LateShift™

A data sheet available in Adobe Acrobat Form here.

LateShift is a remarkable new after-hours control system application that lets your staff (or your tenant’s staff) control the air conditioning and lighting for their work area. The staff requests the time and duration for their after-hour activities via a touch-tone telephone. There is no need for property management intervention or advance notice; the user makes the request when it is needed. LateShift also enables complete invoicing services and helps you reduce and recover the expenses associated with working extended work days.

Building Control System

LateShift is designed to enhance your existing building control system by providing easy after-hours control. LateShift can be located on the same computer as the control system or connected to the control system via a network.

Hierarchical Definition

The configuration of a LateShift control system defines the buildings, the leases within the building, and the control zones within those leases. The users who have authority to request after-hour activity are connected to each zone.

Flexible Rates and Fees

Each lease can have its own set of fees associated so that the billing conforms to the lease contract. Charges can be periodic, percentage of billing, or based upon activity. In addition to the fees, the user can be billed at different rates for different days or different times. If you can dream up the rate schedule, it can be defined in LateShift. The system will then be able to accurately bill the tenant (or department) for their usage.

Phone Control

LateShift provides the ability for the system to interactively converse with users though a telephone (including cell phones). The system asks for the user identification, the zone to be controlled, the hour to start, and the number of hours. Finally, a user password is required before any activity is authorized.

No Recording Needed

A text-to-speech generator is used for all phone calls. There is no need to record the messages. The text-to-speech generator produces a consistent, easy-to-understand voice.

Sentences are dynamically built from the various fields configured by the user. This sentence is sent to the voice modem through the text-to-speech engine.

Flexible Reporting

Get the report you really need with the LateShift reporter. Standard reports include invoices and usage reports. You select the level of detail and the time span for the report. Because the data is stored in an industry-standard database, custom reporting and analysis can be done with a variety of third party tools.

Easy Instructions

LateShift can print out detailed instructions for each user. In addition, the users can be provided with wallet sized instruction cards that have all the relevant information on them.

Save Money

Utility cost is the single largest operating expense for commercial office buildings. LateShift can make it easy to save on air conditioning and lighting by making it easy to turn it on only when needed, without requiring any personnel to be on-call to throw the switch.

Fully Configurable

Recognizing that every facility and contract is different, LateShift has been designed to let you configure everything through easy-to-use fill in the blank forms – no programming is required. The only limits are disk space and your imagination.

Standards Based

LateShift is built upon Microsoft technologies to ensure that it works well now and in the future. These technologies include SAPI (speech) and TAPI (telephony). The telephone connection is handled by a standard off-the-shelf voice modem that can be connected to the computer via a plug-in board, a serial port, or even a USB port.

System Requirements

Microsoft Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP, IBM compatible PC (233 MHz or faster), 64 MB RAM, 1024 X 768 graphics, soundcard, speakers, voice modem.

A free, 30-day trial version of LateShift is available for download.

Pricing (USD)

LateShift™ is a trademark of Hopkins Computing. Other product names used herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.