Page 14 - Campus Security & Life Safety, April 2017

“PSIMs were overkill and too expensive to buy and manage,” con- tinued Boyd. “With Symmetry, we have a single point of contact and can manage threat levels and identities. It essentially operates as a mini PSIM for us.”
After a grueling six month process of vetting companies and their solutions, Yale selected AMAG and installation began almost three years ago.
“AMAG has been great to work with,” said Boyd. “We work closely with them on what we need for the future, and it has developed into a true partnership.”
HOW TO TACKLE 350 BUILDINGS
The old Picture Perfect microboards were replaced with Symmetry Retrofit panels. Given that there are almost 900 controllers throughout the University to swap out, Yale took a building-by-building approach to upgrade to Symmetry and chose to vet all users in the process.
“We wanted a clean system. We sat with the building managers of each building and made sure the right people had access and had the correct access levels assigned to them,” said Boyd. “In the end, the transition will have taken longer, but we’ll have a brand new, clean database.”
AMAG’s Professional Services team wrote a customized interface to Yale’s proprietary internal database to easily pull data into the Sym- metry Access Control system.
Deployment was simple. The integrator tested the old system and scheduled the changeover for each building. They then swapped out the old micros for the new SR controllers, plugged each one in and the panel can go live in a matter of minutes.
Yale uses a one-card system. Student IDs are used to purchase food, check out library books, and also used as an access control card. The
migration to the new system is so flawless, students and staff don’t real- ize the changeover is occurring. The student access cards operate nor- mally regardless if a building has been converted to Symmetry or not.
“The biggest story here is that no one knows we are changing from one system to another,” said Boyd. “There is no disruption.”
STRIKING A BALANCE
According to Chief Higgins, parents make decisions about where to send their kids to college based on what they see and feel. Yale is mind- ful of that, and is careful to articulate how safe the campus is so the parents are aware.
“We need to have the systems in place that ensure that what we said [about Yale’s security] is in fact, true,” said Chief Higgins.
A college campus must be open, yet safe and secure. An active shooter hoax a few years back forced Chief Higgins and Boyd to look at their security program from a different perspective. The incident invoked a regional response. Boyd and his team were pulling up cam- eras and monitoring the situation live, and the security system worked. However, people from outside the University were called in to help. The city police and fire department officials did not know the layout of the buildings or campus like the Yale police department. Communicat- ing and executing a lockdown scenario proved difficult because of their lack of familiarity.
Chief Higgins and his team examined what happened verus what they would like to see happen in the future. “Tragedy trumps tradi- tion,” said Chief Higgins. “We averted tragedy but determined it was time to make some changes.”
“That incident showed us we needed a way to manage threats so we can lock down the school or an area with the click of a mouse,” said Boyd. “Our new Symmetry SR Solution has Threat Level Manager.”
CS14 WWW.CAMPUSLIFESECURITY.COM | APRIL 2017
A SPECIAL SECTION TO SECURITY PRODUCTS AND THE JOURNAL
CAMPUS SECURITY & LIFE SAFETY
Yale University, Michael Marsland