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RFID Lets Telework Center Get Down to Business
Each interrogator collects the unique ID encoded to the RFID tag, then forwards this information to a central database. If the ID is associated with a member whose account has a balance past due, administrators will speak with that individual and reconcile the account. Or, if the member attempts to enter the facility when the main entrance is locked, the software collecting the tag IDs will flag the account and the doors will remain inaccessible. On the other hand, if the ID is associated with a member in good standing, the software will trigger the door to unlock so that person can enter the facility's main entrance or secured areas.
Rates for using the facility are charged per hour, with the hourly fee varying based on the time of day, as well as the day of the week. Using a private office, conference room or phone room incurs an additional fee. The center needed a means of easily tracking when members arrive and leave the center, Graham says, as well as when they arrive and leave any secured areas within the site. An RFID-based access-control system, the team found, was the easiest solution to employ—both from their point of view and from their clients'.
At the end of each billing cycle, software tallies the number of hours each member has spent at the center, along with the amount of time spent accessing secured areas within the facility. The system then generates a bill for each individual.
The onus is on each member to present his or her card to the readers at the main entrance and the secured areas, in order to effectively check out of each space and be accurately billed. In the two weeks that the Satellite Telework Center has been open, Graham reports, the small group of users—two dozen, so far—have been getting the hang of the system. "Sometimes we see, from the data collected, that a specific member forgot to check out of the facility on a given day," he explains, "and in those cases, we just contact the member and ask what time he or she left, so that we can add the data to the billing system." As members get more used to the system, he expects that remembering to check out upon leaving the facility (and checking out of individual rooms) will become a habit.
As the team was looking for a solution, Graham says, a number of vendors offered systems that could tie the RFID card reader into an energy-management system. That, he notes, would enable the lights and heating and air conditioning system within private offices and other secured spaces to automatically activate when a member entered. Once the member checked out, the lights would shut off, and the temperature would be changed to conserve energy. One vendor also offered to attach an RFID interrogator to the office's copier machines, so that members would need to present their RFID cards in order to access the machines, thereby allowing the center to bill them based on the number of copies made.
At the end of the day, however, Graham and his partners concluded that such extra bells and whistles would be overkill. "We decided to just use motion sensors to trigger the lighting inside the rooms," he says, "and members use a key pad on the copier to enter their membership code before using the copiers. The code and the number of copies are forwarded to our billing system that way."
Down the line, the founders hope to expand their business, and to open additional Satellite Telework Center sites throughout the Silicon Valley region.
Rates for using the facility are charged per hour, with the hourly fee varying based on the time of day, as well as the day of the week. Using a private office, conference room or phone room incurs an additional fee. The center needed a means of easily tracking when members arrive and leave the center, Graham says, as well as when they arrive and leave any secured areas within the site. An RFID-based access-control system, the team found, was the easiest solution to employ—both from their point of view and from their clients'.
At the end of each billing cycle, software tallies the number of hours each member has spent at the center, along with the amount of time spent accessing secured areas within the facility. The system then generates a bill for each individual.
The onus is on each member to present his or her card to the readers at the main entrance and the secured areas, in order to effectively check out of each space and be accurately billed. In the two weeks that the Satellite Telework Center has been open, Graham reports, the small group of users—two dozen, so far—have been getting the hang of the system. "Sometimes we see, from the data collected, that a specific member forgot to check out of the facility on a given day," he explains, "and in those cases, we just contact the member and ask what time he or she left, so that we can add the data to the billing system." As members get more used to the system, he expects that remembering to check out upon leaving the facility (and checking out of individual rooms) will become a habit.
As the team was looking for a solution, Graham says, a number of vendors offered systems that could tie the RFID card reader into an energy-management system. That, he notes, would enable the lights and heating and air conditioning system within private offices and other secured spaces to automatically activate when a member entered. Once the member checked out, the lights would shut off, and the temperature would be changed to conserve energy. One vendor also offered to attach an RFID interrogator to the office's copier machines, so that members would need to present their RFID cards in order to access the machines, thereby allowing the center to bill them based on the number of copies made.
Down the line, the founders hope to expand their business, and to open additional Satellite Telework Center sites throughout the Silicon Valley region.
