Maintaining a safe and secure campus is a major priority, and involves multiple locations,

systems, and departments working together. Your current security system may cover basic

functions found in general commercial systems, but commercial systems are built as
one-size-fits-all—not with the specific requirements of the education community in mind.

Here are six features a comprehensive, enterprise-class education-focused

security system should have to meet the needs of a campus like yours.

Integrated door access control, video surveillance, and alert/alarm monitoring

Having a security system that is built for the education community means it starts with all the basic features and functionalities of the best security systems. That means it has door access control, video surveillance, monitoring capabilities,
and alerts/alarms to name a few. The key is to ensure these are properly integrated and used with the other features mentioned here to create a system that is truly unified for both the best security and student experience.

Automated assignment of access privileges
to cardholders

Colleges and universities welcome vast numbers of incoming students each year with unique access level requirements, and an expectation to have their access privileges granted immediately upon arriving on campus. Manually assigning each incoming student access privileges—not to mention updating existing student access levels—for residence halls, specialized classrooms, recreation facilities, and more would be extremely time consuming. Using a system that automatically assigns access levels to students via configuration rules and cardholder roles and data makes it way more efficient and immediate.

Unlimited number of schedule exceptions

Commercial systems have a limit on the number of schedule exceptions you can set up in a year—typically correlating with the number of major holidays in a year. For companies, that may work fine, but managing security on a college or university campus means other times that warrant schedule exceptions—like move-in/move-out days, vacation breaks, graduation, orientation, or even a big game or event. Finding a system that allows for unlimited schedule exceptions is imperative, so you’re not manually making a significant number of changes every time the school schedule fluctuates.

Support for many types of hardware (including your existing hardware)

Hardware is a major investment. To maximize your investment, you need it to be versatile and get good use out of it; but you also have to be ultra sensitive to adopting newer technology if it better secures and adds more convenience for your students. Supporting a broad mix of your current devices plus future devices is imperative to help keep costs down, build as you go, and prepare for the future.

Ability to make immediate change to door states and permission schedules (lockdown)

On campus, you have a need to take immediate action if an emergency dictates it. If a storm necessitates campus closure, or you need to lock building doors due to an active situation, having the ability to take action immediately with a browser or mobile application is critical. Pre-configured profiles for various types of emergencies make the lockdown process simple and quick.

Secure, fast, NFC-enabled mobile credentials

Give your students mobile credential access to interior room doors, exterior building access, turnstiles, and other privilege integrated devices across campus with a fast, secure NFC-enabled Mobile Credential. Transact offers the industry's first—and only—NFC-enabled Mobile Credential for iPhone, Apple Watch, and Android devices. A campus-branded, campus-issued Transact Mobile Credential is provisioned over the air and encrypted in the secure element of the device, ensuring the highest level of security at the point of entry.