A lost fob, eleven emails later
A tenant loses their building fob. They email your office. You check whether they are a leaseholder or a tenant, then email the landlord to confirm they are allowed one. You send payment details. They pay, eventually. You email the access control contractor to program a new fob and deactivate the old one. The contractor asks which flat. You arrange for the concierge or the tenant to collect it.
Across a portfolio with managed entry systems, those requests arrive every week, and each one is its own small email thread.
Why a simple request takes so many steps
The steps are all necessary: identity, entitlement, payment, programming, handover, record. The trouble is that they are done by hand, in email, with no single record tying them together.
The fob register, if there is one, is a spreadsheet at the contractor's office or in the concierge's drawer. Nobody at head office can say for sure how many active fobs a flat has, which is exactly what you need to know when a lost fob is reported or a tenancy ends.
What the email chain costs
Staff time is the obvious cost. Security is the less obvious one. Lost fobs that were never deactivated, tenants who moved out still holding working fobs, and flats with far more fobs than occupants are all common when there is no reliable register.
Residents also get frustrated waiting for something they see as simple, and that frustration tends to land on the property manager.
Our access request workflow
We build a small request system for keys, fobs and access changes. It works alongside the access control system rather than replacing it.
- Request form: the resident picks their block and flat, the item needed and the reason, such as lost, additional or damaged.
- Entitlement check: the requester is matched against the leaseholder record. Tenants trigger an approval request to the leaseholder or letting agent, according to the block's rules.
- Payment: the charge you set is taken by card through Stripe before anything is ordered.
- Job to contractor or site: the programming or key cutting request is sent to the access contractor or concierge with the flat and the fob to deactivate.
- Handover: the resident is told when and where to collect, and the handover is confirmed by site staff or the contractor.
- Fob register: every issued, deactivated and returned fob is logged against the flat, so the current count is always visible.
| Request | Checks applied | Result recorded |
|---|---|---|
| Lost fob | Identity, entitlement, payment | Old fob deactivated, new fob issued |
| Additional fob | Entitlement, block limit if set, payment | New fob issued |
| Tenant moving out | Leaseholder or agent confirmation | Fobs returned or deactivated |
| Bin store or plant room key | Role check, such as contractor or cleaner | Key issued and due back |
What residents and staff notice
Residents fill in one form and pay once, and they are told when to collect. Staff stop running email threads and simply approve the exceptions. The access contractor receives clear, complete instructions.
When a lost fob or tenancy end comes up, you can see exactly which fobs are live for that flat.
Is this how access requests work now?
- Fob and key requests are handled by email, one thread at a time.
- Payment for replacements is chased by hand.
- You are not sure which fobs are active for a given flat.
- Lost fobs are not always deactivated.
- The fob register is held by the contractor or concierge, not by you.