With some types of EasyOpen system, timed access is an option (turned on using the Use Timed Access option.). Timed access is defined through timespans. During any timespan you can define rules, such as granting a user access through a particular door. There are two types of timespan, operational periods and shifts. An operational period is simply a length of time, for example 10:15 on 5th July 2005 to 9:30 on 12th March 2007. A shift is a repeating pattern, such as 9:00am to 5:00pm Monday to Friday. You may use one or the other, or both in any combination. However, note that whilst an operational period can exist on its own, a shift must have one or more operational periods assigned to it, even if it is just a single, automatically created and assigned period of "forever". If an operational period is designated as the default operational period, it is the operational period that will be automatically assigned to a newly created shift. You can if you wish switch to a different assigned operational period, or even multiple assigned operational periods.
A shift can be converted to an operational period or vice versa at any time. However, for anything other than a simple "repeats forever" shift pattern, you will find it easier if you work in the following order, as that way Open Access Manager wont have to second guess what you are trying to do:
Please note that if you are creating timespans it is your responsibility to ensure that timespans are not self-contradictory. If you were to assign to a door one timespan that sets it unlocked at a certain time, and another timespan that at the same time sets it double-locked, the outcome would be indeterminate.
Access Manager downloads to the controllers information describing the current time zone. This allows the controllers to autonomously switch between summer time and winter time as necessary. The information is supplied by Windows. Unfortunately in some Windows 95/98/NT versions the time zone records are incomplete or incorrect (especially daylight saving start and end times), and therefore you must check them and make corrections if necessary. A small applet, tzedit, is supplied on the installation CD to allow you to do this. tzedit may be found in D:\software\tzedit\, where D: is the drive letter of the drive containing the installation CD.
There is a second complication regarding the way that Windows reports time zones that have no daylight saving time. Windows regards this as an error condition, and reports this to Access Manager. Consequently Access Manager is forced to check with you that the information it has is correct.
The easiest way to understand the concept is to consider an example. A school obviously needs to grant access to teachers and pupils during the day. In order to allow this but block access at night, you would need to set up a shift from (say) 8:30am to 4:30pm, Monday to Friday. Starting with a clean sheet, if you were to create this shift in Open Access Manager you would find that automatically created for you would be a default operational period which runs through to 2038 (which for technical reasons is "forever" as far as the computer is concerned). You would also find that this operational period has been assigned to your newly created shift, because the point at which the shift comes into force and the point at which it stops must be defined. The reason for this may not be obvious until you think further about how a school such as that in our example functions. The year is split up into terms, and out of term time you will not in general want to allow access (to pupils at least). Therefore you will want to create three operational periods (for each of the terms) and assign them to the shift you created (removing the default operational period). You now have the basis of a timespans setup for one year for a school.
Term times vary from one year to the next, so at the end of each year the school administrator would simply edit the dates for the three operational periods and update the EasyOpen system. The system is then set up for the following year without further ado.
Teachers will perhaps need access throughout the year. To do this you would simply create a new shift and assign it to members of staff, since the default period is still "forever" (the default doesn't have to be "forever", by the way, it can be any operational period of your choosing).
Teachers will also need access at special times, such as for parents' evenings. You could set up operational periods for these times and assign them to members of staff so they can open the doors and leave them propped open or "on the latch" for parents. An alternative, more secure solution would be for one of the teachers at the start of the evening to set up an operational period for the evening and apply it to the relevant doors. This would ensure the doors lock automatically after the allotted time.
So, although there are only two types of timespan to understand, together they offer you an enormous number of possibilities.