A key cannot be revoked. When someone leaves with one, or lends it, the only fix is a new lock and a new key for everyone. A keypad code is worse: it gets shared with the delivery driver, written on the wall of the loading bay and never changed. Neither tells you who opened the server room on Tuesday night, which is the question an insurer, an auditor or an ISO 27001 assessor asks after an incident.
Access control replaces both with a credential that belongs to a person. This guide covers how it works on a business’s doors, what to choose and what to have ready before anyone surveys the building.
What access control does
Each door gets a reader and a controller, and each person gets a credential. The door decides who may open it and when, the system records every entry, and a person’s access is changed or removed centrally, in seconds, without touching a lock. Secure areas get stricter rules than the front door, contractors get access for the week of a job, and the cleaners get the evening.
Fob, card, code or phone?
Any of them, and the choice is made per door and per group of people rather than once for the building. Fobs and cards are simple and cheap. A personal code suits a small team, as long as it is one code per person and not one for the door. A phone credential suits staff who already carry a work phone and would rather not carry a fob as well. A business often mixes them: fobs for the warehouse, phones for the office, a card for the visitor desk to hand out.
Who gets in where, and when
Access is set by person, door and time of day. The usual pattern is a few groups: everyone through the front door in working hours, staff only into the office outside them, a named few into the server room or the stores at any time, and a contractor group that expires on Friday. Writing those groups down is most of the design, and it is what the survey asks for.
Contractors, visitors and leavers
A contractor or a visitor gets access for a set period and the doors they need, and it ends on the date without anyone remembering to collect a key. A leaver’s access is removed at once, and the record shows their last entry. A joiner is added the same way, with the right doors and hours from day one. For a business that has ever changed the locks after someone left, this is the change that pays for the system.
The record
The system keeps who entered where and when, kept securely and available after an incident, so you can answer an insurer, an auditor or an ISO assessor with a report rather than a guess. When CCTV is installed by the same engineers, the camera covering a door and the door’s own record can be read together: we install UniFi Access working with UniFi Protect so a door event and its footage sit side by side, or Paxton Net2 where it suits the site better.
Fire doors, alarms and the switch-off
A door that must release on a fire alarm is wired to the alarm company’s panel in agreement with them; the fire alarm itself stays theirs. An intruder alarm and its monitoring are a separate contract, and we coordinate with the alarm company. One more thing turns up on most surveys: a door entry panel that still runs on an analogue phone line stops working when the old network is retired on 31 January 2027, so the line is replaced with a digital service as part of the work.
The network it sits on
Door controllers are computers on your network, so they belong on a separated, secured part of it. We install access control as part of the building’s technology rather than as a separate trade, alongside the cabling, the network and the CCTV, by the same engineers, so the controllers are on their own secured network from the start and the records are kept with the care that ISO 27001 expects.
What to decide before the survey
- Every door and gate, who should pass through each and when, and which areas are secure.
- Who supplies your fire alarm and your intruder alarm, so door release and analogue lines can be arranged with them.
- The people who will manage access day to day, and how you will tell them about joiners and leavers.
- The credential type for each group, fob, card, code or phone, with our advice.
How it is installed
The survey covers every entry point, who should pass through each and when, the secure areas, the doors that must release on a fire alarm, and whether any door entry line still runs on the analogue network. The design names the readers, controllers, locks and credentials per door, the groups and schedules, the network design and how long records are kept, priced as a fixed sum before anything is ordered. Our engineers fit and cable the readers, controllers and locks, place the controllers on a separated network and test each door, including fire release where it applies. Then users, groups, doors and schedules are set up, fobs or cards issued, and the people who will manage it trained. Afterwards, a joiner, a lost fob or a contractor for a week is a call to the service desk, answered within three rings, or a change your own administrator makes.
A door that needs replacing, a fire-rated door set or a gate motor is specified in the survey and supplied by a door or gate contractor.
Who installs and supports it
Odyssey’s own engineers, never subcontractors, and the same team installs your cabling, network and CCTV and supports the access control afterwards. We install it for offices, warehouses, workshops, practices and multi-tenant sites across Teesside and the North East, including Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool and Darlington. See our building access control page, or call us on 01642 661888.