School Security Assessment

Over the last several months, the number of K-12 campus security walk-throughs that I’ve completed with dealer sales reps and end user customers has increased dramatically.  This can be attributed to a wide variety of factors, but the simple reality is that most people have a heighted awareness of security right now.  They are looking to implement systems that will allow for easy identification and tracking of persons throughout the district.  This can include Photo ID, Visitor Management, Access Control Software and even mustering applications. 

If you are a school district considering any or all of these solutions, here are some basic questions to ask yourself as you get started with choosing a system that is right for you: 

• Do faculty and personnel in the school have and use Identification (ID) badges?   Is this policy enforced?
• What is the current procedure for obtaining a new ID badge?
• If you are considering electronic door access, how would you like employee and faculty badges to be activated in the access control system?  Will each school have a printer or will badges be issued centrally at the district office? 
• Are all exterior doors locked as part of a closed campus policy?
• Are public entrances monitored and controlled through locking, supervision or electronic access (ie: buzzing someone in?)
• What is your current visitor policy at each school?  Are they asked to show ID when checking in?  Is this policy enforced? 
• Do you have an electronic process for registering and badging visitors? 
• Do you have any third party groups that use the building for activities?  If so, how do they gain access?  How would you like them to gain access in the future, if you implement a new system?
• How often are exterior doors propped open in the building? 
• What is your current lockdown procedure?  Do you practice this regularly? 
• Describe your current key control procedure.  Do many people have master keys or only a select few?  Are all master keys accounted for? 
• How does student traffic flow between classes?  Do you have multiple buildings on campus to consider? 
• Do you have a system in place for evacuation and mustering? 

Thinking about these questions in advance will help you realize your district's primary security needs and recognize the areas you should address first.  Understanding your strengths and weaknesses up front will also help you as you research security systems for badging, visitor tracking and access control. 


Lindsay Martin-Nez is the Director of Sales for BadgePass, Inc.  BadgePass manufactures cutting-edge Photo ID, Visitor Management, Access Control and Time Management software.  To learn more visit www.badgepass.com. 

Why Integrated Solutions Produce Better Results

In the security industry, the word “integration” gets thrown around far too easily.  Manufacturers constantly talk about “integration.” Customers long for it. How often are they really getting it? 

Recently, we worked with a customer to create a truly unique solution and provide the best level of integration possible between products and vendor partners. Here is a brief overview of the client’s story.    

A juvenile detention center, with 84 beds, was looking to find a cost-effective solution to register, identify and track juveniles while in the facility, as well as, identify and register all visitors and guest of the center. Starting with basic visitor enrollment and identification, BadgePass Visitor Manager was introduced requiring all visitors and guests to present a valid Photo ID, such as a Driver’s License, which then is scanned for their information in order to issue them a temporary ID card to be worn for the duration of their visit. Visitor Manager also allows for easy and accurate electronic reporting on all visitor access into various facilities.

Next, BadgePass Identity Manager was introduced for the identification part of the solution. This offered a quick and easy way to capture photos and document information about each new juvenile being enrolled into the system and even print each one a wristband. By using both Identity Manager and Visitor Manager, the customer received a fully integrated system that allowed for seamless enrollment of both juveniles and visitors into the exact same system. Their new enrollment process also helped to cut down on errors in the record logs, booking and processing time and helped meet state regulations.

For the last piece of the puzzle, we were able to partner with Elliott Mobile Solutions and implement a tracking program. Once each juvenile was issued a wristband, their movement throughout the facility needed to be accurately recorded. EPICTrack served as the perfect solution because it allowed for seamless database integration with the BadgePass system. 

Overall, the customer was very pleased with how simple the registration process of juveniles and visitors had become, as well as the simple tracking process that produced such detailed reporting. Best of all, the integration between all three systems is unmatched.

Something to think about: how different could this outcome have been without fully integrated solutions?    

Lindsay Cornell is the Director of Sales for BadgePass, Inc. BadgePass manufactures cutting edge Door Access, Photo ID, and Visitor Tracking software. Visit www.badgepass.com for more information.

Three Point Plan for Increased School Security

Across the nation, school districts are focusing on the safety and security of their campuses and addressing any concerns. They understand the importance of ensuring the safety of their students and faculty, yet, sometimes the implementation process can seem a bit overwhelming. That is why we have developed our “Three Point Plan” for a safer school district. 

Step 1: Visually Identify People

By implementing a visual identification policy district wide, schools can foster an environment that encourages faculty and staff to question unknown people on their campus. Many schools that we work with are requiring the visual display of identification for all faculty, staff, students and even visitors. This makes it easier to recognize unauthorized visitors in the building. To ensure consistency, make sure faculty and staff can get their photo IDs issued quickly and visitors can check in efficiently. By avoiding complicated software and a long turnaround time for badge issuance, you will greatly improve the success of whatever system you choose.

