Housing Card Reader Support

Environment

Student Life, Housing, Facilities, DPSS


Issue

Overview of the access control equipment used by the Housing department, what the most common issues are, and how the responsibilities for the support process are broken down.


Resolution

Context

The Housing department is not the only Student Life unit on campus to maintain card readers, point-of-sale systems, or card access systems.  However, they are the only ones that are actively supported by SLTS.  For example, the card readers in the Michigan Union are maintained by Plant (Facilities).

Some important things to keep in mind before continuing:

  • Student Life Technology Solutions (SLTS) is responsible for responding to and troubleshooting any major outages (building- and system-wide), as well as making sure all access control devices are configured correctly in CSGold.

  • Student Life Facilities is responsible for ordering, installing, configuring, and labeling all of the access control hardware.  This includes readers, their intermediary devices (V100 units), and their associated primary controllers (V1000 units).

  • Housing Security, a subsidiary of the Division of Public Safety and Security (DPSS), is responsible for programming the schedules on the door readers and administrating the door access assigned to each employee, student, and faculty member.

 

Supported Workflows

The following issues should be escalated to SLTS:

  • Major reader outage (i.e. all readers in a building or readers across multiple buildings)

    • In most of these cases, the call coming to the Service Center would likely be coming from either a Student Life Facilities or Housing Security/DPSS staff after completing their troubleshooting process.

    • For building and room access, the exterior and interior access to Housing buildings is controlled by a combination of card reader types
      • Two common card readers are the beige reader and the Mullion (silver) reader

  • System-wide Resident door issues (Onity keycards)

    • Resident doors are controlled via Onity keycards.  In general, individual issues for these would go from the resident to the resident staff/community center staff in the building to resolve and then escalate to facilities and security as needed.  The only instance where SLTS would need to be contacted would be if there is a problem with the Onity Integra service that prevents all Onity Kiosks and key encoder stations in the Community Centers from accessing the server to make keys.

    • If the problem isn't system-wide then it can typically wait until the next business day.  Most of these issues typically come to SLTS directly from Housing Security, though we do get some parallel contacts from the Service Center.

    • In summary, Housing Security controls access lists for Onity cards.  SLTS maintains the server and some of the endpoint devices.  If the resident staff community center location is having issues and others are not, contacting Housing Security is the best course of action.

 

Unsupported Workflows

The following issues should not be escalated to SLTS:


Residence Unit Keycard Issues
Each residence hall in Student Life assigns keycards to student residents that are used to access their dorm room.  These keycards are created via the Onity Integra software + hardware encoder platform and are distinct from a student's MCard.  They are issued from each residence hall's Community Center. 

The most common issue with these keycards is that they stop working due to damage or getting worn out.  Standard practice is to have the student get a new keycard at the nearest Community Center.  If this does not resolve the issue, the next escalations would be Student Life Facilities (for manual residence access) and Housing Security (for auditing the resident's security permissions).


MCard Issues
In the case of a problem with a user's MCard, the user should be directed to an MCard center for resolution (typically replacement). 

The most common issues include their card being expired, damaged, or not working on any door or device in which it is swiped.


Individual Unit Access
If others can access a particular building or room and an individual cannot, they should contact Housing Security.


Physical Door Or Reader Issues
These are resolved by Student Life Facilities, who will reach out to SLTS as needed.  If a caller is affiliated with a Facilities team, the ITS Service Center should advise the caller to contact the North Campus Housing Service unit on Baxter Road to acquire hardware replacements.  Historically, Mike Olsen has served as the primary on this workflow, followed by the Facilities Service Center more broadly.


Single-Door Reader Issues

In the case of a single-door reader, the first step would typically be for Student Life Facilities to replace the reader with a spare that they have on-site.  Typical problems encountered would be that the reader has no ready light on, or when different user's cards are swiped the reader lights don't change - i.e. no permit or deny lights come on.  These calls should be routed to FIXIT/FSC (734-647-2059).  An after-hours call to F-IXIT will route to FSC, who would then generate a work order that would get routed to the Student Life Facilities to resolve or the Housing after-hours maintenance mechanic depending on the severity of the issue.  Note that for after-hours, if other doors in the building are responding then a single door issue shouldn't result in contacting SLTS.  A single-door problem can wait until the next business day.

If Student Life Facilities cannot resolve this, they may need Housing Security or DPSS to validate that the door is scheduled for a lock or unlock.  SLTS does not maintain the access schedules for the access readers in the Housing department, though Housing Security (part of DPSS) does.  For example, FSC might be notified of a reader showing both "Ready" and "Permit".  This is indicative of a reader that has a scheduled unlock set.  Swiping an MCard at the reader would flash "Deny", but the door would still be unlocked and able to be pulled open.  If an after-hours request comes in to fix this, the FSC would need to contact the Housing Security off-hours supervisor who would escalate internally to fix the unlock schedule.  Again, no need to contact SLTS in this case.


Door Card Reader Battery Backups
Building maintenance changes these.  Onity itself does not have battery backup.  If we don't know the number for that particular building maintenance, the POCC/FSC (734-647-2059) can get the ticket to the right building.


Laundry Readers
The washers and dryers present in the dorms and other residential housing buildings are provided by WASH, an external company.  Students should report issues with laundry machines to WASH Laundry at 1-800-342-5932 or via a web request (here).  This includes refunds and reporting broken machines.  SLTS is not involved in the maintenance or repair of washers or dryers.  The contact information for WASH is posted in each laundry facility.  Washing machine models are from the "Maytag" and "Speed Queen" brands.

Historically, CBORD-managed laundry readers were installed on the washers and dryers in the various housing units.  However, these have been completely deprecated as of Summer 2018 and have been replaced with WASH Laundry's PayRange Mobile Payment system.  This system is entirely vendor-managed and allows residents to pay for laundry either via coin or through the use of the WASH-Connect app available on Android and iOS devices.  If there is a problem with activating or using the machines via the WASH-Connect app, residents should contact WASH Laundry as noted above.

If a student is requesting a Blue Bucks refund, you can direct them to bluebucks@umich.edu or fill out the form on the MDining website (here) to request refunds.

 

Escalation Process

The following questions must be answered before escalating to SLTS:

  • Is it one door (single door issue) or many doors (possible system issue)?
  • Is it your MCard only (single card issue) or all MCards (possible system issue)?
  • Does the reader have any lights working, which ones? (physical door issue or system issue) 
  • Information to gather before assigning a ticket to SLTS:
    • Location Number for door reader locations (White label with Red/Black lettering found on the reader)
    • Name or names of the person(s) affected 
    • Name or names of on-site contact
    • Which door(s), building(s), etc

Once the above information has been gathered, SLTS can be contacted via the following methods:

  • Business Hours
    • If questions arise, the ITS Service Center staff can reach SLTS staff via the Slack collaboration channel or by calling the front desk.  TDX tickets should be assigned to the SL-Hub for Student Life.
       
  • After Hours
    • The ITS Service Center should assign tickets to the SL-Hub.  In case of emergency after hours can use hito-pager@umich.edu.


Additional Information

When access control readers go bad, Student Life Facilities will replace the malfunctioning readers and acquire new readers and tamper-resistant hardware.

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