How Traka’s electronic key cabinets help ensure safety is a priority at Western Connecticut State University.

Western Connecticut State University uses Traka systems to put some technology around tracking physical keys. Their 17 Traka cabinets serve over 1,200 users with access to 542 items and approximately 3,500 keys across two campuses.

In the US, Universities are bound by the Clery Act to not only report on crime statistics on and around campus, but also share their campus security policies which must provide staff and students with training on crime awareness and prevention. Campus security has become an important consideration for prospective students and US Universities compete to provide the safest learning environments. Access management and with it, key management and control, play an important role in student safety.

In the past, site staff would carry a monstrous keyring around campus that would inevitably get them into just about everything they needed to. Today, using an electronic key box system allows the university to be able to authorize individual users with access to only the keys they need, when they need them. Traka key cabinets are used by faculty, staff, students, administrators, contractors, and affiliates.

Providing control over mechanical locks enables the university to improve security and accountability over site access. The Traka key management system provides an audit trail with the date and timestamp as to when somebody may have withdrawn a key from a key box, and provides an alert if something is out of compliance.

Deanna Schaab – Director Access Control and One Card Services

“It's important to me that our faculty, staff, and students understand that we take key control very seriously using the key box systems. We can say we've accounted for all the master keys here at the university.” 

At Western Connecticut State University, everyone who needs access to a secured location is using Traka key cabinets. 

Example uses:

• Forgotten Keys 
  Departmental secretaries previously had to carry master keys for professors who forgot their keys to their offices. Now they don't have to! Anyone with the right permissions can go to the box, remove the department master, unlock the doors, and put the keys back.
  
  
• Speeding up emergency access and response times
  The university has its own police department. Each of the officers uses a Traka system within the department to pull their duty tags for each shift. If there's ever an emergency event on campus, police can respond directly to the building, use the key system in that building, and take the tags from that box to unlock areas within the building. There's no need to pause and stop at the police department to respond.
  
  
• Managing access to site vehicles
  The university manages access to vehicles through key cabinets as well. Vehicles managed include not only vehicles that faculty, staff, and employees can reserve, but also maintenance vehicles. This means bookings can be recorded centrally, vehicle usage can be tracked and, if there is a problem with a vehicle, it can be locked until the vehicle is repaired.
   

Benefits of electronic key Management

• Robust key storage in secure networked electronic cabinets
• Traka iFob ensures reliable record-keeping
• Web-based management and reporting platform saves time
• Auditable reporting and management reporting on key use
• Integrates with other access management solutions to provide an integrated access management solution.
   

Deanna Schaab – Director Access Control and One Card Services

“The Traka system allows us to provide convenience in an otherwise inconvenient world of physical security. Having the web-based platform for Traka has really saved us a lot of time and labor. 

Our locksmiths are able to program our key boxes no matter where they are on campus. We are also able to have our clerical staff in our front office manage updated card numbers as well as assign access through just a simple check of a box. “

Avoiding the loss of keys and the expense of re-keying a building

The university found that the loss of a single master key could cost as much as $20,000 to re-key an entire building. Using Traka's electronic control system provided a more cost-effective solution to avoid the inevitable expense of having to re-key a building.

Practical considerations when purchasing a new electronic key management system

Before the installation of Traka’s systems, the university used another electronic key management system, which didn’t work as effectively as hoped. This legacy system required the key fob be inserted face down or it wouldn’t register and then the next user could withdraw the fob without a record being made. Unfortunately, communications to the boxes were also difficult, which meant data synchronization didn’t work dependably and led to ghost records in the databases and database corruption. Western Connecticut looked for a new system based on the following criteria:

• Robustness and security of the cabinet
• Ease of use
• Data accuracy
• Error reporting
• Reliable remote administration
• Integration capabilities with third-party access management solutions

Michael Ercoli, University Locksmith commented:

 “The first major improvement I saw with the Traka system was the Fobs. You could not put them in upside down. They went in any way. You put them to the port and they read. They read every time.  You can run them over with the truck and they'll still read! As we've been rolling out the cabinets to our academic and administrative departments, the tracker cabinets increased demand because our end users love using the system.” 

Users find the cabinets easy to use and there is an increased demand to extend the service. Integration of the Traka system with the C-Cure 9000 access control system will enable more reporting for end-users to show the effectiveness and efficiency of the system.