 

Step 2: Control Entry Points

To aid in identification and security efforts, schools should manage the flow of visitor and faculty traffic through pre-defined entry points. More schools are implementing electronic card access systems to monitor door status and enable easy lockdown campus-wide, if necessary. To better manage traffic flow, schools should design the system to notify them when doors are propped open and make sure that the system is programed to deactivate credentials automatically when a person(s) leaves the district and no longer needs access rights or privileges.  This will help prevent unauthorized users from having access to your campus.

Step 3: Know What Happened

 
Anytime an event occurs in a school district, the school should be able to access real-time information within seconds. Campuses nationwide rely on video surveillance and quality reporting for accurate recall of various occurrences. In order to receive the most accurate and reliable data possible, schools should ensure their system offers fast and easy access to video footage or reporting information and avoid inaccurate data and unknown camera outages.

 Lindsay Cornell is the Director of Sales for BadgePass, Inc. BadgePass manufactures cutting edge Door Access, Photo ID, and Visitor Tracking software. Visit www.badgepass.com for more information.

Credential Overflow

Thousands of organizations struggle with a common door access security issue known as Credential Overflow. 

Credential Overflow occurs when the number of active credentials in the system outnumber, sometimes drastically, the number of active cardholders.  If a company's door access system is not equipped to handle the causes of this issue, they may face some serious security risks as a result. 

What causes Credential Overflow?  There are two primary causes: 

1. Lack of Database Communication

Often times, a company's active user database, such as their employee or HR database does not communicate with their access control system seamlessly.  If those two databases do not share information, then the process for activating and deactivating users and credentials usually involves two steps. 

Step One:  Enroll/Remove them from HR
Step Two: Enroll/Remove them from Access Control System

This is not very effective, as any time the second step is missed, cards remain active in the system long after the user has left. 

2. Badge Re-Issuance

Many times cardholders lose badges and ask for reprints, forgetting to have their old cards deactivated at that time.  If the system doesn't support automatic deactivation of old credentials as soon as a new one is printed, the old badge can stay active in the system forever, creating an imbalance in the number of active cards and cardholders. 

How do we fix it?

1. If the access control database can "sync" up with the customer's existing cardholder database, like Active Directory or HR, then this allows for more of a single-step activation and deactivation process.  Once a person has been enrolled or removed from the HR database, they will no longer have active access priviliges in the access control system either.  This is far easier for all parties involved - and much more secure. 

2. Look for door access systems that automatically deactivate old badges as soon as a new badge is printed.  This will help to eliminate the issue with users having numerous credentials associated with their record in the system. 


Lindsay Cornell is the Director of Sales for BadgePass, Inc. BadgePass manufactures cutting edge Door Access, Photo ID, and Visitor Tracking software. Visit www.badgepass.com for more information.

How Should I Badge My Visitors?

If you are thinking about ways to badge and identify visitors at your facility, congrats!  You have probably already considered solutions for properly registering and tracking your guests which means you are well on your way to a more secure facility!  By implementing an electronic visitor registration system at your organization, you can ensure that each visitor is properly identified and registered simply by scanning their state or federally issued ID.  Now, you just have to decide which visitor badging solution is best for you. 

There are several possible options to consider for visitor badging. 

Option One:  Temporary Adhesive Labels

This is by far the most popular solution for visitor badging!  Why?  Because badge designs can be customized not only with the company’s name, but also with pertinent visit information like visitor name, date, and person being visited.  You can even print photos on temporary labels!  Plus, you can do all of this at a relatively low price, since plain adhesive badges are fairly inexpensive. 

Things to consider when implementing temporary adhesive labels:

1.       How long will visitors be in the building?

-          The longer visitors are in your facility, the more likely they are to lose their adhesive badge.  For long-term visitors, pre-printed PVC badges may be a more effective solution.

2.       What information do you want to print on each badge?

-          The nice thing about adhesive badges is that they can be customized for each visitor!  Some of the most common things I see on visitor label designs include a company logo, the visitors name, the type of visitor (Vendor, Contractor, Volunteer, etc.), the date of the visit, and the location and/or person they are visiting. 

3.       How important are visitor photos?

-          If you are considering printing your visitors’ photos on badges, it might be a good idea to look into color label printers.  While they are more expensive, they greatly improve the image quality!

4.       Do you want labels to expire after a certain amount of time?

-          Though temporary labels can be easy and inexpensive, there is always a concern that visitors may try to reuse those badges to visit the facility at a later date/time without checking in.  Printing the date on the badge is one solution for this issue.  However, many customers look into time-expiring labels to prevent visitor badges from being reused.  These badges bleed through red and read VOID 24 hours after issuance, making it easy for employees to recognize if a visitor is trying to dodge the check-in process. 

Option Two:  Pre-Printed PVC Badges

Many customers prefer to use pre-printed badges for their visitors.  Each of these badges will be printed in advance on a color card printer, allowing you to print your company’s name and logo on the front, along with any other relevant information. 

Since these badges are printed in advance, they will not have visitor specific information on them.  However, they are much more durable than temporary labels and can be reused time and time again and assigned to a different visitor each time they are used.   Attach these badges to a lanyard or badge clip/reel and you can easily identify who is wearing a visitor badge in your facility.  Plus, you don’t have to worry as much about visitors losing their IDs as they walk around! 

