Spintly Platform Architecture

As seen in the diagram, there is a cloud part and an on-prem part. In the cloud, all different microservices are deployed, and various APIs are exposed to the clients for integration purposes. 

In the on-prem part, there are access control devices and gateways. The gateway and devices talk to each other via BLE mesh. The Gateway is responsible for talking to the cloud.

Spintly Software Resources

Integrator : An Integrator is a client who wants to integrate with Spintly so that the client can use Spintly’s module, register/manage organizations, etc.

Organization : Organisations are different companies under an integrator. Each integrator will have one or more organizations.

Site : Sites are physical locations belonging to an organization. Under each site, there can be one or more access points.

Gateway : A Gateway is a device that connects to access control devices in a site using BLE mesh technology and sends data to Spintly Cloud using the Internet.

Network : A Network is a group of Spintly devices and gateways that communicate with each other. Typically used in sites where there are different floors.

Access Point: An access point is like a door. It can have entry and exit devices.

Repeater: When two devices are out of range, a repeater can be placed between them to complete the network.

Entry/Exit devices: Entry/Exit devices are physical devices that enable card, fingerprint, and mobile access.

Other Terminology

Spintly Saams app : Spintly has its own access control app on playstore and appstore which the client admin can use to manage the employees and the employee can use it for accessing the doors

Spintly Saams website:  Spintly has its own website which the admin of the organisation can use for managing its users ie adding user, assigning permissions, downloading event reports, managing visitors etc

How the software actually works please refer to spintly software guides

Spintly Saams apis: Spintly exposes apis which provides the same or similar functionalities which the Spintly saams websites provides

Spintly Access Sdk: Spintly provides its access sdk which the client can integrate in thier mobile app

Spintly Partner Website/app: This website/app is mainly use by the partner/installers when a new organisation is onboarded or to manage existing organisations with respect to devices and gateways

Spintly Partner Sdk/Apis: The same functionality of confuguriing the devices which is available in spintly partner app is also available in form of the sdk which the clients can integrate into thier app and the same functionality which is available in the website can be made available in the apis

What type of integration to choose

Below are the integrations that Spintly offers. If you want to understand the Spintly platform, kindly go through the next section to understand more.

Type 1 Integration:

In this model, the Spintly app is used to gain access to doors, and the Spintly website is used to manage users. Additionally, all functionalities available on the Spintly website can be accessed and manipulated via Spintly APIs.

Example:

A client might have software that manages specific operations. If users are created in the client’s software, they can automatically be created in Spintly and granted access to specific doors(via APIs). This approach eliminates the need for administrators to add users manually.  

For more information about this integration, please go through the following link 

Type 2 Integration:

This integration is similar to Type 1, but with a key difference: instead of using the Spintly app, the client integrates Spintly’s SDK into their own app.  

For more information about this integration, please go through the following link

Type 3 Integration:

Spintly exposes APIs exclusively for their Access Control as a Service (ACaaS) platform in this model. This allows clients to build their own access control software on top of Spintly’s platform.  

**Key Difference:

Unlike Type 1 and Type 2 integrations, Type 3 focuses solely on access control functionality. It does not include additional features such as visitor management, attendance management, tenant management, user management, or activity logs, which are offered in type 1 and type 2

For more information about this integration, please go through the following link

Type 4 - White Labeling:

This model allows clients to white-label the Spintly website and app, offering a fully branded experience

For more in-depth about this integration, please go through the following link

Type 5 - Partner Layer integration

This model is more suited for existing access control companies who like to use Spintly devices in thier platform, this integration as of now cannot work standalone, it will work closely with Type 3 integration

Below table compares all the types of above integration side by side

How Spintly Platform currently works standalone

Before diving further into integrations, you must understand the Spintly platform.

Spintly has two applications that go hand in hand with each other, namely:

1. Partner Application
2. Saams Application

Partner Application

The partner application allows Spintly partners to create and manage customer organizations. The application has two parts:

Partner web-based application - It is a website for creating customers and adding devices to the customer's organization using device serial numbers. 

