TNA 4 Introduction to features

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Access Control - Introduction to Features

An important part of understanding Access Control, is understanding the basic functionality involved. This document is intended to introduce you to the terminology, and feature set of TNA 4's Access Control functionality.

Door Locks

The clocks are designed to open an electronic lock when the Employee clocks. You can attach a different lock to the opening, and closing doors if you like. Alternatively the clock can open the same door regardless of the direction.

In some circumstances you may want the employee to be able to clock at a device, and yet the door is NOT opened. This is useful if the CapeClock is a mixed Access / Control and TNA device. For some employees the door can open, for others it's purely a TNA device. (More on this feature in a moment.)

Time Zones

Using Time Zones you are able to limit the times at which the employee can clock. For example you might limit an employee so that he can only clock in or out between 8:00 and 17:00.

The times can be different for each day of the week. Different Time Zones can be created for different employees.

Access Rights

You can decide which employees can clock at which clocks. You can limit the employee to being able to clock in and out, just in, just out or neither.

Areas

You can physically divide the area up into visual, geographical areas. Each device will have an In Area and an Out Area. As the employee clocks he moves from one area into another.

In the Access Control software module you are easily able to see in which Area each employee is currently located.

Anti-Passback

If the Areas feature is enabled then you can make use of the Anti-Passback feature. This feature enforces that an Employee must be already in the Out Area before they can clock In, and/or the Employee must be in the In Area before they're allowed to clock Out.

This prevents an employee from passing his card back to another person, and thus allowing 2 people to enter the building, at the same time, on the same card.

This also allows you to enforce a technique called Pathing. This means that an employee must clock Out all the devices, in the reverse direction that he clocked In. i.e. If he clocks in the Front door, and then into the Production Area, then he must first clock out of Production before he's allowed to clock out of the Front door.

Locked Doors

It is possible to assign 1 person to be the Supervisor for a particular clock. If this person clocks In then the device is available for other people. As soon as this person clocks Out, then the clock is locked and it won't accept In clockings from anyone else. (If a person is already In, then they will be allowed to clock Out)

This feature is typically used when the clock is restricting access to a particular area, and a designated person must be inside the area in order for anyone else to enter the area.

For example consider a storeroom that is under the jurisdiction of a store keeper. A clock is mounted at the door to limit access to the store room. However if the store keeper is not inside the store, then no-one is allowed access to the store.

In some circumstances, if you wanted multiple people to be the designated storekeeper, then you can create a fictitious employee, who holds the card that locks, and unlocks the clock. In conjunction with the Door Locks feature mentioned earlier you can still force the real employee to swipe with his own card after locking the door.

For example consider a typical boardroom. This contains expensive equipment, and should remain locked at most times. However from time to time the room is required for meetings. You could assign a single card to unlock the clock (but which doesn't open the door). This card can then be held by the receptionist. In order to gain access to the room, the organiser of the meeting would need to get the unlock card, and return it after the meeting.

Monitoring

Using the User module, and the Query or Edit, Access Control then Who's In/Who's Out option mentioned above, you can monitor the whereabouts of the employees. At a glance you can also see if any employees are still in the building. Using this module it's also possible to move employees from one area to another.

Reporting

There are a number of reports which can be taken. These fall into 2 groupings:

Configuration reports. These provide information on the Access Control settings which apply to clocks, and to employees.
Existing status reports. These alert you to the current Area where the employee is located.