The equipment module in SOVA allows your facility to take complete control over the processing and tracking of your equipment assets to employees and vendors. While electronic key boxes from vendors such as Keyper and KeyWatcher from Morse Watchmans provide a high degree of key control by removing the human element, many facilities maintain bulky items like radios in a security department and check those items out to employees and vendors using a manual process. Also, some businesses are required to keep vendor keys outside of their electronic key boxes due to their internal security policies. Finally, as hotel security consultants ourselves, we find that many hotels do not have the resources to secure every key using an electronic system, as a large hotel could have hundreds of key sets for room attendants to access guestrooms. We find that these keys are often the responsibility to secure and manage from the housekeeping department. By utilizing the equipment module in SOVA, you have a cost effective means of securing your keys and other assets from a central location (or several) to achieve a high degree of key control.

Equipment assets commonly tracked in SOVA include:

• Keys
  
• Radios
  
• Earpieces
  
• Flashlights
  
• Mobile devices (iPods, tablets, phones, etc.)
  

Security Level Explained

To effectively manage equipment assets, both equipment items and users are assigned a default Security Level, or "SL" when enrolled into the system. Moreover, default equipment permissions can be set for a position within the business hierarchy, making it quick and easy to add new equipment users. For example, you could allow access to key sets A & B to a janitor, but deny access to key set C for this position. Of course, SOVA is flexible enough to override equipment permissions for any individual, by allowing or denying access to individual equipment assets bases on the individual.

While setting up your equipment inventory and enrolling equipment users is a simple process, it can be time consuming if you have a large amount of assets or many users to enroll. Allowing ample time to set this up properly on the front end will make the system much easier to maintain going forward.

Equipment Setup Overview

1. Add major equipment categories i.e. radios, flashlights, etc. Keys are already added by default.
   
2. If you intend to enroll key assets, follow the steps below, otherwise skip to step 3:
   
   • Setup "Key Groups". Think of this as a department for keys. For example, you might have a Facilities key group, a Housekeeping key group, etc.
     
   • Add Key Rings. This is how you identify the key set, and the barcoded ID you setup for the key ring is what you will scan during equipment processing. Note: even if you have a single key on a key ring, you must setup a separate key ring for this key. Security Level (SL) is automatically set for key rings based on the highest SL key on the ring.
     
   • Setup Key Cabinets. This is the physical location where keys are stored at your facility. You might have a key box in your security office, another behind the front desk at your hotel, or in the housekeeping office.
     
   • Enroll your keys, selecting the key group, ring, cabinet and SL.
     
3. Enroll non-key equipment assets into their respective categories and set the Security Level (SL).
   
4. Add departments i.e. Night Manager, Housekeeper, Security Director, etc.
   
5. Add positions within these departments, and set default equipment permissions for these positions.
   
6. Enroll equipment users, selecting their department, position, and any equipment permission overrides that are needed.
   

Note: steps 4-6 above are covered in the article Adding Equipment Users .

1. Adding Categories

Navigate to Equipment > Add Equipment . Once there, click the pencil icon under "Equipment Type". Your screen should look like this:

Let's add a top level equipment item called "Flashlights". We assign an SL of 1 to this equipment type. Once done, you can chose to submit and close the popup, or submit and add more equipment types:

After saving the equipment type, your screen should look like below, now showing the "Flashlights" top level equipment type. NOTE: In the screen above, if I were adding a radio equipment sub-type like "Golf Shop Radios", I would have checked the "Radio" box above to assign this as the parent equipment type, then after saving, the "Golf Cart Radios" equipment type would appear under the "Radio" equipment type  (visible by clicking the plus icon).

Repeat the steps above for all equipment types that you want to add.

2. Adding Keys

Navigate to Equipment > Add Equipment . Select the "Keys" equipment type. Click the pencil icon next to "Key Groups". Below we add a "Housekeeping" key group. Later, we will add individual keys within that group:

Repeat for other Key Groups that you want to add

Next, we will add Key Rings. Click the pencil icon next to "Key Ring". Below, we add a key ring that will give access to the "Guestrooms 7th Floor". The barcode ID that we will scan with the barcode reader has been set to 10001. This can be any number sequence to match your existing or new barcode labels. We also set the expiry to Dec 31st, 2017, so if the keys are scanned after this date the system will not permit these to be checked out. Finally, we add a Ring Group, and Ring Code - here you can add anything you like, and you may already have these values in a key book maintained by your facilities department so you might want to coordinate with them. Your screen should look like below:

Next we add a Key Cabinet. Click the pencil icon next to "Key Cabinet". Add the physical location where your key box is found at your business. You can also add a count of trays, columns or rows, if you use a pegboard style method of maintaining keys. In this way, you can identify the row/column where the key is kept, like "C1" would represent row "C", column "1". After you complete this screen, it should look like below:

The basic structure for keys is now setup. Next we will proceed with adding keys.

Navigate to Equipment > Add Equipment . The "Equipment ID" field is usually the barcode scan ID for all other equipment types except keys. For keys, the Key Ring ID is the barcode ID. So in this case, since we are adding keys, in the Equipment ID field we might include the number stamped on the side of the brass key, or any other identifier for the individual key (you can use any series of letters or numbers here). As mentioned, most businesses have key ID's for their individual keys, so if you already have a coding system for keys, obtain your existing Key ID and enter it in the Equipment ID field for each of the individual keys.

