Afternoon School Gym Rentals Without Keys or Cards
At five o’clock in the afternoon, the school club closes and external users start entering the school building. A floorball coach, a volleyball team or other afterschool activities providers need access to the school gym, changing rooms and sanitary facilities. The same situation can also occur during weekends, when the school premises are used outside regular school hours.
For school management, this often means choosing between two complications. Either they need to pay a member of staff to be present outside standard working hours, or they have to accept the risk of physical keys being passed around among people who are not part of the school.
If school keys are missing or the caretaker is not available, someone has to find a replacement, operations become more complicated and the school may lose additional rental income. Managing access for dozens of external users outside teaching hours is both an operational risk and an administrative burden.
That is why IMA has expanded its existing reader portfolio with a new PIN version. External users no longer need keys, a chip, an access card or even a mobile app to enter the building. The building administrator simply generates a time-limited numeric code in the IDcloud administration platform and sends it to the tenant.
The PIN works only on predefined days and at predefined times – for example, every Tuesday from 16:45 to 18:30. Before this time window starts, and after it ends, the code will not open the door.
Integration with common school systems also helps simplify day-to-day administration. The IMA system integrates with platforms such as Bakaláři, EduPage, Škola Online, Edookit and Strava, as well as other systems, transferring data about the movement of pupils and staff.
For afternoon rentals, the system uses a separate module where setting up a year-long rental takes only a few clicks. It safely separates the standard morning mode, when the entrance doors need to smoothly handle hundreds of children within just a few minutes, from evening and weekend commercial use of the building.
A Great Solution for Office Buildings
The same principle is not useful only for schools. The imaPORTER PIN reader makes sense wherever people need access to a building or selected areas but do not have their own company card, chip or mobile access.
In office buildings, this may include visitors, external consultants, cleaning services or service technicians. In companies and operational facilities, it can be used for suppliers, maintenance workers, carriers or employees who need one-time or time-limited access outside regular working hours.
Automated access reduces the dependence of schools and companies on the physical presence of a caretaker, receptionist or facility manager after working hours. The building remains locked, while the movement of external users is clearly monitored.
The entire process, from code creation to automatic expiration, is handled digitally – without paper handover protocols and without the risk of copied keys.
Want a PIN Reader for Your Project?
Employees or students no longer need to carry plastic cards or fobs to their imaLOCKERS. The OSL.03-L series locks now respond to phone taps via NFC, supporting both Android and iPhone systems. Users receive their digital keys remotely, while existing RFID cards remain fully functional with no change to their operation.
IMA was proud to be a Golden Sponsor of the ECCA Conference 2026, held in Prague from 25–27 May 2026 and hosted by the European Campus Card Association together with Czech Technical University.
For IMA, the event was a valuable opportunity to meet partners, universities and industry professionals, and to discuss how access control, digital identity and secure storage solutions can support the changing needs of modern educational institutions.
Here are some of the most crucial insights shared by our CTO, Michal Kašpárek.
