How to Choose Which Doors Should Get Access Controls First

Facility managers should use a phased, risk-based approach to choosing which doors get access controls first. But that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice convenience or aesthetics! The important thing is to plan carefully.

Electronic access controls streamline access management, make your building more secure against unwanted access, and improve your curb appeal — but when you start running the numbers for a planned upgrade, you may come up against the hard reality that you don’t have an unlimited budget.

It’s a common experience among building and property managers, and it doesn’t mean you have to put off your upgrades. It just means you have to decide which doors should get access controls first — and which can wait until later.

Understanding How to Prioritize Access Control Upgrades

The key factor in choosing which doors to upgrade first is risk, not aesthetics. What does the door protect? Who uses it? When is it used? What could happen if the wrong person gets through it?

It’s tempting to start at the places that will look the most impressive, but in the lock and security business, we will always prioritize safety and security. A phased, risk-based approach lets you protect what matters most now while planning to build a complete system over time — and it beats the “vibes and feelings” approach every time.

Anderson Lock has been guiding Chicagoland facility managers and operators through security upgrades for over 60 years. Here’s the risk-based framework we’ve developed whether you’re an office building, school, hospital, or multi-unit residence:

• Step 1: Take an inventory of your doors and entryways.
• Step 2: Assess the risks for each door.
• Step 3: Plan each phase of the upgrade.
• Step 4: Double-check your work. Ensure all relevant doors are accounted for and that hardware purchased in Phase 1 can adapt for hardware added in later phases.

Step 1: Take an Inventory of Your Doors and Entryways

To properly assess risks and vulnerabilities, you have to begin with a comprehensive list of your current doors and entrances. Collect the data however you can, but the goal is to put it all in a spreadsheet or database so you can sort and organize it in different ways.

Straight talk: This can be a long, sometimes tedious process. Put on some tunes or bring a colleague along with you — or hire a consultant like our security experts at Anderson Lock who know how to conduct comprehensive security audits.

And keep in mind that this list will become the foundation for any future door, frame, or door hardware upgrade. Spend the time now to do it right, and future inventories will be much quicker.

Information to Collect

Door materials and hardware

• Door ID and location
• Door material
• Frame type (hollow metal, wood, aluminum)
• Handing (i.e., which hand do you pull the door open with; for double doors, focus on the door that has the latch)
• Lock type (cylindrical, mortise, panic bar)
• Power source (existing on the frame or possible nearby tie-ins)
• Network access availability

Usage

• Doorway type (customer entrance, employee-only, path of egress, receiving dock, server room, file room, etc.; a door may have multiple usage tags)
• Who uses it, and when
• What it protects
• Visitor and vendor traffic patterns
• Whether all keys are accounted
• Any past incidents of concern, including non-preferred usage like propping it open

Step 2: Assess the Risks for Each Door

In their Security Planning Workbook, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency defines risk as threat x vulnerability x consequence. You will have your own way of deciding what these terms mean for your facility. The goal is to identify the highest-priority and lowest-priority risks so you can begin to break up your upgrade project into reasonable phases.

One possible approach is to rate each door low-, medium-, or high-risk on five factors using the following criteria:

1. Consequence: How bad is it if the wrong person gets through?
2. Traffic and exposure: How often is it used or how much of the time is some employee able to monitor it?
3. Credential churn: How frequently do you need to replace keys for staff turnover or new vendors?
4. Audit need: How important is it to know who entered and when, for HR, insurance, compliance, etc.?
5. Opening condition: Is the door, frame, and door hardware in condition to accept electronic access controls?

Door Rating Scales

You might make a score chart like so:

Door Rating Chart

The goal of such a chart is to help you visualize and prioritize. It’s not a scientific document, so don’t get too hung up on calculating the numbers. In the example above, the lobby entrance and server closet score the same, but you will likely determine the server closet is more important than the lobby door because you’ll give more weight to the consequence and audit need columns.

