Access control integrator W. F. O’Brien has installed Salto GEO locks fully integrated with the data-on-card Salto Virtual Network in heritage buildings at St Pauls College in Sydney.
ST Paul’s College in Sydney, Australia, is an all-male Anglican residential college and affiliated with the University of Sydney. Founded in 1856, it is Australia’s oldest university college and has nearly 200 residents, of whom about 150 are undergraduates; with the remainder being graduates undertaking further study or holding university positions.
The buildings at St Paul’s College date from the late 1850s to the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s. There had been many changes to the locking installations over the years, meaning the college had ongoing problems with students losing keys giving them the expense of having to replace locks and keys on a regular basis.
This meant that security had the potential to be compromised at times, making it difficult to ensure the safety of students and their assets. A college or residence building can be a tempting target for opportunistic thieves as many students, besides money and credit cards, have expensive electronic equipment, including laptop computers, mobile phones, iPods and so on.
Recognising that effective protection against such risks would require an extensive overhaul of their security equipment and procedures, St Paul’s College decided the answer was to remove mechanical cylinders and keys from its buildings and replace them with a modern electronic access control system.
“When I first met David Rees of Salto Systems at a conference, I told him about our challenge of wanting to upgrade security but that we needed something suitable for our heritage doors dating from 1858,” says Derek Watt, executive manager at St Paul’s College.
“At that time his response was ‘I can’t help yet, but we are about to launch a product that is exactly what you want’.”
According to David Rees, managing director Salto Systems Australia Pty Ltd, that product was the Salto GEO (Global Electronic Opening) cylinder.
“Derek explained to me that the mechanical lock installation at St Paul’s College was not providing the level of protection or security required to manage the access movement of the students.
“To achieve this a more robust product was required, one which would not only offer a greater degree of physical protection but also provide a full complement of modern access control benefits including smart fob operation, audit trail information, flexible calendars, auto locking and unlocking and so on.
“Given the fact that St Paul’s College was designed by one of Australia’s best-known architects, Edmund Blackett, who also designed one of the major cathedrals in Sydney and the University of Sydney, this heritage aspect created special demands for the installation of the access control system needed to provide control over entry to and movement.”
“Derek explained to me that the mechanical lock installation at St Paul’s College was not providing the level of protection or security required to manage the access movement of the students”
Salto GEO is an IP66-rated oval profile electronic cylinder with satin chrome finish. It has a contactless DESfire Mifare exterior cylinder designed to enable removal and replacement of any Australian style oval cylinder. Salto GEO proved the ideal solution as it has been specially designed and developed for use with doors where normal escutcheons cannot be fitted or are not allowed. Such applications include certain types of fire doors, some multipoint locking systems or on antique doors in historic or listed buildings such as those at St Paul’s College.
GEO locks can be fully integrated with the full Salto platform, and are a versatile, cost effective solution. They incorporate Salto’s patented Data-On-Card SVN (Salto Virtual Network), which can manage many thousands or even millions of individual doors and users if necessary. This allows the stand-alone cylinders and locks to upload, store and download the latest access information as people use their RFID fobs around St Paul’s College.
The cancelled fob list can be updated, key fobs can be cancelled and audit trail reports can be downloaded in both wire free or wireless environments depending on the locks selected. All of which gives St Paul’s College additional security and operating benefits compared to standard locking systems.
The way this wireless data-on-card system works is that whenever cards and locks or cards and Salto hot-spots meet exchange data by wireless, they exchange a complete update of authorisations and events going on across the network. Through the hotspots this information funnels back to SALTO’s Pro Access management software running on a central PC, which allows administrators to manage things like access time zones, view audit trails, as well as driving anti-passback and relay management.
Pro Access can manage large numbers of door installations, and as most access related information is written on the credential, the management of the doors becomes, in cases, a management of the credential. By simply updating the badge, you can change most access related authorisations of the users, including adding/deleting doors, time zones and calendars. These changes are updated across a network of door locks by the cards themselves.
Feature’s of Salto access control include encrypted communications, audit trail, dynamic access profile changes, calendar and shift control, intruder alarm, automated unlock/relock periods, automatic lost keycard cancellation, departmental operator management, ethernet connectivity of all online devices and the ability to interface with other popular access control and BMS systems.
Installation
With a decision made and a contract awarded, SALTO partner W. F. O’Brien Pty Ltd, one of Sydney’s leading door and access control specialists, began the job of removing the 200-plus mechanical cylinders from across the St Paul’s College site and replacing them with GEO RIM cylinders, which are designed to fit most doors that are equipped with surface-mount lock cases.
“David Rees and I had looked carefully at the layout of St Paul’s College and noted the position and condition of the various doors to make sure we fully understood what the customer wanted, and then planned the rolling replacement of the locks in a structured manner,” explains Chris Drake of W. F. O’Brien.
“Installation was straightforward, with none of the unforeseen surprises that can sometimes occur when working with older doors and properties. Now the College operates an easy to use, proven, future proof access control solution that provides 24/7 critical security protection. The end result is a solution that the customer loves, the students find easy to use and that the heritage architect is very happy with.”
Chris Drake of W. F. O’Brien
Due to the installation of its Salto GEO system, St Paul’s College in Sydney now has a reliable and effective solution for ensuring security across its campus.
“If you want to keep ahead of the game, you need to be doing innovative things – especially from the security point of view,” says Watt. “With the technology we have now, we are both more discreet and more secure.
“It has so far proven robust in the hands of young men aged between 18-23 and our housekeeping staff now have individual key fobs coded for access limited by both area of the College and time of day.
“Overall we’re very pleased with the efficiency of the SALTO product. It has maintained the aesthetic integrity of our heritage doors while giving us the control we wanted, with the added flexibility to easily grow to meet any additional future security requirements we may have.”
Fact file:
Features of Salto access control include:
* Virtual Network capable through Salto Virtual Network Technology
* Data on card audit trailing capability
* All communications are encrypted
* No additional control panels are required
* Alarm input
* Set up made with Portable Programming Devices (PPD) or via PC
* Update made with Portable Programming Device (PPD) or SVN
* Anti-passback mode available depending on the model
* Firmware upgradable by PPD or direct from PC to on-line units.