Below you will see that we added a key named "Housekeeping closet - 7th flr", assigned it to the Housekeeping group, selected "Guestrooms 7th flr" in the key ring dropdown, and identified the key cabinet as "Security Office A" from the dropdown. Next, we gave the key a Security Level (SL) of 1, which is the lowest security level:

Security Levels for Equipment

Remember that the Security Level (SL) for equipment can range from 1-10, where 1 is low security and 10 is high security. You are free to use this simple ten point scale to setup equipment permissions in any way that you wish. Eventually you will be setting SL for all equipment users as well, so once you are complete with your setup, an SL5 user would be prevented from checking out an SL6 key. Below are some examples of equipment SL that you might consider for different equipment types at your facility:

3. Adding Non-Key Equipment Assets

Adding equipment other than keys is very straight forward. All that is required is to:

1. Add equipment top level categories
   
2. Add any sub-levels or groupings that you may have
   
3. Add or "enroll" equipment into those categories.
   

For this example let's assume we have a college campus and the Security and Landscaping departments need to be issued iPods through SOVA. We will setup a master category for iPods, then setup an iPod sub-group for Security and another for Landscaping

Navigate to Equipment > Add Equipment . Click the pencil icon to the right of Equipment Type . Next, enter 'iPods" under Equipment Type Name , and set this equipment type as SL2. Notice we did not add a parent category. By not doing so, SOVA will create a new top-level equipment category. Your screen should look similar to below:

Click "Submit and Done" if you only want to add this one category, or click "Submit and Add More" if you wanted to add multiple categories in succession. For this example, we will choose "Submit and Done". The equipment category is saved, and now appears in the equipment list as a new top level equipment category. See below:

Now, we will add the sub-groups for the iPods that will be used by the Security and Landscaping departments. Click the same pencil icon to the right of "Equipment Type", but this time, select 'iPods" as the parent. Add "Security iPods" under Equipment Type Name .

Try setting the Security iPods category to SL3 and click the Submit button. You will note that SOVA does not allow this action, because a sub-category cannot have an SL greater than it's parent category. Your screen should look similar to the one below. In order to save, you must change the Security Level in the popup to SL2 or less.

Next, repeat these same steps for the "Landscape iPods". Your screen should look like the one below when you are finished:

Moving top level categories under a parent category

A common mistake during equipment setup is forgetting to check the box for a parent category when trying to add a sub-group. Fortunately, SOVA allows you to quickly move equipment categories around to suit your needs. In the screenshot below, I forgot to check the parent box for "iPods" when adding "Landscape iPods". The result is that I now have Landscape iPods set incorrectly as a top level category:

If you had just setup the category, you could simply delete it and start over, but what if you already have equipment items added to this top-level category? You should note that deleting a top level category can cause issues accessing equipment items within that category. Here's how to solve this issue:

1. From Equipment > Add Equipment, click the pencil icon next to Equipment Type
   
2. Add a checkmark at the equipment that you wish to move into a sub-group
   
3. A green "Edit" button appears in the popup. Click that
   
4. In the Select Parent Equipment Type , uncheck the box next to the equipment category that you wish to move to a sub-group, and check the parent group that you wish to move the equipment category into
   
5. Click save. If you cannot see the change in your equipment list, you might need to refresh your screen
   

Next we will enroll an iPod under the Security iPod equipment category:

1. From Equipment > Add Equipment, enter an Equipment ID. This is usually a number corresponding to a barcode label. But it can be any series of numbers and/or letters. NOTE: if you are using barcodes, it must be numerical only!
   
2. For this example, we'll enter 100010 for the Equipment ID
   
3. Enter an equipment name. We'll use SEC-IPOD1
   
4. Click the plus icon to expand the iPod equipment type, and check "Security iPods". This step assigns the equipment item SEC-IPOD1 to the Security iPods category.
   
5. If you have a connected webcam, click the WebCam button, compose and click the Capture button to grab a snapshot of the equipment. Alternatively, you can click the "Choose File" button and use the file explorer to locate an image file stored on your computer.
   

After entering the data for the equipment and adding an optional picture, your screen should look like this:

Save and repeat for other equipment items. That's it!

Editing Equipment

1. Navigate to Equipment > List Equipment.
   
2. From this screen, you can:
   
   1. View the equipment types, barcodes, SL, and whether the equipment is active or not
      
   2. See the current disposition of the item (checked in or out)
      
   3. See the last time the equipment was processed
      
   4. Change the toggle to de-activate the equipment
      
   5. Search each of these fields using the dropdown
      
   6. Filter to show checked out only, so you can perform audits on your checked out equipment
      
   7. User the A-Z buttons to quickly filter your selections
      
   8. Use the action menus to edit or delete an equipment item, and see a log of when the equipment was checked out and by whom
      

The equipment list screen is shown below:

Editing Equipment and Changing User Permissions

After your equipment and users are added to SOVA, editing an equipment item by selecting "Edit" from the action menu above gives you the ability to change individual user permissions to checkout equipment on the fly. As an example, the screen below shows the edit screen for the "SEC-IPOD1" equipment we added earlier. Currently, only one equipment user has been granted permission to checkout this equipment. From this screen, we can select or deselect users from the list at the right to change their permissions, while at the same time editing the equipment record if needed: