Where a card number is read, and what a tap does there
One card number is read by room panels, desk panels, the attendance clock, the problem-reporting screen, event panels, a phone wallet and the API. What each of them does with it, and the one rule they all share.
A card number is stored once and read in a lot of places. Every one of them does the same first thing — turn the number into a person — and then does its own job as that person. Nothing about the card decides which job; the screen it was tapped at does.
Everywhere a tap is read
| Where | What the tap does |
|---|---|
| A room booking panel | Checks the person into the booking that is waiting, starts a walk-in on a free room, or offers extend and check-out during a meeting — see Check in by tapping a staff card |
| A panel wired to a lock | Opens the door alongside the check-in, where the room has the hardware — see Connect an AXIS door lock |
| A desk or seat panel | Claims the seat the person booked |
| The attendance clock | Records a clock-in or clock-out — see How attendance works |
| Report a problem at a panel | Signs the report so the queue knows who raised it — see Report a problem at the room panel |
| An event panel | Marks the person present at the event |
| A phone in a wallet | A user mobile pass carries the same number over NFC, so a phone taps where a card would |
| The External API | Stores and clears numbers from another system — see Open a meeting room door from a booking |
Cards are one of several ways to say who you are at a panel; the others are a QR code, a passcode and a booking PIN. Which of them a panel offers is set in Booking, not here — see Identify at the panel.
The rule they all share
Every one of those screens resolves the card through the same step, so the same three things are true everywhere:
- An unknown number does nothing, silently. No message, no flicker. A panel in a corridor that complained about every card carried past it would be unusable — so a card from another building is simply ignored.
- The first number that resolves wins. Some readers send more than one identifier for one physical card; the panel tries them in the order they arrived and stops at the first that finds somebody.
- Case does not matter. A number enrolled in lower case matches a reader sending upper case.
What never reads it
- Signing in to Offision. The apps and the console take a password, a passcode or your company’s sign-in. No screen anywhere accepts a card.
- Your building’s own access-control system. Offision does not send card numbers to a door controller. A panel wired to a lock opens it because Offision told the lock to open, not because the controller recognised the card.
- Visitor check-in at the lobby. A visitor has a badge or a wallet pass of their own — see What appears on a visitor badge.