Service accounts connect your tech stack to Chainels securely
Many day-to-day building workflows happen outside Chainels. Lease and tenant data is stored in your property management system. Deliveries run through a parcel locker. Invoices sit in your ERP. Your tools keep everything connected.
A service account is what enables those systems to talk to Chainels on their own, keeping information in sync without anyone having to log in, copy data across, or remember to press a button. Set it up once, and it simply runs in the background.
What a service account actually is
Think of it as a dedicated "system user" for one of your integrations. An integration uses it to authenticate with Chainels (via its own secret key), instead of a person signing in. It's an identity you create so another system can read and write the right information in Chainels automatically.
In most setups, updates in your community happen through a person’s user account, meaning someone needs to be signed in to make changes. That works for everyday tasks, but continuous systems need access 24/7, including overnight, on weekends, and the moment a delivery arrives. A service account gives that system its own safe, controlled way in, so it can operate without borrowing someone's login or waiting for a person to be online.
What you can use it for
Service accounts power the kinds of integrations that save your team time:
- Keeping data in sync between Chainels and your property management system, CRM or ERP, so tenant and community information stays current without manual updates.
- Parcel locker integrations, so deliveries and notifications flow through automatically.
- Automation flows (for example with tools like n8n or Zapier-style platforms), so routine steps happen on their own.
- AI agents that act on behalf of a community.
The common thread: a system that needs to run on its own, reliably, and work with the data inside one or more of your communities.
You stay in control of what it can do
A service account never gets blanket access. You decide exactly where it operates and what it's allowed to touch in Chainels, and you can give it different levels of access in each community.
In practice that means you can keep an integration tightly scoped. If a system only needs to handle bookings, you give it access to bookings and nothing else. If it only needs to read what a regular member sees, that's all it gets. The broadest level of access, being able to manage a whole community and its members, is only granted when an integration genuinely needs it.
So an integration can only ever do the specific job it was set up for, in the specific communities you chose. Nothing more.
Frequently asked questions
Why would we need one?
Whenever you want an integration to run on its own (a nightly sync with your property management system, a parcel locker, or an automation flow), that integration needs its own secure way into Chainels. A service account provides that access.
Is it the same as a normal user account?
A normal account belongs to a person who logs in. A service account belongs to a system. It works in the background, without anyone signing in.
Can it see or change everything in our community?
Only what you allow. You choose which communities it can access and what it's permitted to do in each, ranging from reading what a member sees to managing a specific service like bookings. Wider access is granted only when it's genuinely needed.
Is it safe?
Yes, when its secret key is handled properly: kept inside the system that uses it and never shared. If the key is exposed, it can be rotated instantly so the old key stops working. Access stays limited to the communities and features you've granted.
Who sets it up?
A service account is created in Chainels under Community Management, but because it's tied to a technical integration, it's usually configured together with whoever manages that integration on your side (your IT team or integration partner).
Do you have developer documentation we can share with our IT team or partners?
Yes, we do. For the full technical setup steps, your IT team or integration partner can refer to the developer documentation.