Configure Access Control Areas

Areas represent physical spaces and are defined by a set of doors that act as entrances to the area and a set of doors that act as exits. An in/out door can have one direction serve as an entrance and another direction serve as an exit.

Once an area is defined, Verkada Command can tell you (in real-time) who is inside of the area. Additionally, you can set up anti-passback rules for an area to enforce stricter security requirements.

Configure an area

1

In Verkada Command, go to All Products > Access.

2

Select a site from the drop-down.

3

At the top, click Settings for your designated site.

4

Within settings, you’ll see an Area section where you configure an area. Once an area for the site has been configured, you can navigate from settings to the details of that area.

5

Click Configure.

6

Specify the set of Entrance Doors and the set of Exit Doors for the area. If you have in/out doors, you can specify the inbound reader as the entrance and the outbound reader as the exit, or vice versa.

View and manage an existing area

Once an area has been configured for a site, you can view and manage that area from the area details page:

1

In Verkada Command, go to All Products > Access.

2

Select a site from the drop-down.

3

At the top, click Area.

4

At the top of the area details page, click Area Settings to see the current area configuration. To update the configuration, click the gear icon and follow the steps.

View real-time occupancy of the area

Once you’ve configured an area, you can view real-time occupancy of the area based on who has accessed an entrance door and not yet accessed an exit door.

1

In Verkada Command, go to All Products > Access.

2

Select a site from the drop-down.

3

At the top, click Area.

4

At the top of the Area details page, click Area Settings to see the current area configuration.

5

At the top, click People Inside to see the list of people inside. Click the refresh button to the right of People Inside to update the list of people currently inside.

6

If you determine that someone in the list is not actually inside the area, hover over that person’s name and click Mark as Outside to manually correct the occupancy.

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Edge cases and caveats

​Bluetooth is disabled for an area’s entrance and exit doors

Bluetooth unlock offers a highly convenient and secure way for access users to use their phones as a credential. However, due to its range, Bluetooth unlock can occasionally be triggered unintentionally, such as when a user quickly walks by a door, but does not intend to open it.

Because area occupancy depends on precise badging of a reader when a user intends to pass through it, thus entering or exiting the area, Bluetooth unlock is disabled for doors that are configured to be entrances or exits of an area. If you add a door as an area entrance or exit that has Bluetooth enabled, you will see a message in Command indicating that Bluetooth is disabled for the door as long as it remains an area entrance or exit.

Individual entry on DPI

When DPI is enabled, for a person to be marked in an area, a DPI change state must occur after a valid credential is presented. If the DPI does not change state, the user who badged in is marked as outside of the area (this is independent from any APB logic).

Another scenario: If 2 people badge in a door at the same time before opening the door, the first person is not marked as inside the area. (We intend to improve this in the future.) For a door that is held open, each user who badges in afterwards is properly marked as inside. For example, that same scenario where 2 people badge into the door at the same time, however, the door is opened before the second person (or however many after) badge in.