Chapter 18

Glossary

AC8000. A family of standalone door controllers and the Windows PC software that manages them. Its database backup (an .mdb file) can be imported into the panel: people, fob codes, door names and swipe history. Chapter 6.

Access level. A named set of doors plus one schedule. People hold one or more. A level with no schedule is 24/7. Chapter 7.

Active / inactive (person). A person's status. Inactive suspends every fob and phone release they have without deleting anything. Chapter 6.

Active / pending / disabled (controller). A controller's onboarding state. Only active controllers receive a keyset. Chapter 5.

Active / revoked (fob). A fob's status. Revoked fobs are refused everywhere but stay on the person's page. Chapter 6.

Add-on / extra. An optional item a resident can include when booking a room (a projector, a set of weights). Priced, with optional stock. Chapter 8.

Adoption address. The panel hostname or IP that controllers connect to over MQTT; written into each controller at provisioning. Chapter 13.

AGI script. An Asterisk Gateway Interface program that a PBX runs to control a call. The supplied door_release.php is one. Chapter 9.

Alert. An event a door raises on its own: door forced or door held open (plus a failed firmware update). Always logged; the first two can also be sent to Telegram. Chapters 4 and 11.

Apartment mode. Phone-access path for unrecognised callers: apartment number then PIN. Chapter 9.

Bcrypt. The slow, salted hash used to store passwords and PINs so that they cannot be read back. Chapter 15.

Board (resident portal). A public page at the portal address with board on the end, showing today's confirmed bookings by room and time with names as initials. No login. Chapter 8.

Booking. One person's reservation of a room for one slot. A confirmed booking opens that room's door for the slot. Statuses: awaiting payment, confirmed, cancelled, expired. Chapter 8.

BOOT button. The button on an ESP32 board that, held during power-up, puts the controller into setup mode (setup portal plus Bluetooth configuration) or, with RST, into firmware download mode. Chapter 5.

Bot token. The secret string from @BotFather that lets the panel send messages as your Telegram bot. Stored per tenant, never shown again. Chapter 4.

Bulk actions. Changing many people at once from the People page: add or remove access levels, set active or inactive, turn phone release on or off, export or move to the trash. Chapter 6.

Caller ID. The phone number presented by a caller. Used to recognise people on the access line; matched on the last nine digits. Chapter 9.

Channel. One reader-and-relay set on a controller. Single-door controllers have channel 1; dual-door controllers have channels 1 and 2. Chapter 3.

Chat ID. The number of the Telegram chat, group or channel that alerts are posted into. Positive for a private chat, negative for groups and channels. Found with Find my chat ID. Chapter 4.

Check access. The dashboard tool that runs the door decision rule for a fob, door and time without logging anything. Chapter 2.

Controller. The ESP32 unit at the door that reads the reader, drives the lock, watches the exit button and door sensor, and talks to the panel. Chapter 5.

Cooldown (alerts). The one-minute limit between repeat Telegram messages for the same door and alert type. Chapter 4.

CSRF token. A per-session value included in every form so that another website cannot submit actions on your behalf. Chapter 15.

Custom role. A staff permission set built by ticking pages as view or change. Chapter 12.

Dial release. Another name for phone access. Chapter 9.

Door event. A neutral log line from the door contact or exit button: door opened, door closed, exit button. Not a grant or a denial; not counted as a scan. Chapter 11.

Door forced. Alert raised when the door sensor sees the door open without a grant or exit press. Chapter 11.

Door held open. Alert raised when the door stays open longer than the door's held-open time. Chapter 11.

Door position sensor. A reed switch or contact that tells the controller whether the door is open. Enables forced and held-open alerts. Chapter 5.

Dual-door controller. One board driving two doors via channels 1 and 2. Chapter 5.

Enrolment (at a door). Listening at one door's reader for the next unknown fob and capturing it, without opening the door. Chapter 6.

Enrolment doors. The doors ticked in the Enrolment mode panel. Only these accept and capture unknown fobs while enrolment mode runs, and they are where a phone enrolment window applies. Chapter 6.

Enrolment level. The default access level chosen when enrolment mode is started. It is added to every person a captured fob is assigned to, new or existing. Chapter 6.

Enrolment mode. A tenant-wide window during which unknown fobs are accepted at every door and captured for assignment. Chapter 6.

Event. One line in the Log: access, alert or system. Chapter 11.

Exit button (REX). A push button on the inside of the door that always releases it. "Request to exit". Chapter 5.

Fail-safe. A lock that releases when power fails (maglock). Fail-secure. A lock that stays locked when power fails (most strikes). Chapter 3.

Fob. Any physical credential read by the door reader: fob, card, tag. Identified by its code. Chapter 6.

