How ACT365 hit ace maximizing use of tennis facilities

You might be surprised to know that ACT365 is an integral part of the plan to promote tennis across the British isle.

As part of an initiative to promote the game throughout the UK and unearth the next Andy Murray or Heather Watson, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) installed ACT365, Vanderbilt’s complete cloud-based access control and video surveillance solution, at tennis courts and clubs throughout the island.

This advanced technology is helping to create an environment where the LTA can maximize the use of their facilities by getting as many people on their courts throughout each day as possible. How exactly you ask? Well, the LTA needed a solution that would enable players using municipal facilities to easily arrange practice and coaching by giving them adequate information about court availability.

Here’s where ACT365’s third-party integration capabilities came up trumps. ACT365 coordinates with a platform that allows courts to be booked and used through a simple process exploiting smartphone technology. The third-party tool, ClubSpark, is a venue management apparatus from Sportlabs – LTA’s technology partner.

“ACT365 gives users control of multiple access points from a single unified interface, and its software allows operators to analyze door status remotely. Tennis players make and pay for bookings using ClubSpark from their smartphones and receive a text message with a pin code. This is also communicated to ACT365,” explains Ross Wilks, Head of Marketing Communications at Vanderbilt.

“When players arrive at the court, they enter the code into a reader that opens the court gate. This delivers an efficient time-management protocol to the LTA. Players no longer have to sit around waiting for courts to free up,” says Wilks.

The tennis player deals with the ClubSpark app for booking court time. The security installer manages the ACT365 interface, which can be viewed from any internet-ready-device. Engineers are given valuable details about the tennis court gates including controller status, system health, possible tampering incidents, gate forced, gate ajar, etc. Problems can be solved remotely. This avoids the need for expensive site call-outs.

“A traditional access control system would be ineffective in this situation since you would need a computer at every site, once again highlighting the beauty and power of ACT365 to handle the growing demands of 21^st century everyday life,” Wilks concludes.