Verify the Plan on the Ground

Your inventory is only as good as your information. During the planning phase, do spot checks on low-exposure doors at different times during the day. Talk with your team about how they use certain doors. Ask questions like:

• Which doors do you sometimes prop open, and for what purpose?
• Which doors feel the most inconvenient? Why?
• Which doors don’t seem secure enough to you?

You’re not trying to catch anyone doing something wrong; you’re trying to understand how a given doorway affects your team’s ability to do their jobs effectively so you can make informed choices about hardware. Some doors will need more security than others, and you’ll have to train people to understand why it’s important to scan in and out and secure the door every time.

Other doors may not need as much security, and adding a fancy access control may be pointless if people will only find it annoying and find ways to circumvent it.

Why It’s Important to Check the Opening

Electronic access controls give you flexibility, adaptability, and, well, access control — but they can’t substitute for frail or damaged materials.

Access controls can be retrofit to many existing openings, even in a city with historic buildings like Chicago, but the door needs to be sound and hung properly on functioning hinges. The frame cannot be cracked or bent such that the door does not close properly. Sometimes other door components need to be replaced prior to or along with adding an access control unit.

Step 3: Plan Each Phase of the Upgrade

Different facilities will make different choices about which doors to upgrade in each phase. A hospital will think differently about an employee entrance than a department store. A multi-unit residence will think differently about a lobby entrance than a pet store.

Start with the End in Mind

Phase one is not just about the highest priority or the budget. You need to know what the final goal is so you can plan each phase properly. Some details to consider:

• Wired vs. wireless Which doors will be wired into the building’s power source and which will run on their own batteries? This usually depends on existing infrastructure and distance from the control panel. You can learn more in our wired vs. wireless breakdown.
• Standalone vs. networked If we’re only talking about a few doors, you may be happy with standalone access controls, but if you’re eventually going to have a lot of doors in your system, you’ll probably want them on a network so you can manage them from a central portal.
• Credential type By the same token, consider whether you want people using PINs, fobs, biometrics, or their mobile devices to gain entry.
• Controller capacity How many total doors will get access controls when all is said and done? Networked access controls communicate with a controller that checks credentials against the rules you set up. Some controllers can handle up to four doors. Others can be networked to handle larger facilities. Plan accordingly.

When you have the final goal in view, you can work backward to decide what infrastructure ought to be installed in phase one to prepare for later phases.

The Front Door Isn’t Always First

People usually want to start with the front door because it’s the most visible. It’s the one you and your visitors see every day, and it feels like an obvious statement about security. But front doors are usually the busiest and the most regularly monitored and thus at lower risk of unauthorized entry.

It’s the service doors that get propped open or the IT closets that no one thinks about until there’s a problem that tend to present the greater risks. This is why the inventory and risk assessment are so important.

The doors that most Chicagoland facilities wind up giving access controls in phase one are rear and service doors, loading docks, employee-only entrances, server rooms, HR/records rooms, etc. Schools and office buildings are good candidates for phase one front-door upgrades.

Step 4: Double Check All Your Work

This is the easiest step to rush through. You’ve done all this preparatory work and finally have a plan — you’re starting to get excited that you can make this work. It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to go back over the whole thing another time, but believe us, it’s worth it if it saves you time or expense. Purchasing the wrong hardware can lead to project delays and will almost always cost more.

Plan twice. Purchase once.

Let Anderson’s Access Control Experts Take a Look

Anderson Lock is a local, family-owned, WBENC-certified woman-owned business that has served the greater Chicago region since 1960. We’ve grown with the industry and with the city, and we want to be your access control upgrade partners whether you’re a school, healthcare facility, data center, or commercial or residential building.

Contact us today to learn how our expert consultants can help, from talking you through the inventory process to a site visit and access control walkthrough. We have the background and experience to help you prioritize doorways, choose the right hardware, and plan each upgrade phase — all while staying in budget.