The journey through the Career Centre of the Unemployment Insurance Fund gives one a variety of emotions — this historic industrial building is connected to a modern and practical working environment. The fascinating building offers special exhibits and attractions that help to make sense of changes in the labour market. It has a spacious atrium and thoughtful décor that reveals the conditions of the pulp and paper factory that once operated in the building. Our meeting will take place in a meeting room that once served as a pulp vat. For starters, Raivo Terras shows the old paper press machine around the corner, and then draws attention to the pale tiles on the wall.

Raivo Terras has a virtual gold key that opens the doors of various offices of the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund.

In recent years, Valnes has won several public procurements, so I can manage the entrance of quite a few offices from my computer or mobile phone,” says Terras,

and shows on the smartphone screen how the doors and door cards of objects are managed. It’s all done from one place, no matter where the administrator is currently located, because the system works through a cloud solution.

It takes less time to issue an employee door card

As an example, he noted that it takes about five minutes to provide a door card to a new employee. Terras, who has worked in the administrative field for 15 years, also has a comparative momentum with local locking systems. It is not uncommon for door cards to be formatted only on one particular computer located, for example, in the basement of the same building. “It is certainly safe, but it also requires more human resources,” he adds. Also, in such a case, obtaining the cards is usually resolved through the administrator and the security company providing the service. In the case of the WebLock cloud solution, WebLock is engaged in the maintenance and development of both the physical and software side of the lock.

As an advantage of WebLock, Terras highlights the possibility to open doors and manage user issues from anywhere. In his opinion, it can be considered safer to administer the access system on site in a specific office, but considering the number of offices, this is not practical. We are talking about hundreds of doors – meeting rooms, private booths, cabinets and everything else.

Conveniently open doors over the web

In addition to administration, opening doors over the web is convenient. Terras gives an example: “If, for example, IT men go to Lihula or Räpina to do some work, it is agreed that they will call when they get to the office door. I will then open the doors they need without involving the locals.” The WebLock system would also allow opening doors with personal or one-time codes. Due to the specifics of the work, this option is not used in the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund and the doors can only be opened using personalized door cards. The possibility of opening with a card and from a distance is not used on the external doors of the premises of the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund, as they can only be opened with a key.

Since not all offices of the Unemployment Insurance Fund have a uniform locking system in place, Terras has been in contact with various service providers. Not all of them offer comprehensive locking solutions, but they do have software in place that allows one to use the solutions of multiple other service providers. This sounds very comfortable, he says, but given that all kinds of electronics can malfunction, technicians from all providers should, in principle, be called in in the event of any problem. In the case of WebLock, there have been no recent failures, especially since the software of the locking system has been updated more often.