Starting point
Magnetic cards got lost, copied and reissued
The company manages several office buildings, and access to rooms relied on magnetic cards. Cards got lost, people copied them, and every lost one had to be reissued. The manager wanted to get rid of them. Access was controlled by Modbus controllers spread across the buildings, so any new solution had to work with them. Staff also lacked a single place where they could check the history of their entries. Replacing the cards was meant to solve that problem as well.
What we did
A phone as both key and employee ID
We built a PWA in Angular with a Symfony back end. The employee's phone replaced the card, and the app also took over the role of a company ID.
- 1
A PWA instead of a card
The app runs in the phone's browser as a PWA, so staff need no separate device or card. We wrote it in Angular, and the Symfony back end holds all of the access logic. It is one place from which an employee opens doors and checks their own details.
- 2
An NFC tag and a Modbus controller
NFC tags hang on the wall by the doors. When an employee holds a phone to one, the app sends a request to our REST API, and the API tells the Modbus controller to open the door. This way the app works with the controllers that were already installed in the buildings.
- 3
Entry history in one place
Before, staff had no single place to check when and where they had entered. Now they see the history of their entries in the same app they use to open doors. Entries from every door the app handles end up in that one history.
- 4
An employee ID
The same app serves as the employee's ID. Besides the entry history, it shows the assigned parking space and includes a search for people in the company. Staff carry the key to their doors and basic information about themselves and their colleagues on their phone.
Outcome
A phone opens 1,000+ doors across several buildings
Staff across several buildings open doors by holding a phone to an NFC tag on the wall. The app handles more than 1,000 doors and needs not a single magnetic card, so lost and copied cards stopped being a problem along with the cards themselves. Employees have their entry history, their parking space and a staff directory in one app. It works with the Modbus controllers that already ran access in the buildings.
- Doors opened with a phone over NFC
- Entry history visible to each employee
- Parking space and staff directory in the same app