A Key is a collection of Doors, and you assign Keys — not individual Doors — to the people at your property. How you group your Doors into Keys is one of the most important setup decisions you make: a clean Key structure keeps day-to-day access management simple, while a messy one makes every move-in, move-out, and access change harder than it needs to be.
The good news is that the structure that works best is also the simplest. This article explains the recommended approach and shows what it looks like for a typical building.
Why Key organization matters
Because a Key is assigned to many people at once, any edit you make to a Key applies to everyone who holds it. That is what makes Keys powerful — but it also means the way you divide your Doors into Keys decides how much work every future change takes.
- Assigning access should be fast. When a new resident moves in, you want to grant their access in a few clicks, not by hand-picking twenty-plus Doors one at a time.
- Shared changes should happen once. When you add a new amenity Door or a new building entrance, you want everyone who should have it to get it automatically — not to edit hundreds of resident records.
- Names should be self-explanatory. Your team should be able to look at a resident's assigned Keys and immediately understand what they can open.
The recommended structure below is built around these goals.
The recommended structure: separate but organized Keys
Group your Doors by function, and create one Key per function. In practice, most properties end up with three kinds of Keys:
- A shared Key for building entrances — all the common entry points every resident uses (front door, side entrances, garage, lobby). For example, a "Building Entrances" Key with 5 Doors.
- A shared Key for amenities — the shared spaces available to residents (gym, lounge, pool, mailroom, roof deck). For example, an "Amenities" Key with 20 Doors.
- One Key per apartment — a Key containing only that unit's own Door. For example, a "12A" Key with access to apartment 12A.
Each resident is then assigned the small set of Keys that matches their access. A resident in unit 12A holds three Keys:
| Key | What it opens | Who gets it |
|---|---|---|
| Building Entrances | 5 shared entry Doors | Every resident |
| Amenities | 20 shared amenity Doors | Every resident (or every resident whose plan includes amenities) |
| 12A | The Door to apartment 12A | Only the residents of 12A |
Their neighbor in 12B holds the same "Building Entrances" and "Amenities" Keys, but a "12B" Key instead of "12A".
This is what "separate but organized" means: the Doors are split into a handful of clearly-scoped Keys, and each person is a combination of the Keys that apply to them.
Why this works so well
- Move-ins are fast. Onboarding a new resident is assigning three Keys, not selecting every Door individually.
- Shared changes are one edit. Add a new amenity Door to the "Amenities" Key once, and every resident who holds it gains access automatically. The same is true for a new building entrance on the "Building Entrances" Key.
- Private access stays private. Because each apartment has its own Key, changing who can open unit 12A never touches the shared Keys — and no resident is ever accidentally added to another unit's Door.
- Your team can read access at a glance. A resident's list of Keys ("Building Entrances", "Amenities", "12A") tells you exactly what they can open. Remember that the Key name is only visible to your team, not to residents in the DOOR App, so name Keys for clarity — "Building Entrances", "Amenities", "12A" — rather than with internal codes.
Patterns to avoid
- Don't build one giant Key per resident. Creating a single "John Smith" Key that contains his apartment plus every shared Door defeats the purpose of Keys. Shared changes would then require editing every resident's personal Key one by one.
- Don't put an individual apartment Door inside a shared Key. Keep each unit's Door in its own per-apartment Key so that private access is never entangled with everyone else's.
- Don't create near-duplicate shared Keys. If two Keys contain almost the same Doors, consolidate them. Fewer, well-scoped Keys are easier to reason about than many overlapping ones.
Where schedules and doorcodes fit in
Because settings applied to a Key apply to everyone who holds it, function-based Keys are also the natural place to apply shared rules:
- Schedules restrict the hours a credential works. An "Amenities" Key is a good place for a schedule — for example, gym access only from 6 AM to 10 PM — because the restriction should apply to all amenity users at once. Building entrances and apartment Keys are usually left unrestricted.
- Doorcodes are enabled per Door within a Key. Enable them on the Doors where residents need a keypad code, and leave them off where they don't.
For the details of these settings, see How do I configure Key settings and schedules?.
Putting it together for a new property
- Create your Doors first, choosing the correct Door type for each (Building Entrance, Residence, Service, or Communal). See Creating and editing doors.
- Create a Building Entrances Key containing every shared entry Door.
- Create an Amenities Key containing every shared amenity Door, and apply a schedule if any amenity has restricted hours.
- Create one Key per apartment, each containing only that unit's Door.
- As residents move in, assign them the Building Entrances and Amenities Keys plus their apartment Key. See Inviting users and assigning access.
From then on, most access management is just assigning or removing these existing Keys — and any shared change is a single edit to the relevant Key.