Access Control System Installation Guide

Begin by reflecting on your business requirements. Then perform an in-depth analysis of your business’s current security measures to build a security plan that meets your needs. Here are a few questions you need to consider:

1. What type of credentials are you using? What format are they? How many of these credentials are issued? Can it support your expected cardholder population? Are they capable of ensuring any duplicate IDs?
2. What investments have been made so far? Is the current system upgradeable?
3. What assets do you have, ranging from physical assets to shareholder records?
4. Where are you storing your business data like employee records, client data, etc.?
5. What is your vision for the access control system? Is it scalable and capable of integration?
6. How many doors do you have in your facility that you need to secure?
7. What is the square footage of your location?
8. What types of accesses do you need for your facility like vehicular, pedestrian, etc.?
9. Are there different access levels for your facility?
10. What is the cost associated with the current security system?

Once you have reflected on your needs and the planning is in place, it is time to start to uncover the core details for your access control installation, such as:

1. How many different types of readers are required?
2. How many different types of locks are required?
3. What forms of authentication are required, and by how many people?
4. Apart from readers and locks, what other tools are required for door access control in your facility?
5. What Access Control Management System is currently in use?
6. Do you want a wired or wireless access communication system?
7. Do you want a system that is exclusive to a single manufacturer or do you want to design a custom open-source access control system?

Technology advancements provide more secure solutions for your facility. Despite technological advancements over the years, many businesses still use traditional keys. Some businesses cannot afford the costs of a new access control system regardless of the return on investment in the long run. 

A good access control system costs between $2,000 and $10,000 with most of the cost coming from the door access equipment and components.

• The average price for electronic access control ranges from $1,000 to $4,000 per door installed.
• Electronic Locks costs run between $20 and $900
• Door readers and door controllers ranges from $80 to $3,500. 
• Hardware’s such as motion sensors are priced between $10 and $500 each.
• A basic licensing fee for your access control software  is around $600/year
• Maintenance of the access control system costs between $0 and $50/month per door.

There are two main factors that will affect the pricing of an access control system – material cost and labor cost.

Independent Physical Security Consultants like Umbrella Technologies can assess the situation, guide you throughout the process of Access Control Installation and help you to choose the best access control system for your business.

The additional considerations for Access Control Installation will depend on various factors. Here are some of the other factors that influence the installation:

The right access control equipment is needed to protect against theft of data, property, resources and prevent unauthorized entry in your facility. The objective for choosing the right access control equipment is to improve productivity, help in identifying administrative staff, and properly sign in legitimate visitors. Picking the right equipment will help the business to scale sustainably.

Quick Tip:  Installing battery-powered or wireless locks versus wired locks will save end-users over 80% in the labor cost of access control installers. Wireless installation is faster is more efficient as no cabling effort required in the installation process. 

Site inspection helps the security professional to get first impressions on the location of potential devices and how to direct the cables to the main controller and power board. Once the inspection is done, the works starts on running the cables from the rooms to the door controllers that controls the whole operation.

When everything is set up physically and mounted, you will need to configure the board and all the hardware for the system. You will need internet access to configure the system.

First, plug your panel into power and connect it directly to a computer via an Ethernet cable, launch the web browser and type the IP address of your panel in the address bar. Once you log in to the web browser with the default username and password (admin, admin), the interface will take you through the steps to configure. Fill out the information’s currently like language, function, controller name, time zone, and any additional required information.

The live monitor can be accessible from the main page that shows you all the access events taking place in your facility like card scanned, access granted/denied, time of access, someone enters, someone exits, etc.

Once the device and system configuration is done, you can now give users access to certain locations in your facility based on their role or set of rules as per the company’s security protocol.

Access is customizable. You can designate specific permissions based on user roles. This allows your business to provide permission to access the facility at certain times based on user, role, or job responsibilities.

Access control systems remove the pain in maintaining a traditional key-based access system. Losing keys was common with traditional keys.

The system allows you to keep track of who enters or exits your facility.

This is a great feature, hosting the system with cloud services, allows you to control your access anywhere and at any time.

Using a keycard access control system is a more cost-effective solution than traditional keys in many ways. If someone loses a key card, it’s much easier to replace a key card and reprogram the system than changing your building’s locks. Changing the locks is pain and an expensive process because every employee will need to be issued a new key.