As the year draws to a close, it’s time to reminisce on the good times that came before. Or, in our case, highlight all of the updates and milestones we’ve made at Kisi so you don’t miss anything!
The largest hardware release in five years #
This year we launched an update to our most popular piece of hardware: the Kisi Reader Pro.
The new Reader Pro was redesigned from the ground up, creating a whole new access control experience both in form and function.
A minimalist, thinner frame coupled with brand new technology that accepts more credentials than ever helps to create one of our proudest releases of 2021. Or maybe ever?
The features that defined 2021 #
2021 was the year we saw more businesses planning a return to the office.
Whether they were returning to the pre-COVID normal or adopting new workplace concepts like a hybrid office, business leaders were looking for technology to help them secure and scale their physical spaces.
In a lot of ways, our new features reflected the new needs of modern spaces. Automation and security were at the forefront, with additional features helping more businesses leverage their space as a commodity. In 2021, we launch a slew of new features, including:
- Two-factor authentication
- Large-batch CVS imports
- Intrusion detection
- Analytics view
- Elevator management
- Customizable dashboards
- Capacity management
- SCIM integrations
The ever-expanding list of integrators #
Another way we make sure Kisi keeps supporting our customers is by adding more first-party integrations. This year, we added a lot of direct integrations to user and identity management software, including industry leaders like Azure SSO. These are the new integrations we added in 2021.
- Okta
- OneLogin
- Azure SSO & SCIM
- JumpCloud
- OfficeSpace
Improving the user experience #
Big improvements are just about big releases. Often, the best thing we can do is improve an experience that already exists. Here, we’ll highlight some of our best improvements to the user experience we shipped this year.
Launching docs.kisi.io - Over time, Kisi’s software has grown more and more robust. It became apparent that we needed a way to offer our users a way to answer questions and troubleshoot problems themselves. Kisi Docs was our tool to achieve this, and as time goes on more and more information is housed in this documentation center.
Kisi on Apple Watch - What’s easier than unlocking on your phone? Waving your wrist near a reader. So, yeah, we made that a thing.
ISO 27001 certification - Security is the foundation of everything we do, so it seemed almost criminal to not have our certification ducks in a row. This year, we achieved the ISO 27001 certification, meeting the stringent information security requirements set by ISO.
Improved guest passes - Guest access has long been something that Kisi made easy. Recently, we made it even easier by streamlining how passes are created within the Kisi dashboard.
Admin features on mobile devices - Our slew of admin features has always been a point of pride for us. The lack of them on mobile devices was decidedly less so. Luckily, we added admin features to our iOS and Android applications so you can truly manage your spaces from anywhere on any device.
Kisi milestones #
To wrap up our year in review, we wanted to shed some light on things that brought our team a lot of pride and excitement this year. Hitting new milestones is always a big deal, and it really gets us excited for the future!
Doubled the number of mobile app users - Mobile access and management, in a lot of ways, is the present and future of access control. So it makes us pretty happy to see the number of users on our apps increasing so steeply in a calendar year.
We’re also pretty flattered by how well-received Kisi is across all devices, with a 4.9-star rating on iOS, 4.6-stars on the Google Play app store, and a 4.7-star rating on Capterra.
Kisi is used in more than 7,000 places - That’s right, Kisi is now used in more than 7,000 spaces (and growing!) around the world. Really, we’d like to see Kisi on every secured door. But 7,000 is nice, too.
Expanded our team to more than 50 members - Part of providing better…well, everything… means we need the people-power to back it up. Everything on this list is made possible by our amazing team, and in order to bring you more features, integrations, hardware and updates in the future, we are always making our team more amazing-er.
This year, we grew our team to more than 50 members spread all over the world. This kind of growth excites us because it helps us set even more ambitious goals and (hopefully) achieve more next year than we did this year.
Speaking of next year… #
2021 was a big year for Kisi, but we still think 2022 will be even bigger.
Stay tuned, because we have some exciting things planned, including completely new pieces of hardware sold by Kisi, and expanding hardware and software integrations.
Thank you for an exciting 2021. We’re looking forward to 2022!
Scott Mitchell
Content marketing strategist with specializations in IT and managed services.