Door cards guide, part 6: special cards and the card register

This is part 6 of 6 of the Xenia door cards guide: 1. What you need and how it fits together · 2. Add the bridge in Xenia and set up your rooms · 3. Put the bridge on the hotel computer · 4. Connect the encoder · 5. Make room cards · 6. Special cards and the card register.

Room cards are only one kind. A hotel also needs cards for the staff who clean, for fire inspections, for a whole floor at a time, and for setting up locks. In Xenia these are on Door cards in the menu, with a register of every card made.

Who may make what

Cards that open many doors are protected more strongly.

• Owner only, by default: master, emergency, building and staff cards. Each needs a written reason, lasts 31 days at most, is recorded in the audit trail with your name, and raises a high alert to the owner.

• Owner and general manager: floor, check-out, lift, clock, lost-key stop, lift-a-stop and room setting cards.

• Front desk: none of them. Front desk makes room cards (part 5).

A card a person is not allowed to make is greyed out on the page. The owner can grant a role the permission under Roles: Make special cards, or Make master cards for the four powerful ones.

Make a special card

1. Put a blank card on the encoder.

2. Open Door cards in the menu and choose the card you want.

3. Fill in the form (the fields below) and choose Write the card.

4. Xenia shows Waiting for the encoder, then Written and the card's number. Choose Done.

The cards, one by one

• Master card: opens every lock in the hotel. Give it a short window, say who will hold it and why, and take it back.

• Emergency card: opens every lock, even a dead-bolted door. Keep it for emergencies.

• Building card: opens every door in the buildings you tick.

• Staff card: a working key for one person. Say whose it is, and tick the rooms and areas they may open.

• Floor card: opens the floors you tick in one building, between two times each day if you set them.

• Check-out card: clears the guest keys from the floors you choose, so old keys stop working before the next arrival.

• Lift card: which floors the holder may choose in the lift.

• Lost-key stop and Lift a stop: make the locks refuse a missing key, and undo it. Tick the rooms; present the card at each lock.

• Clock card: carries the date and time of the encoder computer to a lock that has drifted. Hold it to the lock. It asks nothing.

• Room setting card: tells a new lock which room it is. Used when a lock is installed or replaced.

A master card needs a reason

For the four powerful cards the Write the card button stays disabled until you say why the card is needed, for example "Fire safety inspection on Friday". The reason is kept with the card in the register and in the audit trail.

The card register

Below the cards, the Card register lists every card the encoder has made, newest first: the kind, its number, what it opens, who holds it and why, when it was made and until when it is valid, and its state. The line above says how many cards are active in circulation.

• Active: a key whose dates have not run out.

• Expired: its valid-until time has passed.

• Erased: the card was made blank again on the encoder.

• Stopped (lost key): a room card for a room that has had a lost-key stop made since.

• One-off: a card that does a job once and is then finished, such as a clock card or a lost-key stop.

Use State and Kind of card to narrow the list, or type a card number, room or holder's name under Find. The register lists the cards made through Xenia. Cards written in the desktop program are not in it.

Switching a bridge off

If a hotel computer is retired, lost or stolen, switch its bridge off at once: Door locks, then Switch off next to it. It stops receiving card requests immediately. This cannot be undone: to use that computer again, add and enrol it as a new bridge. Doing this is recorded in the audit trail.

That is everything: the bridge, the encoder, room cards and special cards. If something does not work, the message on the screen is written to tell you what to check. Part 3 and part 4 list the usual causes.