10 Universal City Plaza (10 UCP)

Visitor Management at a Commercial Multi-Tenant Building

By the numbers:

Visitors per day badged:  On average 80 to 100, although can be as high as 200 visitors

EasyLobby systems in place:  Two SVM™ Stations, one at the main lobby and the other at a loading dock

Number of tenant companies in building:  10 companies

Additional EasyLobby Products:  eAdvance™ visitor pre-registration by employees

Background

10 Universal City Plaza is a 35-story commercial office building located in the Universal City/Burbank Media District submarket of Los Angeles. The property’s tenants include many media companies, including NBC Universal and Universal Music Group. The building is located next to the Universal theme park and is the tallest building in the San Fernando Valley.

“Anyone in the entertainment industry would want to have an office at 10 UCP. It’s a high profile building,” said Victor Acosta, Project Manager for Security Services.

With 24 / 7 access, the main lobby is manned with a lobby attendant at all times. In addition to the main lobby, a loading dock is used by couriers for delivery of packages.

EasyLobby Secure Visitor Management (SVM) stations are located at both the main lobby and the loading dock.

The EasyLobby system has been in use at  10 UCP since around 2004 when new owners purchased the building.

In addition to the SVM™ stations, the tenants of 10 UCP also use EasyLobby eAdvance™ to pre-register visitors via a simple web form.

“Our goal of checking in visitors is to be rapid yet thorough,” said Acosta. The ID of every visitor and courier is scanned and they are supplied with a visitor badge.”

They use an Intellicheck License Reader from EasyLobby to read the 2D barcode or magnetic stripe on the licenses of all visitors. This verifies each person’s identity, and automatically pulls up their pre-registration record based on name match.

The nature of the businesses at 10 UCP means that oftentimes groups of 10 or more visitors arrive at once for meetings. Acosta cited the need to process groups in a very professional manner without delays.

“Using a reader to automatically capture visitor data is important to us. It eliminates the need to manually type in visitor information. Because the scanning process is fast and accurate we are able to check in large groups of visitors quickly.”

“This is a very secure building,” said Acosta. Consequently, the staff is very careful allowing access to visitors.

“Using the Watch List feature on the EasyLobby system is a very good way for us to keep unwanted visitors from getting in. Certain people are flagged as ‘trouble’ visitors that we’ve been told not to let into the building. The EasyLobby system allows us to automatically identify those people.”

When a visitor is granted entry, the lobby attendant notifies the tenant of their visitor’s arrival. Each visitor is required to wear a badge that has their name, company, and floor that they are visiting (which in most cases identifies the tenant).

“One of the EasyLobby products that our tenants frequently use is the eAdvance™ pre-registration of visitors,” said Acosta.

“eAdvance™ is very user-friendly for our tenants to enter visitor information. Pre-registration helps expedite visitor check in. And from our perspective, administration is easy. When we add a new user we simply email the tenant their password. Rarely, if ever, do we get any questions from users.”

The eAdvance™ service is also hosted by EasyLobby, which makes it easier for the customer to administer it.

Ease-of-use is one of the aspects of the EasyLobby system cited frequently by the staff of 10 UCP.

“We have about 15 lobby attendants, including supervisors, that regularly use the system to check in visitors,” said Acosta.

“Training users on the system is quite simple and straightforward. That’s a big plus for those of us who manage visitor security.”

Overall, Acosta says he is quite pleased with the system. “EasyLobby definitely helps us maintain a professional environment as well as a security-conscious atmosphere, which is a plus for all our tenants.”