Guest key cards (issue, cancel, viewing cards)

Program a guest's door key straight from the web app — issue a card at check-in, cancel it at check-out, or make a short-lived viewing card to show a room to a visitor. It works with the hotel's door-lock brand through a small helper app (BSBridge) installed on the front-desk PC.

Before you start

Your hotel is on the Gold plan. Key cards are a Gold feature — if you don't see the Make Card Key button, your plan doesn't include it.
You have the Key Card Management permission.
The room has a Lock Type and Key Lock Number set (Rooms master → edit room). Ask a manager if these are blank.
BSBridge is installed and connected on the front-desk PC (a small tray icon near the clock). If no companion is connected, the card buttons won't work — see Set up a till below.

Steps

Issue a card for a guest

Go to Front Office → Room Status Board and click the guest's room.
Click Make Card Key.
Place a blank card on the encoder, then click Issue Card.
Wait for the green confirmation. The card is now the guest's key, valid until their check-out time.

(You can also issue the card at the end of the Check-in wizard — the same panel appears automatically for any room whose Lock Type is set, including the Mock / Test lock. Rooms with no lock configured finish check-in without the prompt.)

Cancel / deprogram a card at check-out

Open Make Card Key for the room.
Place the guest's returned card on the encoder and click Deprogram / Cancel.
The card can no longer open the door.

Make a short-lived card (viewing or housekeeping)

A short-lived card opens the room for a little while and then expires on its own — no booking or charge. Use it to show a room to an intending guest, or to let housekeeping in.

Open Make Card Key for the room (vacant or occupied).
Place a blank card on the encoder.
Click Viewing card (for a visitor) or Housekeeping card.
The card auto-expires after the Viewing-Card Interval — set that in Setup → Preferences (default 20 minutes). Both cards appear in the Keycard Log as Viewer cards.

Issue a master key card

A master card opens every lock in the property — it isn't tied to a room. Use it only for trusted staff (duty manager, maintenance) and record who receives it.

Where is the button? There's no separate menu item. Open Front Office → Room Status Board, click any room, and choose Make Card Key. In that panel, a rose Issue Master Card… button appears near the bottom, under a Master card heading.

You must have the Can Generate Master Card permission — a manager ticks it on your user under Setup → Users → (your user) → Reservation Roles → Key cards. If you don't have it, the button doesn't appear.
Your locks must be a brand that supports master cards — TTLock, or CAD RF V4.7. The button only shows for those (not CAD USB or the Mock/Test lock).
Place a blank card on the encoder, and click Issue Master Card…. Confirm the warning.
It's valid for about 2 years (set Master-Card Validity in Preferences) and is recorded in the Keycard Log as a Master row.

Don't see the button? It's #1 or #2 above (permission, or the lock brand). If it's there but greyed out, the BSBridge companion for that lock isn't online — start it on the front-desk PC. A manager can confirm your permission on your user's Key cards roles.

CAD RF master cards need the V4.7 encoder registered (via the vendor's LockReg tool + authorization card) and its passwords entered in BSBridge → Settings → CAD RF. Until that's done the card write returns a "not registered" message.

Set up a till (pairing BSBridge)

Go to POS Settings → Keycard Hardware.
Click Generate pairing code (optionally name the till).
On the front-desk PC, install BSBridge (use the Download button if shown, or ask IT), then open its tray icon → Settings… → Pair with token….
Enter the tenant URL and the pairing code shown on the page, click Pair, then Save and restart BSBridge.
Back on the Keycard Hardware page, the till now shows under Online companions.

Set up a CAD USB encoder (Hotel ID)

CAD ProRFL USB encoders need your property's Hotel ID so cards are written for your hotel. The CAD software doesn't show this number on a settings screen, but it is stored in its System.ini (in the CardLock program folder) on the line dlsCoID =$XXXXXX. The value is hexadecimal: convert it to decimal and type that into Hotel ID (for example $FF0000 is 16711680). If you cannot find that file, BSBridge can read the number off any working card:

On the front-desk PC, open BSBridge → Settings → CAD ProRFL USB encoder, tick This till has a CAD USB encoder, and choose your Encoder model.
Place a card that already opens a door (any current guest or vendor card) on the encoder and click Detect Hotel ID from a card…. The Hotel ID fills in.
Click Save and restart BSBridge.

You can confirm any card with Read Card on the key-card panel — it now reports the card type, Hotel ID, lock number, and check-out time in plain language, which is the quickest way to compare a card that won't open a door against one that does.

Choosing this desk's till (properties with more than one)

If your property has several front-desk PCs, each with its own encoder, the key-card panel shows a Till selector. Pick the machine you're sitting at — the card then burns on your encoder, not another desk's. Your choice is remembered on this computer.

Leave it on Auto if only one till is online — the system uses it automatically.
If more than one till has the encoder and you haven't chosen, the panel asks you to pick a till before it will issue.
Each result line shows "via <till name>" so you can confirm the right machine handled it.

Tips

The action buttons switch themselves on/off based on what the room's lock can do and whether the encoder is connected — if a button is greyed out, hover it for the reason.
To test connectivity without a real lock, set a room's Lock Type to Mock / Test and use Diagnostic Ping — it proves the web app can reach the front-desk companion.
POS Settings → Keycard Hardware always shows which tills are online right now.

Common problems

"Make Card Key" is missing → your hotel isn't on the Gold plan, or you don't have the Key Card Management permission.
"No keycard companion is online" → BSBridge isn't running or isn't paired on the front-desk PC. Start it (tray icon) or pair it (Set up a till above).
The till was paired and working, then after a Bridge update it shows as unpaired and the encoder is switched off in Settings → older Bridge builds kept their settings inside the folder that updates replace. Pair the till again and re-enable the encoder once; from this version on, settings are kept outside that folder and survive updates. Diagnostics shows the settings file location.
Issue Card is greyed out → the room has no active booking (issue from an occupied room or the check-in wizard), or no Key Lock Number is set on the room.
"No online companion provides '…'" → the till with that lock brand's encoder isn't running. Start BSBridge on the PC that has that encoder.
The card didn't open the door after cancelling → for some lock brands the cancelled card must be tapped on the lock once to take effect; check with your lock installer.
Card operation failed / encoder error → make sure the encoder is plugged in and the correct COM port is set in BSBridge → Settings; use Diagnostics → Ping to confirm the encoder responds.
"Can't load the CAD USB encoder driver (proRFL.dll)… missing MFC42D.DLL, MSVCRTD.DLL" → the Bridge on that PC is an older build that shipped without two runtime files the CAD USB driver needs. Update BSBridge to the latest version (it now includes them). As a stop-gap, copy MFC42D.DLL and MSVCRTD.DLL from the lock vendor's CardLock folder into the Bridge's ProUsb2010, ProUsb2011 and ProUsb2025 folders (under %LocalAppData%\BSBridge\current) and restart the Bridge.
A CAD USB card was issued but won't open the door → the till's Hotel ID is wrong or unset, so the card was written for the wrong property. Follow Set up a CAD USB encoder (Hotel ID) above to detect it from a working card, then re-issue. Use Read Card to compare the failing card's Hotel ID against a card that works.