Fob code. The number read from a fob, shown as uppercase hexadecimal, for example A1B2C3 (26-bit) or 0BADF00D (34-bit). Chapter 6.

GPIO. A numbered input/output pin on the controller board. The pin map says which GPIO does what. Chapter 5.

Held-open time. The per-door Alert if held open for N seconds value; 0 switches the alert off. Pushed to the controller with the keyset. Chapter 3.

Hexadecimal. Base-16 notation using digits 0 to 9 and letters A to F. Fob codes are stored this way; many old systems show the same value in decimal.

iCCard3000. The older name of the AC8000 PC software; its backups are the same .mdb format and import in the same way. Chapter 6.

Keyboard-wedge reader. A USB fob reader that types the code like a keyboard. Used with the desk scan box. Chapter 6.

Keyset. The complete list of fobs and time windows that may open one door, compiled by the panel and stored on the controller for offline decisions. Chapter 1.

Lead time (room). How many minutes before a booking starts the door begins letting the person in. Ten by default. The door also stays theirs for five minutes after the slot ends. Chapter 8.

MQTT. The lightweight messaging protocol between controllers and the panel's embedded broker, on port 1883. Chapter 16.

OTA (over the air). Updating a controller's firmware from the panel without a cable. Chapter 5.

Panel. The Access Controller web application and everything inside it (interface, broker, database).

PBX. A phone system. Routes calls on the access line to the door-release script. Chapter 9.

Person. Someone who opens doors. Called "People" in the panel; not a panel user. Chapter 6.

Phone enrolment. A recognised caller presses # on the access line, keys in the site number, and has ten minutes to present a new fob at an enrolment door, which is then attached to them. It never opens a door. Chapter 9.

PIN (apartment). A 4 to 10 digit secret a guest keys in after the apartment number. Stored hashed. Chapter 9.

Pool (unassigned). Where a controller that connects before being registered waits until a super admin assigns it to a tenant. Chapter 14.

Portal (resident portal). The mobile web page where residents sign in with their mobile number and book rooms, at /p/<portal address>/. Chapter 8.

Provider. The organisation hosting the panel for several tenants. Its own tenant is marked "provider". Chapter 14.

Provisioning. Writing Wi-Fi, panel address, credentials and pin map into a controller, over USB, Bluetooth or the setup portal. Chapter 5.

Reception screen. The public, token-linked full-screen page that shows people as they fob in. Chapter 10.

Relay pulse. How long the lock is released after a grant, in milliseconds. Chapter 13.

Re-point. Telling an online controller to move to a different panel address. Chapter 5.

Role. What a panel user may see and change: super admin, admin, viewer or custom. Chapter 12.

Room. A door that has been made bookable. Needs a door module and an exit button; a fob reader is optional. Chapter 8.

Schedule. A weekly pattern of allowed hours, one entry per day: no access, all day or a time window (which may run overnight). Chapter 7.

Setup portal. The controller's own Wi-Fi network and web page (ACS-Setup-xxxxxx, http://192.168.4.1) for entering settings without a laptop. Chapter 5.

Site number. The 2 to 6 digit number, unique across the panel, that a caller keys in to say which building they are enrolling a fob at. Set in Settings; empty switches phone enrolment off for that site. Chapters 9 and 13.

Slot. One bookable period on a room, cut from its opening hours and aligned to its slot length. Chapter 8.

Slug. A tenant's short identifier made of letters, digits and dashes. Chapter 14.

Standalone controller. A firmware variant that manages its own fobs from its own web page with no panel. Chapter 5.

Super admin. The provider's account: sees all tenants, switches between them, and is created from the server console. Chapter 12.

Telegram bot. A Telegram account operated by software rather than a person. The panel posts alerts through one bot per tenant. Chapter 4.

Tenant. One customer organisation with its own isolated data, users and branding. Chapter 14.

Token (reception, phone). A long random secret in the reception link or presented by the PBX. Regenerate to revoke. Chapter 15.

Trash. Where a deleted person goes for 30 days. Their fobs stop working at once; restoring them puts everything back. Swept automatically. Chapter 6.

User. A staff login for the panel. Chapter 12.

Viewer. The fixed read-only role. Chapter 12.

Wiegand. The two-wire (D0/D1) signalling standard used by nearly all door readers. 26-bit and 34-bit frames are supported. Chapter 5.

Wiegand 26 / Wiegand 34. The two common frame lengths. Wiegand 26 carries 24 bits of card number, shown as 6 hexadecimal digits, with a highest value of 16,777,215; Wiegand 34 carries 32 bits, shown as 8 digits. The import wizard asks which your readers use. Chapters 5 and 6.