PolyU VRS Batch Registration 📋

Batch-upload up to 10 visitors per event to The Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Visitor Registration System (VRS) through the (undocumented) AddRequestv2 API.
Everything is wrapped in a single Jupyter notebook for maximum transparency.

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✨ What this notebook does

1. Reads three local files you supply
   • Visitor.csv – a list of individual visitors
   • Event.csv – event-level details (dates, sponsor info, etc.)
   • Cookies.txt – four session cookies exported from your logged-in VRS browser session
2. Splits visitors into batches of ≤ 10 (a VRS hard limit).
3. Sanitises visit dates (caps stay at 13 days, no past dates).
4. POSTs each batch to https://fmovrs.polyu.edu.hk/vrs-ajax/ShortVisiting/AddRequestv2 and prints the HTTP status + JSON response.

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🏃 Quick start

Option A — Google Colab (zero install)

1. Click the badge, then Runtime → Run all.
2. When prompted, upload Visitor.csv, Event.csv, Cookies.txt.
3. Watch the output pane for per-batch results.

Option B — Local Jupyter

git clone https://github.com/Benson-mk/PolyU_VRS_Batch_Registration.git
cd PolyU_VRS_Batch_Registration

python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate

jupyter notebook polyu_vrs_batch_registration.ipynb

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📑 Preparing the input files

Event.csv

accessDate	exitDate	organization	purposeOfVisit	accessLocation	sponsorDepartment	sponsorName	sponsorPhone	sponsorEmail	sponsorNetID
2025-07-01	2025-07-05	ABC Ltd	Demo Day	AAB G/F	COMP	Dr Chan C.W.	12345678	cw.chan@polyu.edu.hk	cwchan

• Dates must be YYYY-MM-DD  —  but the notebook will self-heal if you leave a date blank or mistype it:

  Situation	What the notebook does
  accessDate empty / bad	Uses today’s date
  accessDate in the past	Bumps it forward to today
  exitDate empty / bad	Sets it to accessDate + 13 days
  Visit longer than 13 days	Trims exitDate to accessDate + 13 days

  (13 days is hard-coded as max_stay; change the constant near the top of the notebook if VRS updates its rule.)

Visitor.csv

LName	FName	Email	Mobile
Smith	John	john.smith@example.com	91234567
Doe	Jane	jane.doe@example.com

• Mobile is optional; blank cells are okay.

Cookies.txt

Export these four cookies from an authenticated VRS tab:

BIGipServerPACI_VISITOR_44301_POOL
BIGipServerWAF_CM_PROD_HTTPS_POOL
.AspNetCore.Session
.AspNetCore.Cookies

Browser extensions such as Get cookies.txt LOCALLY let you Export cookies in Netscape format; save that as Cookies.txt.

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🔧 How it works, in 20 seconds

┌── Visitor.csv (n rows) ─┐      ┌── Event.csv (m rows) ──┐
│ … visitor details …     │      │ … event details …      │
└─────────┬───────────────┘      └─────────┬──────────────┘
          │                                │
          └─▶ Notebook slices visitors ◀──┘ (≤ 10 per batch)
                    │
                    ├─ Creates JSON payload
                    └─ POST /ShortVisiting/AddRequestv2

• max_visitors and max_stay are set to 10 and 13 days respectively – change the constants near the top if VRS updates its rules.

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🛠 Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause & fix
HTTP 401 / HTTP 403	Cookies expired → export a fresh Cookies.txt.
HTTP 400 “visitor count exceeded”	More than 10 visitors in a batch → check for blank lines.
HTTP 500	VRS hiccup → re-run that cell in a few minutes.

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🤝 Contributing

Pull requests welcome – especially for:

• Handling future API schema changes

• Adding CLI support (notebook → script)

• Improving error handling / logging

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📄 License

Released under the MIT License.
This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Use at your own risk.