Understanding Access Zones

How access zones are used to restrict tenant access to specific areas of your facility.

What are Zones? And, how do Zones affect you and your facility?

Simply put, Zones are a way to group together the entries and units that exist in your facility. By grouping, you limit the access that tenants have. Meaning, utilize zones to give tenants access only to the places where they should or need to be going, based on their rental location (e.g., sections of a facility, different buildings at a facility, different floors of a building, etc.).

The Nokē Smart Entry (NSE) system uses Zones for onsite tracking as a security measure and for determining which entries, floors, and relays tenants require access to when renting units. By tracking who has entered a Zone, it identifies if anyone is physically present. For this reason, all units and entries are added to their respective zones during the implementation of the NSE system.

Creation and setup of zones are done by Nokē Smart Entry technicians and support members. 

How Many Zones Should a Facility Have?

Various factors, such as the size of your facility, its physical layout, the location of entry points, and sometimes more criteria will need to be taken into consideration. Once the Nokē Smart Entry system is installed at your facility, our installers will collaborate with our support team and your account manager to determine the most suitable zone setup. 

Okay, But What Are Relays?

In the NSE system, relays are used to grant access to doors, elevators, and entry/exit gates. For example, if a tenant has been granted permission to a specific floor of a building, the elevator relay provides the connection between the elevator access button and the NSE system's zone assigned to that floor.

Example -

Here is an example where relays are utilized to enhance access control within a building. With this setup, tenant access is limited to specific floors by using a relay to power the elevator door button for the correct zone that the tenant is assigned to. 
In this scenario, four zones are created. All units on all floors are grouped into the zone that contains the entry point (1st floor). Then, a separate zone is created for each floor, where only the units on those respective floors are selected, and only the relay required for that floor is chosen.

Okay, So the Zones Are Set Up. What Happens Now?

Once the Zones are set up, the NSE system comes into play. When an access command is sent to a door, gate, or elevator, the system checks whether the user attempting to access this device is authorized, based on the access zone assigned to that user. So, a user trying to enter a building that she doesn't have access to will be prevented from unlocking that door, elevator floor, or gate.

What Is the 'Default Zone' and Why Do We Have to Have It?

You must have at least one Zone named as the 'Default Zone' at your facility. Not having a 'Default Zone' or accidentally deleting it can cause issues at your facility.

The 'Default Zone' acts as a safeguard to ensure that at least one zone is set up within the facility. If there is no zone set up at a facility, Nokē Smart Entry blocks all commands from happening. 
The NSE system uses the 'Default Zone' when creating the daily access code for the facility.

PERMISSIONS NEEDED:

• View Zones for view-only access to the Zones page.
• Manage Zones for edit access to the Zones page. 

If you do not have the correct access, contact an administrator to add that permission to your role type.

For more information, click below:

Adding or Deleting a Unit from an Access Zone