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video management system, they began updat- ing their access control system. This project as well as an alarm integration project began in March 2019. “Once everything is brought into the Security Center interface, we will be com- pletely out of our legacy system,” Davison said.
On-boarding staff, one of the challenges with their previous legacy system was that it was very difficult to navigate. “Fewer than 50% of our people ever figured out how to use it properly. It was cumbersome, and you had to basically shut it down to go into a dif- ferent program,” Davison said.
Now, with the new security system, Davison estimates that 95% of the staff are up to speed.
“One of the great things about Genetec Security Center is that, when you have new people, it’s really easy for them to figure it out. They can just hover their mouse over a button, and it tells them what it is. In our old system, if you didn’t know, you couldn’t find out on your own. You’d have to ask someone. Now, our staff can self-teach, which is really helpful,” Merrill said.
Improved security with new capabilities Security personnel at Mount Royal have noticed major improvements since the switch, like the ability to bring up cameras on areas of interest. In their legacy system, the views were pre-set and operators couldn’t alter them unless a supervisor went into the system and changed them. Now, with Security Center, views are still pre-set, but operators can easily change views and focus cameras on areas that require greater attention. The new system also makes it easier to review footage because of the ability to synchronize views. Prior to the switch, operators had to go back and forth from each camera individually. Now, “if you’ve got a person of interest on multiple cameras, synchronization allows you to search all those cameras at the same time. That’s a big
time-saver for us,” said Davison. The security team is also becoming much more operation- al with access control, and they especially like the schedule lock feature in Security Center. Their old system worked on a schedule, so all of the doors would unlock at 7:00 am regard- less of whether anyone actually entered the facilities at that time. It also required going through nine steps to unlock a door and relied on post-it notes to remind operators to lock particular doors at certain times. With the new system, the doors are also on a schedule, but they remain locked until someone actu- ally needs to access the space. In addition, instead of requesting that security personnel lock doors, individuals leaving a space can now lock the doors themselves.
Getting the Support They Want
The success of the system is about more than just technology. Technical support is partic- ularly important to the security team at Mount Royal.
“This is really huge for us. With our last company, we didn’t get answers quickly,” Merrill said. “We didn’t get the help that we needed generally. And everything took a few steps. Whenever we asked questions about how to make the system better, we received a continuous sales pitch. But, with Genetec, we get answers and, often, we get them in per- son,” added Davison. “The difference has been like night and day with Genetec.”
Davison is also excited about the future as Mount Royal continues to explore the fea- tures in Security Center. They unified the system with their Code Blue stations for emergency situations. The value of the open platform is that the University knows they can adapt and easily add on to Security Cen- ter as their needs evolve.
Kayder Khadim is the business development manager at Genetec.
By Kayder Khadim
A Quick Deployment
Calgary higher education institution benefits from new security platform and cameras
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 campuslifesecurity.com 39
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Photo courtesy of Mount Royal University