Access System - part 3

We've now learned about the door hardware system, and the access system. The last part of your access control system is your computer and your fitness management software. 75% of fitness software companies are compatible with access control (though many of them refer to it as turnstile or gate control). However, not all of them are created equally as to how functional they are in this area. The old school way that these companies thought of access control is simply that an employee would be sitting at the desk, a member would present their card to a reader, and a turnstile would activate - allowing the valid member to enter the workout area. This meant that, in the software provider's eyes, if there were some type of problem with the membership, the turnstile, or the software, there was a staff member there to assist the member.

In today's world of access control, the access system does not consist of a turnstile, but an actual entry door. In addition, there is very often no staff member there to assist the member if there is a problem (say for example their membership has expired) - they just simply don't get in. This means that the access system must run flawlessly, for hours (and sometimes even days) with no employee interaction. This task can be daunting for some software providers, who are still stuck thinking that someone working at the club is there to click their way out of a message or error. In addition, providing feedback to the member as to why the system isn't letting them in becomes extremely important. Some companies provide audio signals ("your membership has expired"), or visual cues via a video monitor. The best software providers are more proactive, and they alert the member before his or her membership expires via email, or by simply providing the audio cue "membership expires in 10 days" for example.

It is not only the software that has to be functional and robust for this application. Your computer and its operating system has to run flawlessly in an unattended fashion for several days. Think of how many times your computer pops something up asking you to "click here to continue" or "would you like to update this program". These things cannot occur when no one is there to interact with them, especially if they prevent your check in software from letting members in while they wait for user interaction. And the kiss of death is an automatic update. How many times have you gone to your computer system only to see the message "Windows has performed an automatic update and your computer was restarted"? Imagine if this chain of events had occurred while a member was trying to enter your club.

I highly recommend that you ask your software provider if their check in software can be set up to launch automatically if the computer should experience a reboot. The last thing you want to do is be called down to your club in the middle of the night to simply restart your software program.

Beyond the computer, your operating system, and your fitness management software, you must give serious thought to weather related power outages. However brief these may be, your entire computer and access system should be running on a robust battery backup system. We're not talking about a $50 battery backup here - this is more likely a $200-300 system.

We've now learned about the 3 main aspects of access control - the door hardware, the access control system, and the computer and software. Now that you know what it takes to get members in an out of your club, we'll move on to the safety measures that must be put in place to allow them (and you) the peace of mind of knowing that everyone using the club is safe. In addition to peace of mind, you'll have to find insurance for your 24/7 access fitness club - and the insurance companies willing to insure this type of business have some safety requirements of their own as you can imagine.

Access System - part 2

I'd like to spend some time informing you about the parts of the access system that bridge the gap between your computer system (which I'll discuss in the next post) and the door hardware (which I discussed in my previous post).

We now all know that the door is going to be opened through the activation of either an electric strike, or a maglock. But what tells these devices to function? That is the job of the access system itself. An access system consists of two smaller systems - an input system, and an output system.

The primary component of the input system is a card reader. Typically, and especially in fitness club access systems, this is a barcode reader (see photo). A weatherproof barcode reader mounted to the outside of the fitness center waits for your members to swipe their membership card or keytag through it. It then sends this information to your computer, and more importantly, to your member management software, as input. Since I'm going to spend time in the next post discussing the details of the software and computer, let's just simplify things for now and assume that the member who swiped their card is a valid member.

With that valid member input, your computer system will then send an output to a door controller (see photo). The door controller is an electronic device that picks up that signal and provides the power needed to activate the electric strike. As we learned previously, if you are using a maglock, the door controller keeps that device powered all the time, and when it wants to unlock the door, it actually cuts power.

So we've learned that once we get past the door hardware, we find the access system, which is simply an input and output system that manages the electric strike or maglock. Next week, we'll get into the final component of the access system - the computer (and software).