Technology
Software & Apps Feature Making key management easy
Tim Hill from Keyzapp explains how combining contactless tags and cloud-based software helped two housing associations solve an age-old problem
security of tenants at potential risk. “How hard can it be?” thought Sam Spicer, customer service manager at
F
Bath’s biggest housing association Curo. Sam reviewed the process for tracking the company’s 5,000 property keys, quickly uncovering that key management is actually a very tough job, taking his colleagues hours every day. Alan Hume, manager of the Private Sector Leasing (PSL) service within Edinburgh’s Link housing association knew the problem only too well, observing his own team struggle to keep their key cabinets up to date. Keys are notoriously hard to control, but the safety and security of residents
and their property depend on keys being well managed, making it a critical process for all housing providers. “With modern data protection requirements, to write the address on a key would be unthinkable,” says Sam.
FINDING A BETTER WAY Sam consulted industry peers at a conference, and was surprised that most were still using spreadsheets and paper logbooks for tracking their keys, despite all acknowledging it was far from ideal. “Spreadsheets and paper weren’t cutting it for us,” says Megan James from Link. “It was just too difficult to maintain and prevent mistakes”. “We couldn’t face any more spreadsheets,” agrees Sam. “The best
spreadsheet we could design had 13,000 rows!” Curo had previously adapted a library book tracking system for their keys, but it wasn’t a perfect fit.
48 | HMM June/July 2019 |
www.housingmmonline.co.uk
or housing associations key management can be a real headache. Keeping track of hundreds or even thousands of keys is often time consuming, yet it’s an incredibly important aspect of housing management with the
CONTACTLESS TECHNOLOGY – IDEAL FOR KEY TRACKING Most of us are used to tapping our credit cards at the checkout, but this idea also works really well for tracking keys as well. By embedding a tiny chip into a key fob, a simple tap on a reader or phone lets you identify a particular key and issue it in a matter of seconds. For both Curo and Link, this was the answer they were looking for. “Contactless fobs make it so much faster and more accurate to record who
has a key,” says Simon Bex, Curo’s key manager. “It’s improved security as there’s no risk of written key tags falling into the wrong hands.” Sam loves that he can check keys by tapping them on his phone: “If I forget
what key I need then I can simply look it up on my phone and check it out at the same time” he says. The team at Link took the contactless idea one step further, using purpose
WHY SPREADSHEETS AND LOGBOOKS MAKE KEY MANAGEMENT HARD
• It’s difficult for more than one person to use them at once • Everyone fills them out differently, making reporting hard • There’s no detailed history of who’s done what • Reconciling of written records takes time (and money) • Finding information is slow- often relying on alphabetical sorting
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