Event Access Policies

Event access policies let MakerVera automatically open doors and activate equipment for your event attendees—granting access before a session starts and revoking it when it ends—without any manual work on your part.

Before you begin

You’ll need:

• At least one access control provider connected to MakerVera (see Access Control Overview)
• At least one zone available from that provider
• The Manage Access Control permission on your account

Configure a policy on an event series

Access policies are set at the series level, not per session. MakerVera automatically creates and schedules the individual access tasks for every upcoming session in the series.

1. Open an existing event series in your admin panel.

2. Click the Access Control tab.

   Tip

   The Access Control tab only appears when you’re editing an existing series. It isn’t shown on the “create new series” form because there’s no series to attach a policy to yet.

3. Click Add Policy.

4. Select the zone you want to grant access to—the physical door, area, or equipment item.

5. Set the buffer times:

Setting	What it does	Range
Minutes before event	How early attendees receive access before the session starts	0–480 minutes
Minutes after event	How long attendees keep access after the session ends	0–480 minutes

6. Optionally enable Grant temporary authorization. When turned on, MakerVera also grants a specific authorization (for example, “Building Access”) to attendees for the duration of the event window and removes it afterwards. Choose the authorization from the dropdown that appears.

7. Click Create policy.

You can add more than one policy to a series—one per zone. For example, a metalworking workshop could grant access to both the main entrance and the metalworking area.

Tip

If no providers are configured yet, the Access Control tab shows an empty state with a link to Settings → Integrations. Set up a provider and add zones first, then return to create your policies.

How scheduling works

When you save a policy, MakerVera looks at all upcoming sessions in the series and schedules a grant task and a revoke task for each one. The grant fires at session start − buffer before and the revoke fires at session end + buffer after.

MakerVera doesn’t schedule tasks with your access control provider all at once—it does so within a rolling window ahead of each session (by default, 24 hours before the earliest grant time). This means:

• Tasks for sessions starting within the next 24 hours are typically already scheduled when you look at them.
• Tasks for sessions further out appear in the list but haven’t been pushed to the provider yet. They’ll be scheduled automatically as the session approaches.

The length of this window is a platform-level setting called the materialization horizon (default: 24 hours). If your makerspace needs a longer scheduling window—for example, to pre-provision physical credentials that require extra lead time—contact MakerVera support to discuss adjusting it.

View scheduled tasks for a session

Every session page has an Access control card in its side column. It tells you at a glance whether the door will open for this session:

• The header names the zone’s policy and shows a badge: how many tasks are scheduled or failed, Done once every task has run, or Nothing scheduled.
• Each Grant and Revoke task is listed with its time (for example “15 min before” the session starts) and its status.
• A failed task has a Retry button.

Click View all tasks to open the full table in a drawer:

Column	What it shows
Action	Grant or Revoke
Target time	When the task is scheduled to run
Status	Current state (see below)
Retries	Number of retry attempts, if any
Actions	Available actions based on current status

When no provider is connected, or no policy covers the class, the card says so in one line with a link to set it up. If the Door Access add-on isn’t active, it says “Access control not enabled on this plan” with a link to Integrations. Only staff who can manage access control see these lines.

Who can see and act on the card

Who	What they can do
Staff with the Manage Access Control permission	See the card, Retry and Cancel tasks, and follow the set-up links
Staff with the Edit Events permission	See the card, and Retry and Cancel this session’s tasks
The session’s instructor	See the card, read-only
Everyone else	Nothing; the card is hidden

Staff with only Edit Events see the card once tasks exist. Setting up providers, zones and policies, and the failed-task list in Integrations, stay with Manage Access Control.

Task statuses

Status	Meaning
Not yet scheduled	The session is outside the scheduling window; the task will be scheduled automatically as it gets closer
Pending	Queued and waiting to be processed
Scheduled	Submitted to the provider and ready to fire at the target time
Executed	Ran successfully
Failed	Could not complete; see Handling failed tasks
Cancelled	Manually cancelled; will not run

Cancel a task

For tasks that haven’t run yet (Pending, Scheduled, or not yet scheduled), you can click Cancel in the View all tasks drawer to stop them from running. MakerVera asks you to confirm before cancelling. Use this if a session is cancelled or if you need to manually override the automated flow.

Retry a task

For tasks marked Failed, you can click Retry on the card or in the drawer to queue them again. Before retrying, fix the underlying cause of the failure first (see Handling failed tasks).

Handle failed tasks

If a grant or revoke task fails—for example, because provider credentials have expired or a webhook endpoint is unreachable—an alert appears at the top of the Access Control tab on the event series page.

The alert shows how many tasks have failed and includes a Review in Integrations link. Follow that link to the Integrations area, where each failure is listed with its details. From there you can:

• Retry — Attempt the grant or revoke again. Use this after you’ve fixed the root cause (see below).
• Acknowledge — Mark the failure as seen without retrying. Use this for failures that no longer need action—for example, a revoke task for a session that has already passed.

Common causes of failure

Cause	Fix
Provider credentials have expired	Go to Settings → Integrations, open the provider, and update the credentials. Then use Test Connection to confirm it’s working.
Webhook endpoint unreachable	Check that the URL is correct and publicly accessible, then test it with the Test Connection probe.
Zone removed from the provider	Re-sync zones (for OpenPath) or check whether the zone was deleted. The zone will appear with an “inactive” label on affected policies.
Temporary rate limit from the provider	Wait a few minutes and retry.

Tip

Always fix the root cause before clicking Retry. Retrying without resolving the underlying problem will just create another failure.

Troubleshooting

The “Access Control” tab isn’t visible on the series page

The tab only appears when:

• You’re editing an existing series (not creating a new one)
• Your account has the Manage Access Control permission

If you meet both conditions and the tab still isn’t visible, ask your makerspace admin to verify your permissions.

”No access control providers configured” appears in the panel

Go to Settings → Integrations and add at least one provider with at least one zone. Return to the series page once the provider is set up.

No tasks appear for an upcoming session

If the session starts more than 24 hours from now, tasks appear in the list but won’t be pushed to the provider until the session is within the scheduling window. This is expected behaviour.

If the session is within 24 hours and tasks still don’t appear, check that:

• The series has at least one active access policy
• The policy’s zone is active (not greyed out or marked inactive)
• The provider connection is healthy (run Test Connection on the provider card)

An attendee still has access after their session ended

MakerVera only removes someone from a zone when nothing else still gives them access to it. If the attendee also has another upcoming or ongoing session with a policy on the same zone, or another grant for that zone such as a manual one, the revoke task is still marked Executed, but the door stays open for them until their last grant for that zone ends. This is expected.

A grant was marked Executed, but the attendee still couldn’t get in

MakerVera successfully sent the grant signal to your provider. The issue is likely on the provider or hardware side:

• Verify the attendee’s physical credential (keycard, mobile app) is activated in the provider’s system.
• Check that the physical hardware (door reader, controller) is online and connected.
• Contact your access control provider’s support if the credential and hardware both appear healthy.