Access Controllers or Spot Checkers may work in areas of poor connectivity where using the RIW App (connected to the internet) may not be possible. In this case, there are a range of approaches to read cards as follows:

Muster somewhere with internet connectivity using the RIW App 

Many users, if expecting to work at least part of the shift in connectivity “black spots” can muster somewhere with internet connectivity. The card checker swipes in each worker’s card using the RIW App on their mobile phone – physical or virtual cards (both are equally fine).

If the team then move to an area where there is no internet connectivity, any of the swiped-in worker's cards can be re-accessed simply by scanning the card again (this works for both physical and virtual cards). This retrieves the cardholder record from the app’s cache. It also confirms to the card checker WHEN the record was last synced with the RIW database. 

Any card checks being performed offline are still logged in the RIW App, and when internet connectivity is re-established, these checks and swipes get transferred to the main RIW database.

A similar approach can be done by using the RIW App to scan the QR code on the worker’s card image. This scans the workers' details into the main RIW system (if logged in to the main application) in order to collect details of the crew that are expected to start work. This can work well if the card checker will meet their crew in an area without internet connectivity and knows who will be in their team. They can then swipe in the worker's in an area of no internet connectivity using the cached records to enable this.

 

Using the RIW App offline

Near-Field Communication (NFC) is the technology used for all sorts of payments using your phone etc.

RIW cards are smart cards – i.e. they have an encrypted, contactless chip stored within the plastic – so they can be securely authenticated and read using the RIW App. If the card checker’s phone has NFC capabilities (and almost ALL do), the phone can be turned into a smartcard reader using NFC. This directly and securely reads the data from the card chip. This does not need any internet connectivity - so you can check people’s physical smart cards using NFC anywhere. Therefore no mustering is required.

However this will not work with virtual cards as they do not have a chip.

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RIW Knowledge Centre Article Link:

https://support.riw.net.au/support/solutions/articles/51000120927

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