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Emergency Lockdown

Learn how to trigger an emergency lockdown event on your access controller

Updated this week

Verkada access controllers can perform emergency lockdown events to help protect you, your colleagues, and your assets. During a lockdown event, all selected doors and/or buildings are locked down, and access to these doors is restricted to authorized user groups.

  • You must be an Access Site Admin to create a lockdown scenario for a site.

  • Lockdown outputs and inputs require a lockdown scenario for the site where the controller is installed.


Create a lockdown scenario

  1. In Verkada Command, go to All Products > Access .

  2. Select a site from the All Sites menu.

  3. Click Lockdowns, then to create a new lockdown scenario.

  4. Follow the instructions in the configuration window to configure the lockdown scenario.

    1. Under Create, provide a name and emergency message for the lockdown scenario.

    2. Under Doors, select doors from the site(s) that will lock down when the lockdown scenario is triggered.

    3. Under Permissions, specify who is able to trigger the lockdown scenario, release the lockdown scenario, or unlock doors during the lockdown scenario.

If multiple sites are assigned to a lockdown scenario:

  • If a user is not an Access Site Admin for all the sites in the scenario, they can only add or remove doors from the sites where they have admin permissions.

  • If an AUX input is configured to trigger the lockdown scenario, a user must be an Access Site Admin for all assigned sites to edit or delete the AUX input configuration.


Clone a lockdown scenario

  1. In Command, go to All Products > Access .

  2. Select a site from the All Sites menu.

  3. Click Lockdowns, then select a lockdown.

  4. At the top right, click Clone .

  5. Select a site to cone to and click Next.

  6. Follow the configuration window to configure the lockdown scenario and make changes.


Initiate a lockdown from Command

Once a lockdown scenario has been created, you will see a new Lockdown icon at the bottom left of your navigation bar.

  1. At the bottom of your navigation bar, click Lockdowns .

  2. Select the lockdown to initiate.

  3. Click Activate to begin the lockdown.

Lockdowns can also be triggered remotely from the Verkada Pass App.


Configure an AUX input to initiate a lockdown locally

Once a lockdown scenario has been created, you can configure an AUX input on an access controller to trigger the lockdown scenario when the AUX input is activated.

  1. In Verkada Command, go to All Products > Access .

  2. Under Controllers, select the access controller where you want to set up an AUX input.

  3. From the access controller's details page, click Add and select AUX Input.

  4. Under Settings:

    1. Enter a unique name.

    2. Select the desired name, port, and connection type.

    3. Click Next.

  5. Under Actions:

    1. Select Lockdown Trigger as the Input Type.

    2. Select the Lockdown Scenario that you want to trigger when the AUX input is activated.

  6. Click Done.

If an AUX input is configured to trigger a Lockdown Scenario that includes doors on other access controllers, the AUX input's access controller will establish a local connection with the other access controllers through the local area network (LAN).

When the AUX input is activated, the local connection(s) will lock down all doors in the lockdown scenario through the local network. For more details, see Cross-Device Local Connection for Access Control.


Release a lockdown from Command

  1. Log in to Command.

  2. Click Release Lockdown on the red banner at the top of the page.

  3. Click Confirm.

Lockdowns can also be released remotely from the Verkada Pass App.


Need more help? Contact Verkada Support.

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