Primary vs Secondary Terminals

A single location can have multiple TimePally kiosks. They share enrolled members but play different roles in the system.

The roles in one sentence

The Primary terminal is where you enrol member faces. Secondary terminals only verify faces that were enrolled on the Primary.

That’s the whole story. Both roles can run daily clock-ins and clock-outs; only the Primary can capture new faces.

A few common scenarios:

Separate entry and exit. One kiosk by the front door for clock-ins, another by the staff exit for clock-outs. Faster flow at peak times, no queue at either point.
Multiple gates. A campus with several pedestrian gates, or a factory with separate worker and contractor entrances. Each gate gets its own Secondary kiosk.
Parallel queues at peak. Two kiosks side by side at the only entrance, so 200 staff get through in 5 minutes instead of 15.
High-traffic services. A church with separate kiosks at the sanctuary entrance and the children’s wing.

One Primary per location. Trying to register a second Primary for the same location is rejected by the server. If you need to change which device is Primary, delete the old Primary record in the dashboard first.
Roles are server-assigned. You pick Primary or Secondary in the dashboard when generating the activation code; the device has no way to promote or demote itself afterwards.
Verification works on both. A member enrolled on the Primary can clock in at any Secondary at the same location. The face template is stored centrally and synced to every kiosk on the location.
Enrolment is Primary-only. If you try to enrol a face on a Secondary, the app refuses with the message “This terminal cannot enrol faces. Only the Primary terminal can perform enrolment.”

When you generate an activation code from the dashboard’s Devices page, you pick the role at that moment. A practical rule of thumb:

If this is the Primary device, you’re ready to enrol members. Read Enrolling a Member’s Face.