What Is Akia’s Device Hub?
Using our integration with Seam, Akia is able to sync, map, and generate key codes for your guests without the need for a third party key management system.
You do not need a Seam account to use Akia’s device hub, all you need is a compatible lock account for Akia to begin issuing keys for your guests. Please reach out to us in the Support Chat or at help@akia.com if you would like to add Akia’s device hub to your account.
How Do I Connect My Lock Account to Akia?
- Go to the Devices page in Settings
- Click + Add Device to bring up the Seam popup window to log in to your lock account
- Once you have authorized the connection, the locks in your account will populate in Akia
- If any locks are missing or you have made updates since connecting your lock account with Akia, click Refresh Devices to have Akia sync with your lock account.
How Do I Map My Devices to My Rooms/Units?
In order for Akia to generate access for your devices when a reservation is arriving, we need to map the devices to the rooms (locations) we get from your PMS. If the locations are not mapped, Akia will be unable to issue the key code for a guest staying in that unit.
- Go to the Devices tab in Settings
- Click on the device name and a side panel will appear
- Click Manage Location to grant/edit/remove which rooms have access to the device
- Think of this as which devices would a guest staying in room/unit ___ need access to.
- You’ll see a list of all of the rooms we currently have from your PMS and you have the option to search for a specific room
- If the device is the front door, you would most likely want all rooms to have access to it. This means that a guest staying in room 543 would be able to use their key code to unlock the front door device.
- If the device is the room lock, you would only want the corresponding room from your PMS to have access to the device. You would map the device named “Room 543” to “The Grand Budapest Hotel > 543” in this situation.
- Once you have selected all of the rooms that have access to the specific device, hit Ok to save and you’ll see the list of the applicable rooms in the Location Permissions section
- Repeat steps 2-5 for each device you have synced in Akia
- After you have mapped all of the rooms to devices, you’ll be able to see the Key Code field under the reservation details for guests staying in one of the applicable rooms, indicating Akia is able to issue a code for their reservation
Can I Set up Master/Emergency Codes?
Optionally set up master codes for each of your employees to use to enter rooms or a backup code in case the guest is having trouble using the code they were sent.
- Navigate to the Master Codes tab of the Devices page
- Click on + Add Master Code
- Fill in the required fields and add devices that this master code has access to
- We recommend the master code having Ongoing access if you want this code to be used indefinitely.
- The 4-digit or 6-digit passcode length would depend on your lock devices and which code they are compatible with.
- Click Ok on both pages to save your master code
How Do I Automatically Generate Key Codes for Guests?
Akia can automatically generate key codes using our touchpoints or triggers. Please reach out to us in the Support Chat or at help@akia.com if you require more touchpoints to automatically issue codes to guests.
- Go to the Automation tab to create a new automation
- Click + Add Touchpoint which brings up the side panel editor
- Configure the time you wish to have Akia automatically generate the key code (e.g. day of arrival or one day before arrival)
- We suggest unchecking Deduplication so that guests with multiple reservations receive a key code for each reservation.
- Click on the Action Variant to edit the action that Akia performs
- Optionally specify any conditions for the key code to be issued (e.g. Mini App needs to be completed)
- Change the action to Issue keycode
- Optionally specify a message to send to the guest when the key code is issued
- If you do not specify a message, Akia will not send a message to the guest when the key code is issued.
- Akia does not send your specified message if you manually issue the code to the guest.
- Click Ok to save your changes and if everything looks good, Start the touchpoint
How Do I Manually Generate a Key Code for a Guest?
- Go to the guest conversation you want to generate the key code for
- Click the → icon to bring up the Manage Key Code side panel
- Optionally configure the start and end times for the guest’s key code
- Click Ok to generate the key code
- Optionally send a message to the guest informing them of their key code with the message token customer.akia_issued_keycode
How Do I Revoke A Guest’s Key Code?
- Go to their conversation thread in the Inbox
- Click on the → in the Key Code section
- Click Revoke in the side panel that appears, this will instantly revoke the guest’s access to any devices their room has been mapped to
FAQs
- If my device could not connect to wifi when Akia generated the code, would the code still be registered to the device?
- The code Akia generates will be registered to the device once the device is reconnected to wifi. The wifi outage will not impact Akia’s ability to generate the code but rather the device itself registering the code.
- If your property occasionally has a weak wifi signal, we would recommend having Akia generate the key code at least a day in advance to give time for the code to sync.
- If the wifi doesn’t come back, we would recommend using an already-set master code to open the door.
- If a guest extends their reservation, does Akia automatically update their current keycode to the new date/time?
- Yes, Akia will automatically extend the “end time” of their current reservation to their new departure date and departure time (or the checkout time you have set in your office hours)
- If a guest’s room changes, does Akia automatically update their current keycode to the new room?
- No, Akia would issue a new keycode for the new room, we cannot use the same keycode to access the new room. Akia will automatically reopen the chat when we issue a new code so your team can notify the guest of the new keycode if needed.
- Does Akia change the guest’s access hours based on the arrival/departure time from our PMS?
- Some PMS we are able to detect the guest’s arrival/departure time, and if those are provided, we will use those times to determine the start and end for the keycode. If not provided, we will use the check in and checkout
Use Cases
- 🔢 No more missing keys: No longer have to deal with guests misplacing their physical key or forgetting their key code during their stay.
- Text the guest their key code a few hours before check-in and include it in your Mini App so the guest always has access to it if they forget it.
- 🔒 Hassle-free and more secure: Instead of your team having to remember to change your lock codes, or issue codes manually for arriving guests, Akia can do this automatically with touchpoints.
- Add more conditions to your automations or Mini Apps to prevent codes being issued to guests who haven’t signed your Registration Card/Rental Agreement or who aren’t arriving today.