Access control. Badges or ID Cards

We are joining the 21st century with electronic access control. Woohoo!
Do you guys use I’d badges or keychain tags or what? We like the idea of Printed ID Badges but seems a little extra to have to carry at all times to get into building after hours.

We do printed ID badges but we are currently switching our buildings over to OpenPath. This supports mobile phone unlock. We will still issue badges as well so our security teams can visually identify staff but intend most of our users will switch to using the mobile phone unlock because it’s seamless.

Curious to what you are switching from? Was the mobile component the
primary driver?

Welcome to the big time Jason :slight_smile:

We use Salto. The fobs seem to work well for our people and our facilities team is able to easily manage access.

Regarding where to place the reader - I’ve worked in a number of facilities over the years with badge readers. By far the most convenient location was to place them low - roughly hip height. That way anyone with a wallet card or keychain fob in a pants pocket or purse can just brush up to the reader without having to hold anything up. It’s also a convenient height for anyone in a wheelchair.

1 Like

Mobile unlock and easy multisite management was a big driver for us OpenPath is just all-around a very modern and secure cloud solution. Their chief security officer and co-founder is a well-known security researcher so knowing that the product was built from the ground up with cybersecurity in mind is comforting. OpenPath also features a number of APIs and integrations with identity providers like Office 365, Okta, Google, etc to automate the creation of users as well.

We use printed cards. Different cards have different access profiles, so it’s helpful to be able to tell them apart. We went with carts in part to replace nametags.

In our case, staff need their card to get in during business hours, too.

James just curious did you print your own cards or use a vendor?

We print them ourselves. It’s really nice to be able to hand a new hire their card by lunchtime on the first day.

Jason, we use ID cards with keyfobs glued to the back side. That way we identify as staff when on campus and have access all in one.

We are in the Proof of Concept phase for Unifi Access.

We have it on our server room and so far it is working great.

Ubiquiti | UniFi | Build networks more powerful than ever before

We converted all our buildings over to Infinias from 3xLogic and have really liked it. Central management, can be Ethernet powered, open to using a combination of door hardware, and relatively low cost.

Jeremy are you guys using the cloud managed or the server product? That is
the direction we are leaning in.

We use Fobs at our school. The Geovision readers read the fobs, have a built in camera, an intercom that can communicate with the office, and can be on an unlock schedule.
Controller is onsite, so it still works even with internet down.

  • Greg

@JeremyGood Are you guys using the cloud managed or the server product? That is
the direction we are leaning in.
Using any calendar integrations for scheduling?

Hey @jasona We use the self hosted Corporate option. For us with multiple sites it gave us the ability to have individual facility managers / volunteers to manage volunteer fobs at their campus while still giving me complete oversight of all campuses. We use the AD sync which automatically puts our staff in. Infinias has calendar integration where you can use an Exchange calendar to manage it, but we mostly just use the set schedules. I believe there is an integration with eSpace but we haven’t gone down that route.

Yes, there is infinias integration with espace schedules. We’re also running it on-prem, but I wish our FM would pay to go to the cloud.
@jeremy - hmm, I didn’t know AD sync was a thing!

Yep @jpowell Page 66 of this tells you about it. I think you have to have “Pro” version or greater. https://www.3xlogic.com/sites/www.3xlogic.com/files/media/2020-06/infinias6.7_userguide_02132020.pdf
We like it because my team manages the fobs for all staff when they come on and when they leave. We just add the fob number into AD and it sync’s up their user and gives them full access to all our buildings. Individual campus team’s cannot delete or change those users but I can as the global administrator. It has been a great system for us. The biggest issue I have is with the controllers. They use 10 Mbps network connections which can make things difficult on some switches that try to auto negotiate. Setting the ports to 10 Mbps half duplex seems to fix the issue. The other is that I’ve had two of them die in the few years we’ve been on it and there doesn’t seem to be much warranty on them.
The weirdest part is that you put the site and card codes in the Fax and Pager fields on a persons AD record :joy:
image

@JeremyGood I’d love to connect with you about how the scheduling works if you have
some time this week or next?

No problem. I just sent you my contact info.