly into the ceiling facing downwards and measure visitor traffic using 3D stereo technology.

The onboard Artificial Intelligence (AI) delivers high accuracy counting in challenging high traffic environments, as well as offering additional analytic features beyond in/out footfall counting. The Overhead 3D People Counter sensor provides the following analytics:

• In/Out counting across multiple count lines and zones (up to 99)
• Occupancy
• Count zone to only count if a person passed through the entire zone rather than a simple counting line
• Dwell time to only count people that stay in the zone indicated or longer than the specified period
• Adult/children counting based on height range (separate counts based on min/max heights)

The 3D people can be extended with the following optional plugins, which require specific mounting heights and lighting conditions:

EvolvePlus provides an extensive range of IoT People Counter solutions for both indoor and outdoor environments including libraries, retail stores, shopping centres, galleries, public toilets, office buildings, park entrances, leisure centres, pedestrian paths and more.

With so many different people counting models to choose from, including Wireless, USB, Display Only, Overhead Thermal, Overhead 3D, Single Side Laser and LoRaWAN, it can be confusing to know which model is best suited for your footfall tracking.

To help you choose the most suitable people counter we have created a People Counter Features Comparison page which provides a quick side by side comparison of the various features.

Our battery-powered LoRaWAN People Counters offer a reliable, user-friendly, and affordable people counter solution that provides valuable insights and footfall traffic analytics to organisations. LoRaWAN is a Low Power, Wide Area (LPWA) networking protocol designed to wirelessly connect battery operated IoT sensors over long distances.

One of the key features of our LoRaWAN People Counters is the choice to push the traffic data to either the EvolvePlus Reporting & Analytics platform or to your own reporting platform.

The following provides an example of how organisations can push JSON data from the LoRaWAN People Counters using HTTP Integration within The Things Network community edition. 

For public libraries considering implementing a new PC Bookings solution with Print & Copy Management, we've published a new solution overview video. 

The video provides a brief introduction to the BookingsPlus cloud delivered solution and shows at a glance some of the features including PC reservations, PC session control, print and copy management, patron walk-up PC bookings, room bookings, event bookings and more.

There are several settings available within BookingsPlus to assist libraries to maintain social distancing for Patrons using Internet PC Bookings and Print Management.

These include:

Use the Out of Order feature to disable PC reservations and usage on specific PCs (e.g. every 2nd PC) to ensure Patrons  on every 2nd PC to ensure social distancing is maintained between each PC.