Avoid these common campus identity pitfalls

Having an Identity Roadmap can avoid outdated, misfit technology

​One of the hallmarks of a Campus Identity Roadmap is that it helps both an institution and its vendor partners to better and more efficiently solve problems. With a Roadmap in place, everyone can benefit from having clear marching orders when it comes time to migrate technologies or make refinements to the existing campus environment.
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“On campuses that don’t have a Roadmap in place, we often see decisions happen without proper consultation across the stakeholder groups,” says Todd Brooks, Director of Product Management at ColorID. “Things like installing a brand new access control system, but hanging Prox readers. In that case, they’re installing tech from 30 years ago that’s no longer secure – it’s puzzling.” 

What Brooks and the rest of the ColorID team routinely preach to universities is that a knee-jerk decision today could have far-reaching ramifications. Were the campus to establish a standard and working document to dictate the hardware selection process, these types of challenges could be avoided. “Selecting the wrong hardware often leads to a recard event or buying more expensive credentials to support multiple technologies in the card,” explains Brooks.
 
Beyond the mainstay hardware decisions, campuses should also include bleeding edge technologies – like mobile and biometrics – in the Identity Roadmap. Interacting with these technology decisions today will be key in determining how your campus wants to handle potential deployments in the future. “It’s about being prepared so that when these discussions come up there isn’t a scramble,” Brooks says.
 
Beyond being prepared, the Identity Roadmap can also help campuses position themselves to deploy the types of technology that modern students have come to expect.
 
“We’re seeing that it’s almost like a recruiting war out there for students now,” says Brooks. “And we’ve heard from campuses that they want to be technology leaders and do things that other campuses aren’t doing.”
 
For more information on the Campus Identity Roadmap visit ColorID’s dedicated resource page, and check out the first two installments in the series with CR80News. 

About ColorID
Over the past 18 years, ColorID has become a highly recommended supplier of solutions for security, identification, access control, biometrics and support solutions.  Though primarily focused on specific North American markets, ColorID also provides these solutions to organizations around the world. The company’s highly knowledgeable and customer-focused sales and product management teams help customers select the best products and services from well-known and innovative manufacturers to meet their requirements. Also, the company’s engineering team provides exceptional support for the life of those products. Contact ColorID at 704-987-2238 or toll free in Canada and the US at 888-682-6567. Visit ColorID on the web at: www.colorid.com or email ColorID at [email protected].