Cross-system access history query tool
Problem
When an incident happens, establishing who had access to a given area falls to the head of security manually cross-referencing three or four sources: a door system export, the visitor book (or its photographed pages), an accreditation spreadsheet, and CCTV timestamps. None of these share a common person or zone identifier, so the exercise is done by hand in a new spreadsheet built for that one incident. It usually happens under pressure, for a police request, an insurer, or a governing body enquiry, and the deadline rarely matches how long the cross-referencing actually takes. The answer that eventually gets sent out is only as good as whoever remembered to check the right tab.
Product idea
A reporting tool that takes exports from the access control system, the visitor log, the accreditation platform and contractor records, and maps them onto a common person and zone model. The safety officer or head of security can then ask a plain question, such as who accessed the media zone between two times on a given date, or who held valid accreditation during a contractor's site visits last month, and get back a table with each row traced to its source record. It does not monitor access live and raises no alerts; it deliberately answers questions about the past rather than watching the present, because that is the gap that currently costs days.
Who it is for
Head of security and safety officers investigating an incident or answering an external request, and accreditation managers who hold the source records the queries pull from.
Possible first version
Manual upload of exports from each source system into a shared person and zone model, with a mapping step to reconcile naming differences between them. A query screen with a set of common question templates plus free text, returning a table with source references for every row, and a log of who ran each query and when. Out of scope for version one: any direct or scheduled connection to the door system, automated CCTV retrieval, and live alerting of any kind.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 4-6 week first release
- Roles involved
- Head of security, Safety officer, Accreditation manager
- Relevant to
- Professional club, Venue & stadium operator, Federation / governing body, Academy & youth
- Systems in play
- Access control and door systems, Visitor management tools, Accreditation platforms, HR and contractor records
- Product framing
- Analyse data
Questions we get asked
What do we actually need to hand over to get this running?
Exports from whichever systems hold the underlying records: door access logs, the visitor register, the accreditation list and contractor records, in whatever format they currently come out in, usually a spreadsheet or CSV. The first real work is agreeing how a person and a zone are named consistently across those exports, since that mismatch is normally the reason cross-referencing takes days in the first place. No live connection is needed to start.
Does this replace our access control or accreditation system?
No. It sits alongside them and reads from what they already export. The access control system stays the system that opens doors, and the accreditation platform stays the system of record for who holds a pass. This tool exists purely to answer questions across those records after the fact, which none of them are built to do on their own.
We already stitch this together in a spreadsheet when we need it. Why build something new?
Because that spreadsheet gets rebuilt from scratch every time, under time pressure, by whoever is available, and the working is rarely kept. This tool keeps the mapping and the query logic in one place so the next request takes minutes of query time rather than a day of manual cross-referencing, and it keeps a record of exactly what was asked and what was found.
Who is responsible for it once it exists?
Normally the head of security owns the tool and the query log, while the accreditation manager and reception lead stay responsible for the accuracy of the records feeding into it. The ongoing time cost is the periodic re-export and re-upload from each source system until any of those connections are automated, which version one does not attempt.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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