I may not be using the right wording here. Basically is it possible to use standard access control solutions in addition to access control, to have a cash value in access badges and that value to be deducted every time someone swipes.
If standard access control solution is not fitting what are the ones which can handle this sort of things?
Personally, I am not familiar with specific solutions for that, if I understand you correctly. Are you saying they want it so every time a gym member swipes a card to get in, it charges them for that visit? I would think a card access system could be a part of that as the portion that processes the entry, but for a robust system it would have to be another system to process payments, and ideally you want an access system with an SDK that allows for the tying in to a payment processing system so they talk to each other.
Or, on the cheap, the access system is only used to log the swipes, then someone with the gym downloads the logs and uses the records to process payments based on that.
Thanks Luis...you've got me correct.
Tried possible google searches with Access Control and POS, Access Control and Cashless Vending, Access Control and Fare Collection, etc. But could not find a solution to what I am looking.
I'll keep an eye out, but you might also want to explore what the cost would be to do a custom integration between whatever access control vendors you want and the client's payment system, since I personally think that's what you'll probably end up having to do.
I think somewhere in my documents i have a link for such a solution. It was a German company that developed a system specifically for gyms. I will try to find more details and post here asap.
The answer to "is it possible to use standard access control solutions in addition to access control, to have a cash value in access badges and that value to be deducted every time someone swipes" is yes, but with caveats.
1st option: The way this integration is most often accomplished requires provisioning the credential with the balance. Keeping the credential secure is a vital requirement, and using a contact-type chip to store these bits is more secure and locally encrypted vs. standard proximity credentials. For example, see this iClass credential built for this purpose. In many cases, an API can be tweaked from the native membership application to interface with the chip on the card to adjust the internal balance on reads.
2nd option: I saw an access system a few weeks ago that was also used to dispense personal protective equipment (PPE) like safety glasses and earmuffs. The user was allowed 4 pairs of company issued safety glasses per year, and the user scanned their access card when a new pair was issued.
In order to accomplish this, a user-defined field (UDF) was manually created in each user's database record, and the PPE dispensing reader was configured to allow only a certain number of reads based on the value of that UDF. When the value of the UDF is zero, the employee is flagged and is no longer allowed a free pair of safety glasses. This same approach could be adopted for a membership scheme, but could prove to be inflexible.
If you can provide more specific details like the systems/credentials used and the type of transactions required, then we can get deeper in the weeds on the answer.
It's a fun question to work with! EAC systems can be used for very advanced tasks and it is always interesting to move outside the typical controlling of doors.
Thanks for the detailed answer Brian and rest. There is no specific details at this stage like credential type, but only the requirement for combining access badge with member management/fare collection. I'd like to see some product/solution names to dig deeper (apart from Gantner coz now I know it).
I will confirm but i am almost certain that Gantner is the solution I had in mind.