Building Technology Snafu Hits Close to Home for Project Manager

Similar to the cobbler’s children going barefoot, some of our talented project managers, ironically reside in apartments that lack the same level of sophisticated building technology found in our projects. This hits hard for experts in designing advanced low voltage systems for Class-A buildings.

Although this unique conundrum provides us with first-hand, anecdotal resident perspectives; it’s also a point of frustration for our project managers.

Take Ryan, our project manager and resident CAD lead, for example. Ryan lives in a high-rise in downtown Cleveland, a popular building with nice amenities, but sorely lacking in one crucial area: visitor management.

Before the integration of the ButterflyMX visitor management system, whenever someone visited the building, Ryan had to manually let them in. This involved leaving his apartment, walking down a long hallway, taking the elevator to the lobby, and finally opening the door—a massive inconvenience. Not to mention, the inherent complications this causes for his dog walking service when Ryan is away for the day. The dog walkers (often different people) need to gain access to the main entrance and the apartment unit, in order to let his dog out.

When the building management team finally integrated the ButterflyMX system, Ryan was thrilled. However, his excitement quickly turned to disappointment.

The management team, while recognizing the need for a visitor entry solution, missed a crucial detail: integrating the solution with the door locks. Instead of consulting with a Building Technology Advisor like WhiteSpace, they focused on solving one problem, but overlooked the opportunity to streamline the process.

The building now has a standalone visitor entry system that supports mobile credentials at the main entry locations (which is great!); however, the unit door locks are too old to accommodate the mobile-credential functionality. So, unless Ryan is physically in his apartment, the mobile credential won’t actually help unless his guest also has a key to his apartment. This scenario is highly unlikely, considering they didn’t have a key to the building entrance in the first place!

To make matters worse, the building management team was excited to inform the residents of their new keyless experience. However, this turned out to be an empty promise. While Ryan can use his phone to enter the building’s main entrance, he will always need to have his key on him to enter his apartment.

The building management team is now paying for a service that doesn’t actually benefit the residents.

While it was a step in the right direction, it was also a definite missed opportunity. Hopefully, not for long, since Ryan already has a call into management to help them sort this out.

At WhiteSpace, we anticipate these challenges and design holistic low voltage solutions from soup-to-nuts that improve operational efficiency and enhance resident satisfaction, avoiding unnecessary missteps.