Moving to Mesh: Retrofitting a Scattered Campus with Cloud Capabilities

Because the system can be controlled with a smartphone app, the various entrance points and exits scattered across the campus could swap states instantly with the push of a button.

Blue Sky also worked with administrators to set up an automatic locking and unlocking routine for the doors based on the school’s bell schedule. This would allow students to move between buildings when swapping classes, but the doors would lock within a couple minutes of the tardy bell ringing.

Installing this system was not without its challenges; because of the substantial updates, the doors had to be replaced to implement the new system. There were also challenges due to the construction of the buildings, which were made with hard deck ceilings and cinder block walls, providing little to no access in many places.

“This was all done over the course of a winter break, so they had the door installation company come in and replace the doors so [the system] would fit properly. We replaced all the hardware, and because they had existing access control, we had to replicate existing cards and credentials across both systems so the cards would work on both,” says Duckworth.

The installation was only the beginning – the Blue Sky team also conducted training for everyone who would be using the system on a regular basis. This was an important touchpoint, according to Duckworth.

“After the initial install, all the information gathering and programming of the system, all the users were trained pretty much top-to-bottom,” says Duckworth. “We trained them on adding and deleting users, modifying users, changing their roles and credentials and operating the system itself. We showed all the administrators how to invoke a lockdown if there were any type of active shooter scenario on campus that required that.”

Duckworth says the crew also explained to the staff how the hierarchy of credentials would work. They worked with the technical staff, school resource officer and school administrators to determine who should have what level of control and then trained everyone accordingly.

DISCOVERING THE NEED

To provide this system, Blue Sky had to work with the district to discover what their needs were. The company had an existing relationship with the school district, which they were very careful to maintain by providing continual service that exceeded expectations.

Duckworth emphasized that a successful integration for an access control project at a school, or any facility for that matter, depends on an understanding of the client’s situation.

“It all starts with the engagement to understand their specific needs. At the end of the day, their security objectives have driven a lot of what was focused on. We want to ensure that these campuses are as safe as possible for our students, the faculty and administrators. Normally, when we have that focus in mind, everything else comes into place,” says Duckworth. “For us, we’re lucky that their needs paired up with our capabilities and we had great product that would address that more competitively than anybody else at the table.”

For schools specifically, Duckworth says that every situation is different. Sometimes he has had more success reaching out to technical employees of the district first, and other times it was better to contact administrative staff. For this project, once the company had established rapport and secured the assignment, the process of uncovering the best solution began.

“Typically for these engagements we start with the technical coordinator, who lays out the technical requirements. At that point, we bring in the security resource officer who has a separate set of objectives. They’re from a law enforcement background, so they’re looking at things from a strategic perspective as opposed to technological. So we got their input as well as input from all the administrators and superintendents at the local school level to understand what their needs were.”

After acquiring this deeper understanding, the Blue Sky team was prepared to provide a stellar solution for the school district. Seeing the benefits of the system installed by Blue Sky, the school district already has begun scaling the access control upgrade to other sites as their budget allows.

Duckworth says the schools with the updated systems in place might soon add more services, such as time and attendance tracking and visitor management, layered on top of the infrastructure his team has provided.

This extra opportunity for revenue likely would come because of how Blue Sky presented the system to the school district, according to Duckworth.

“In those areas where we can improve operational efficiencies, really drive productivity and impact the return on investment – that’s really what it’s about. We’ve tried moving from a technological discussion to a financial discussion, and that’s all driven by the total cost of ownership and ultimately cost for them to own the solution throughout its life cycle,” says Duckworth. “That’s been the approach – to dig into what the current costs are and determine how we can leverage the new technology and the benefits it brings with it.”

For those interested in providing access control or security solutions to school districts, Duckworth recommended building relationships with school administrators at the local level to better understand what their current systems are like and what their needs are.

“At the end of the day, a box is a box is a box,” says Duckworth. “Anybody can sell a box; selling a system isn’t the hard part, keeping a customer – that’s difficult. And that all comes down to a relationship.”