Client Success Story - Illinois Institute of Technology

Benefits of Integration

Universities across the country are faced with a similar dilemma: How to increase campus security while reducing labor and costs? For Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL, the answer is simple: integration. The university has carefully selected technology solutions for campus card management, access control, housing management, and intelligent video monitoring that integrate seamlessly to improve security while maximizing efficiency.

Technology Highlights

• Odyssey PCS™ campus card system
• Odyssey HMS™ housing management software
• CS Access™ access control solution
• NiceVision^® intelligent video monitoring
• HID^® proximity card readers
• MICROS^® 3700 point-of-sale management

Access Assignments Made Simple

In 2007, IIT decided to investigate a replacement for its access control technology. Its current system required too much user intervention to transfer data between systems, leading to labor duplication and complicated student assignment processes. IIT selected CS Access from CBORD^® due to its flexible operation and powerful integrations with Odyssey PCS and Odyssey HMS.

Perhaps the most valuable component of the integration deals with automating access assignments. When a student receives a housing assignment in Odyssey HMS, Odyssey PCS is automatically updated. This, in turn, triggers a data transfer with CS Access, which uses the student’s housing assignment to automatically grant appropriate access assignments. This simplified procedure allows for quick assignment processes and reduces the risk of human error, providing a much smoother overall process.

“Our old processes for housing and access assignments were very time-consuming and involved work from many different departments,” says Nima Nemaei, Manager of Technology Services for Auxiliary Services at IIT. “With CS Access, a student is assigned a room and that’s it. The integration takes care of the rest.”

Flexible and Easy to Use

In addition to its valuable integration with Odyssey, IIT enjoys CS Access’ flexible operation. Greg Makowski, Senior Software Engineer and CBORD System Administrator at IIT, finds the greatest value in the system’s userdefinable distributed management.

“If I want the Housing department to control certain doors, I can assign user rights so that when they open CS Access, they will see only those doors,” says Makowski. “This lets us grant system access without risking unauthorized changes.”

Makowski also appreciates the ability to manipulate information at the database level and assign access based on individual and group attributes. What stands out the most, however, is CS Access’ ease of use.

“CS Access is easy to use and communicates well with other solutions across campus,” says Makowski. “We can tailor our use of the system to our business processes, rather than the other way around.”

Integrated Video

Beyond securing its campus with door access control, IIT utilizes video monitoring to improve campus safety. Historically, several monitoring systems were used in various parts of campus—a setup that made unified management and expansion difficult. In 2009, IIT implemented the NiceVision intelligent video solution from CBORD partner NICE Systems, Inc., to centralize video management while keeping 98% of its existing camera infrastructure in place. There are 128 cameras currently in use, and that count is planned to increase to nearly 200 in the near future.

IIT is implementing the integration between NiceVision and CS Access and its alarm monitoring component, CS Action & Response Management™. The integration will allow staff to manage access control, alarm management, and video surveillance from a single GUI, making it easy to spot and acknowledge security incidents quickly.

“The integration will give us a complete picture of an incident in one place,” says Makowski. “We will have access logs, alarm information, and video tied together without having to gather data from various systems and piece it all together.”

A Touchless Campus

Access control at IIT is managed with proximity readers, allowing campus members to simply present their cards at readers instead of swiping magnetic stripes. First installed in 1996 to manage access control, proximity readers are now used across campus to manage

• Door access
• Dining purchases
• Snack and beverage vending
• Laundry payment
• Copy services
• Parking access
• Elevator access
• And more

“Proximity readers have always worked well for us from an access standpoint, so it was natural to expand them into new applications over time,” says Nemaei. “They are easy to use, and the contactless technology reduces wear and tear on readers and cards.”

Technology to Protect, Serve, and Promote

Nemaei sees IIT’s CBORD solutions as important tools in protecting students, providing the best campus services, and even attracting new students.

“Students today are very technologically savvy,” says Nemaei. “The more services like this we can offer, the more interested they will be in our university. Any technology that will bring new students to IIT is something we find valuable.”