So what is the answer?

Nobody knows your organization better than you do!  Which means you are the only one who knows what solution is the best fit for you. 

Though there are many options to consider, no matter whaat you choose will allow for an easier visitor identification process and help to improve your company's security! 

Lindsay Cornell is the Director of Sales for BadgePass, Inc. BadgePass manufactures cutting edge Visitor Management, Photo ID and Access Control software.  www.badgepass.com

Granting Visitors Temporary Access to Your Facility

What Should My Policy Be?

Many organizations are beginning to electronically register and track visitors that come and go from the facility.  In order to do this, visitors are typically asked to present some type of ID upon arrival, thereby verifying they are who they say they are, and that ID is scanned upon check-in.  Then visitors can then be issued temporary visitor badges for the duration of their stay. 

Organizations typically handle the flow of visitors in their facility one of two ways:

1.       Guests are always escorted by an employee or host.

2.       Guests are allowed to access the facility without an escort.

The more secure the organization, the more concerned they typically are with guest access.  If guests and visitors are to be allowed access without an escort, they may require some level of integration with a door access system.  If this is the case, visitor badges may be printed on proximity or smartcards to grant visitors temporary access rights within the system. 

Why might you consider integrating your visitor management system with access control?

• You want to give certain visitors access to particular doors in the building that may be locked in your door access system
• To limit unauthorized guests and personnel from accessing restricted areas
• In order to track the activity of everyone – even guests – who have entered the building.

Granting visitors temporary access rights is certainly not uncommon these days.  As more and more organizations incorporate access control and electronic visitor management systems in their facilities, they see the need to give visitors access to specific doors in the building for the duration of their visit. 

Things to consider when thinking about integrating your Visitor Management and Access Control systems:

1.       Which doors would you like visitors to have access to in the building?

2.       Would you like to create multiple visitor groups with different access privileges? (Ex: Contractors may be able to access different doors than Volunteers)

3.       Is there an easy way to deactivate visitor credentials if they accidently leave without returning their badge?

The easiest thing to do is implement a fully integrated Visitor Management and Access Control system from day one.  That way you can easily activate and deactivate visitor credentials from the same system, thereby eliminating the hassle of having to manage access rights from two seperate systems. 

Start thinking about how you’d like to implement both Visitor Management and Access Control within your facility in the future.  Taking every possible scenario into account when choosing which system to deploy at your organization will help you to be best prepared for the day when you do get ready to move forward. 

Lindsay Cornell is the Director of Sales for BadgePass, Inc.  BadgePass manufactures cutting edge ID Badging, Visitor Management and Access Control software solutions.  Learn more at www.badgepass.com.

What are the Benefits of a Photo ID System?

Getting serious about your organization’s security?  Beyond offering visual identification, Photo ID badges can be used for a variety of applications from Electronic Door Access to Cafeteria Point of Sale Systems.  How can you utilize photo IDs to help increase security in your facility? 

Employee Morale

In larger companies and organizations, photo IDs often help to encourage familiarity among staff members.  Once a policy has been instituted mandating the wearing of Photo IDs at all times, employees often feel more secure and more confident approaching employees in other departments.  Photo IDs can instill a sense of community among employees and often encourage people to approach those in the building not wearing IDs to ensure they belong. 

Access Control

Sure, you may be printing Photo IDs for everyone right now, but have you considered using those IDs to access doors within your facility?  By printing badges on a smart or proximity cards, you can electronically control which doors certain employees have access to, thereby eliminating the need for manual key locks.  Without a valid credential, employees will not be granted access to those doors.  Further, you can restrict access to doors certain employees should not be in, like the IT or Server Room.  Best of all, if an employee loses an ID badge, you can deactivate that card’s privileges and print them another!  Without rekeying an entire facility, there is no way to “deactivate” a lost key. 

Visitor Safety

Once you’ve identified all of the employees within your building, it may be time to consider a visual form of ID for all of your visitors as well.  Visitor Management Systems that print temporary ID badges are an easy and effective way to check in visitors electronically while also printing them a badge that they can wear during their visit.  This helps to easily identify those who are guests and also helps employees to feel comfortable approaching visitors without badges and escorting them to the main check-in desk to be registered. 

Other Applications

Feel free to get creative with your photo ID!  Do you have a Time and Attendance system that requires a barcode or magnetic stripe for employees to clock in and out each day?  Are you thinking of instituting a Point of Sale system in your cafeteria that allows for employees to purchase meals with their ID card?  All of these things are entirely possible, depending on the card design and technology you choose to use with your badges.  Whenever you choose to purchase a Photo ID system, think of all the possible applications you may want to implement in the future and keep those in mind when designing your cards. 

Lindsay Cornell is the Director of Sales for BadgePass, Inc.  BadgePass offers secure ID Badging, Visitor Management and Access Control software.  For more information, visit www.badgepass.com.