For businesses that handle high-value assets, whether physical or intellectual property, there are areas that require extra security measures. Local Door Sounder, Door Held Open Alerts and Escort (also known as "Two-Person Rule") are effective ways to layer additional security elements to your physical access control system. While financial services firms, banks, jewelry businesses, cannabis growers and operators most frequently request these advanced features, they offer useful applications in many different types of businesses and buildings.
This article explains how these advanced security features work and when to use them.
Local Door Sounder
A local sounder provides an audio alert if a door is held open past the preset time period, typically 15-30 seconds. The sounder is usually installed at the door so the sound will remind those nearby to close it. However, a loud sounder isn’t ideal in some environments such as a high-end jewelry retail store or a busy office environment. To avoid distracting shoppers or drawing unwanted attention, the sounder can be installed in a separate location (e.g., security office) that is monitored continuously by the staff.
Door Held Open Alerts
The Door Held Open feature sends an alert to a responsible party or it can be sent to an outside monitoring center when the door remains open longer than the preset time period. The monitoring center can alert the list of contacts provided by the business. The monitoring center can also send their security agent to the site to check on the alarm, if authorized to do so. The Door Held Open monitoring service is a valuable option for locations that do not have dedicated security personnel who can react immediately to the alerts. The Door Held Open alerts can also be connected to a video surveillance system to enable the alert to include an image or video of the area surrounding the door that triggered the alert.
Escort (Also known as “two-person rule”)
Escort is a feature that requires two authorized cardholders to be present in order to grant access to a specific door, display case, etc. Most often, the Escort feature is used to protect sensitive areas such as product storage, vaults and safes, or server rooms.
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