To manage more than 250 active cardholders, 200 sporadic users and 900 daily transactions, the Bradford County Sheriff ’s Office has five Vanderbilt SMS clients running on a Windows 2008 virtual machine and installed 80 card readers to control access on both internal and external doors at the sheriff ’s office and Jail, Narcotics Task Force Office and courthouse. Cam Connections installed Allegion AD400 Series wireless lock sets to work in conjunction with the Vanderbilt reader controllers. The county also added a reader to the vehicle gate at the Narcotics Task Force Building for tighter access control. As the system administrator, Hamer can add new users and update data in real time and troubleshoot when necessary.

“I can also access the system remotely from home if there’s a failure, a last-minute change request or to initiate a selective lockdown. Dispatch staff at the sheriff ’s office and courthouse administration use the alarm-monitoring feature from the SMS platform. I can handle dynamic staff requirements and accommodate very liquid situations in real time,” said Hamer, who added that managing users and maintaining the cardholder database is also straightforward.

Hamer describes the solution as scalable and modular, offering the flexibility to add new features easily and quickly. For example, he is currently developing panic cards that will give specific users the ability initiate a lockdown in an emergency with a swipe of the card.