Oglethorpe University, with an enrollment of more than 1,100 students, has decided on a SALTO RFID access solution for keeping its 16 campus buildings networked and secure for the university’s students, faculty and staff.

SALTO Virtual Network wire-free system pushes and pulls data from the university’s “hot spot” entry points to all their offline locks. By choosing a wire-free solution, the university only had to run wires to their exterior doors. The interior doors do not require wiring as these locks are stand-alone wire-free locks. This is an advantage, especially for Oglethorpe’s historic buildings which date back to 1835.

Atlanta South, a SALTO certified installation company, did the wiring. Oglethorpe current has two dormitories on the system – seven wired exterior door locks with hot spot readers and 103 interior wire-free doors.

Once inside the dormitory, a student has access to all of its four floors, but to gain access to their room, they have to present their card to the reader on their door lock. Once a person goes to an interior door and presents their card, they authenticate with that door and the door writes back to the card information from the log files it keeps at that door including battery status and similar information.

The next time the card hits a hot spot – again, the only wired devices in the system – all the information gets uploaded to the main system. Now the university has a detailed log for each door, and a complete access control log of who has been where including any failed entry attempts.

These smart access control cards also function as student ID and meal plan cards, eliminating the need for a student to carry multiple cards. The cards are encoded with a student’s complete information, so when they go to the cafeteria, for example, they simply present their card to a reader which checks them in.

The latest building to get the SALTO system the university’s Student Center, which completed in August. After that it will be the library with planning to include two more buildings this year. Eventually the aim is for all 16 campus buildings to use the SALTO access control system, and it is the university’s goal to have it all completed over the next two to three years.