Subscriber Discussion

USB Or Wireless Enrollment Readers For Portable Use?

UE
Undisclosed End User #1
Nov 16, 2017

I'm looking for some ideas for an enrollment reader. I would like to have a portable station. I work in a multi building complex with several thousand employees and trying to get them to come to one place for any badge maintenance is just not going to happen.   My best solution right now is a laptop and badge printer  and a wifi bridge, going to an S2 micro node, with a reader bolted to the top of it. That, or use Transmitter Solutions wireless wiegand transmitter with a reader and the receiver hooked to the closest node.  (by the way, if you've not tested the Transmitter Solutions wireless Wiegand transmitter, it's pretty awesome)

 

I tried a Prox Pro  USB reader a few months ago. S2 technical support said 'it wasn't supported but we made it work' but we never were able to get it to go.

 

What I would REALLY love is a bluetooth unit that would connect to my Ipad, so I can use S2's mobile security app.

 

So, how do you enroll LOTS of people spread across multiple buildings and floors?

 

 

U
Undisclosed #2
Nov 20, 2017

Proxess (I work here) has a secure Android mobile app which you plug the USB enrollment reader into. The data entry is performed on any PC client and from the app (while connected) you select a newly added name and present the card (from a stack of blanks or pre-printed) for it to be encoded. You can also use it for remote photo verification. You can have an unlimited number of apps, sending new cards to specific phones, splitting the task. 

It's a full system, so you can't use the app on your existing S2 project.

Taking & sending photos from a mobile app to the SW presents security issues, so we can't solve your whole problem. 

You've probably first thought about this, but since it may be less cumbersome, I'll continue: Maybe first tour the campus for photo collection (or have trusted surrogates\local managers assist for speed), add them to the appropriate user records & print centrally and tour again to just hand out the credentials. 

DD
Dan Droker
Nov 20, 2017
LONG Building Technologies • IPVMU Certified

I have configured a number of USB enrollment readers for customer systems, mostly RFideas products. What are the challenges you ran into with the unit you tried? What is the card technology you are using?

UE
Undisclosed End User #1
Nov 20, 2017

I tried the RF ideas. I'm hearing this all 3rd hand, but something to the effect of the RF ideas unit just spits out a text string and the S2 portal didn't read it properly. (it's all prox cards)

DD
Dan Droker
Nov 20, 2017
LONG Building Technologies • IPVMU Certified

Yes, RFideas units spit out text, rather than a binary stream like you are getting from the reader attached to the microNode. But, they are very configurable as to how you want the text formatted. Because S2 requires selecting the card format from a pre-configured list for each card, I would think the way to do this, assuming you have a consistent format/facility code across all your codes and matching internal and external card numbers, would be to configure the enrollment reader to output the encoded number only, without any facility codes or other data. If searching for an existing card in the database, you could go to the people search window, click in the Hot Stamp # box, and present the card to the reader. If adding a new card, you would select the appropriate card format, click in the Encoded # field, and present the card. If you have multiple formats in use, you would need to know which format to use for each card.

UE
Undisclosed End User #1
Nov 20, 2017

and that's a big issue here, we have a huge mix and match of cards, card format types, facility codes, etc..

DD
Dan Droker
Nov 20, 2017
LONG Building Technologies • IPVMU Certified

In that case, I think using a computer connected enrollment reader would be very difficult because of the way S2 manages credential formats. I'll put some more thought into it, but I can't think of a good way to make this work right now.

UE
Undisclosed End User #1
Nov 30, 2017

reading some more documentation from S2, they suggest this for mustering (read their guide for their MSO Iphone app)

 

 

https://serialio.com/product/rfid-nfc-hardware/products-rfid-nfc-hardware-idchamp-brand-readers-nfc-readers-writers

 

 

 

 

 

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