Partner mobile-based application - Once devices are added from the partner website, the mobile app is used to configure them. The mobile app communicates with Spintly devices over Bluetooth to complete the configuration and set up a mesh network. 

Saams Application

The Saams application allows admins to create users and give users permission to access doors. This application also gives admins different reports regarding user access. The application has two parts:

Saams web-based application - It is a website for creating users and managing their access. With the application, you can see different user events, and the data is available for download purposes.

Saams mobile-based application - With this application, the users can open doors assigned to them. Also, it provides similar features that are available on the Saams web-based application, like creating users and managing their permission.s

Onboarding a customer and getting the customer up and running

Before we get into the APIs, its important to understand how the customer is currently on-boarded in the main Spintly application and how the user ends up getting permissions to the application

1. A partner first creates an organization in the Spintly partner application
2. The partner then adds access points based on the customer's requirements
3. The partner then downloads the Spintly partner mobile application from the Play Store or App Store
4. The partner installs the devices in the client site and then uses the Spintly partner application to configure the devices installed by the partner
5. The partner then handover the application to the customer
6. The customer admin then logins and signups to the Saams application
7. The customer admin then adds all the users in the organization and gives the door permissions
8. The user then downloads the Spintly Saams application from The Play Store, signs up, and logs in
9. Once the user logs in, he will able to see the door permissions assigned by the admin
10. Using Spintly Saams mobile application, the user can then access the door

In focus:  Spintly Cloud

By now, you might have come to know there are two applications named Saams and Partner, but before you go more into APIs, you need to understand the layers where Spintly offers integration.

Below are the layers

1. Partner Layer
2. Saams Layer
3. Acaas Layer

Partner Layer

This is the main layer, this layer is part of partner application which is mentioned in the above section. This layer creates organizations, sites, access points, and gateways. This info is then sent to other layers above i.e. Acaas and Saams

Saams Layer

This is the layer responsible for providing different  services , namely

1. User Management:  Creating, Deleting, and Updating of users
2. Access Management: Granting user permissions, setting up user and door schedules, credential management
3. Attendance Management: All the access data generated by the user accesses are fed to the attendance management tool so that attendance reports are generated
4. Visitor Management: Here, all data related to visitors are present , i.e., which visitors to give access to on which date, visitor history, etc

Acaas Layer

Also known as Access Control as a Service, this service deals with access management, i.e., granting user access, credential management, etc. The difference between the Acaas service and the Access Management service(Saams Layer) is that access management is built on top of Acaas. Access management is developed for UI-related activities and is more user-friendly. 

All the above-layer services have APIs exposed, but that doesn't mean you have to use them all. The partner web application and partner mobile apps are built using infrastructure APIs, whereas the Saams mobile application and Saams web application are built using Saams APIs

So, there are a few approaches you can take for integration.

1.Use the Spintly partner application and Spintly partner app to create organizations and configure devices. Use Spintly Saams APIs and the Spintly app for integration purposes.

2.Use the Spintly partner application and Spintly partner app to create organizations and configure devices. Use Spintly Saams APIs and Spintly SDK for integration purposes.

3.Use the Spintly partner application and Spintly partner app to create organizations and configure devices, and use just the Acaas layer APIs and Spintly SDK for integration purposes.

As you can see above, it is important to choose the right integration approach, e.g., Saams or Acaas, partner app/web.

Spintly Recommendation

Access control has many things besides just users and giving permissions. It can include door sensors to detect if the door is open, and if it is open, alert the admin and make a long beep. Spintly also has tenant management, which helps the landlord manage their tenants. When a client comes to integrate, they underestimate the effort it takes. The client typically builds the entire access control using Spintly APIs, which is fine but takes a lot of effort. Before choosing an integration, ensure you understand the entire spintly product and what it has to offer. 

Our recommendation will be

1. Whitelabelling of spintly apps and website
2. Type 2 and Type 1