A customer in the petrochemical industry was expanding globally and had a need for local support at their new sites in Scotland, Holland and Norway. At first, the customer was reluctant to ask Open Options to help identify local resources because they were unsure of the company’s international contacts, but when they did inquire, they were pleasantly surprised to discover that Open Options has a vast global integration network that can help a US-based company with offices in other countries.  

The sales team at Open Options were quick to understand the customer’s geographically distributed requirements and connect them with local support for all three locations. It would not have happened if the customer had not reached out to Open Options to ask the question about the global integration network that Open Options cultivates, vets and collaborates with.  

“As with many companies that expand outside the United States, our customer needed the ability to develop contacts at each of their international locations for install, integration and local support,” said Scot Sturges, Regional Sales Manager, Open Options. “Within a single day, we had the customer successfully engaged with trusted partners in all locations in Europe and in the UK.”   

Global expansion was new for this customer, and they did not have the time to spend weeks or months looking for trustworthy local support in different countries. They were accustomed to having the local Dealer for all of their access control needs at their headquarters in Houston, Texas. They wanted the same level of comfort as they expanded, now that they found themselves thinking globally, but still with the need to act locally.   

“The customer was thrilled that not only does Open Options support their needs from an enterprise software perspective, but we can also allocate resources from our global integrator network to assist with their global expansion,” added Sturges.   

This is access that connects… anytime, anywhere.   

An integrator was seeking assistance with the conversion of an existing access control system, consisting of 12 different locations, 19 controllers, 170 doors and over 800 personnel records. The Professional Services team from Open Options was tasked with assisting in gathering as  much data as possible to build the system in-house before going on-site to install DNA Fusion and test the system. But they quickly identified a problem that was unknown to the customer. 

While looking over the data, the Open Options Professional Services team uncovered that there wasn't a direct link between the access levels and the personnel records. Without this information, users who had a card would not have access to any doors, as there would not be any access levels assigned to their cards.   

Michael Digby, Professional Services & Sales Engineer, Open Options, explained what needed to be done: “Import files had to be made for each door and time schedule along with adding that access level within DNA Fusion. Once that was done using OpenDX, the import files were processed, and any errors were corrected. These steps made sure the data being import was consistent and accurate. Once all the files were imported, another database was spun up and the import process repeated to ensure everything worked correctly.” 

The final step was to use a back-up tool to extract the data from specific tables, so they could be used manually to create the access levels and associate them to the correct door and time schedule. When all of the files were ready, they were zipped up and sent off to the Professional Services team member that was on site working with the integrator replacing the existing access control with Mercury panels. As each facility was brought online, they were able to import the data for that specific facility and test the system on the spot. 

One of Open Options’ customers called in the midst of installing a demo for an end-user because they were having issues with getting the license to install correctly at the site. After working with the client for a few minutes online, it was determined that the license file was corrupt on the server they were trying to install it on. For this pre-sales situation, a top engineer from the Professional Services department of Open Options went immediately to work on the problem, as the clock was ticking on this on-site demo.

At this point, the Open Options engineer exited the install, removed the old license file and downloaded a new one. Then the customer was able to proceed with the install. As the customer experience comes first, the engineer remained on the line to make sure that DNA Fusion would start on the server.

However, there was another issue that kept DNA Fusion software from opening. The service account was not added in the services correctly. Quickly, Professional Services corrected it. As a result, the customer was relieved that it was resolved in a timely manner. The demo could go on.

“Our Professional Services team was able to connect with the technician and help ease his frustrations, and get his problem resolved,” said John Hubbard, National Sales Engineer, Professional Services at Open Options. “Because we were available to help him in a timely manner, he was able to show the potential end-user customer that the Open Options team was willing and able to help resolve any problems they ran into.”

This example demonstrates that Open Options Professional Services is a team of professionals ready to help with any issues that a dealer or an end-user may encounter.

The managers of a residential facility for people who are 55 years of age and up were concerned about the older population at risk to contract COVID-19, so they came up with a creative idea to use the access control system to help them identify who might be sick and immobilized by the virus. After a call to the Sales team at Open Options, help was on the way.

Open Options helped this DNA Fusion user set up the capability to generate a “non-use report” to flag in the system those residents who have not presented their credential at their apartment entrance within a pre-determined period of time. Seeking to be proactive, the managers of the residential community wanted to use this as an indicator possibly highlighting ill residents who would require assistance.

“The residential facility managers wanted to provide a value-added service for the mature resident population, while not being perceived as overly intrusive,” said Daniel Cosgrove, Sales Manager at Open Options. “We worked closely with our customer to develop the custom report, and we delivered it in short order.”

The Sales team at Open Options served as the quarterback to huddle up and activate the team. They connected Open Options Professional Services with the residential facility directly for input and feedback, and then organized the efforts of the Open Options development team to generate the custom report designed to highlight non-use of the card reader, which is installed at every door of every apartment to provide secure entry.

When the access control system detects that there has been no card reads by a resident during a pre-defined period of time, such as one day, then this is highlighted in an auto-generated report, followed soon afterward by a phone call to the resident to check on them and ensure their health and safety.

“This project to use access control to proactively, yet unobtrusively, identify and check on at-risk residents was a success, resulting in a satisfied customer,” added Cosgrove. “This was also a welcome relief for the dealer who had felt stuck until Open Options got involved.”