Admin: Set Up Gate Intercom

Admin: set up gate intercom

App intercom lets the guard call a flat from the gate screen and reach the resident wherever they are, rather than depending on a wired handset or the guard's personal phone.

Before you start

• You are a society admin or committee member
• The flat roster is imported and flats are claimed
• The gate has a reliable connection — see step 1, this is the thing that decides success
• You have a written fallback rule for unanswered calls (step 3)

Step 1: Fix the gate's network first

Do this before anything else. If calls fail at the gate, trust in the system is gone within a week and you will not get it back.

Test the connection at the gate, at peak hours, not from the committee room. If the signal is weak, put a dedicated connection there. This is a small cost against the whole feature working.

Step 2: Open Intercom and brief the guards

Go to /admin/intercom to review calls and settings.

Brief each shift on:

• Finding a flat and placing a call from the gate screen
• What each outcome means (see the table below)
• The fallback ladder, which they must follow rather than invent

Step 3: Write the fallback ladder

This is the whole feature. Residents are in meetings, phones are on silent, and the elderly resident on the fourth floor has not opened the app since it was installed.

If your process has no defined answer for the unanswered call, the guard invents one — and the invented answer is usually "let them in", which defeats the purpose.

Publish this and brief the gate:

1. App call to the primary resident
2. If missed or failed, app call to the second registered occupant
3. If still unanswered, a normal phone call to the flat's registered mobile
4. If still unanswered: the visitor waits. Deliveries are held at the gate. Unexpected visitors are not admitted. Expected visitors with a pre-approved pass are admitted per the pass.
5. Log the outcome either way

Step 4 is the one committees flinch from, and it is the one that determines whether the gate means anything.

Step 4: Understand the call outcomes

Declined and missed are different signals. Declined means the resident made a decision. Missed means you have not reached them yet. Failed means the resident may not know the system exists on their phone anymore — that is a maintenance problem you can see and fix.

Step 5: Run in parallel for a month

Keep your existing intercom working. Do not retire the wired handsets until the connect rate is proven.

Track: what share of calls connect, what share are missed, what share fail outright.

A connect rate below about 70% in month one usually points to notification permissions rather than the software. A short helpdesk session at the society office — where residents hand over their phone for two minutes — will do more than three reminder notices.

Step 6: Keep a permanent phone path for some flats

Some residents will not use the app. Keep a normal phone-call path for those flats permanently, and do not treat it as a failure. Note them so the gate does not waste time on an app call first.

What this does not do

• It is not a door release. Approving a call is a decision, not a lock opening, unless you have separately integrated an access controller.
• It does not work in a power cut on its own battery the way a wired intercom did. Keep a fallback until you are confident.
• Notification permissions decay with phone upgrades and battery-optimisation settings. Expect to re-check periodically.

Frequently asked questions

Do we have to remove our existing intercom? No, and you should not immediately. Run both until the connect rate is proven. The wired system is your power-cut fallback.

Can the guard see resident phone numbers? They do not need to. The point of calling in-app is that the guard reaches the flat without holding a list of personal numbers.

What does a "failed" call mean? The resident's device could not be reached at all — no network, notifications disabled, or signed out. A cluster of failures on one flat is worth a direct conversation.

Is the conversation recorded? Call metadata — who called, which flat, when, and the outcome — is recorded. Recording the audio itself raises consent obligations; do not enable it casually.

What connect rate should we expect? Above 70% within a month or two. Below that, check notification permissions before blaming the software.

What if a resident has no smartphone? Keep a permanent phone-call path for that flat and note it, so the gate does not attempt an app call first.

Related: Resident: use gate intercom · How app gate intercom works · Visitor management for societies