Building Access - MES

Good Morning,

I am wondering if anyone is using MES to track entry in and out of their facilities above and beyond just clock in and activity tracking. We have a security system for our doors, but would like something more robust and possibly within E10 to see who at any given point in time is in or out of the building for safety reasons.

If anyone has anything like that designed, feedback would be great!

Thanks,
Eric Peters
Jade Corp

I don’t know if MES would really have anything to do with it, unless you just wanted to make people use MES to type something in, and I’m not sure how you could enforce that. A computer sitting by the door doesn’t make anyone use it.

What info are you getting from your security doors? I would tie into that if you could. You can either push into E-10 using rest, or if there is a database being populated already, use an external Query to look into it.

Thanks for the info… Still looking into the software (database) for the door security, but either way, nothing to force them to “clock or swipe” in/out as they enter/exit. Only policy could handle that. Walking into the building at shift start would mean everyone getting backed up and of course lunch times. I was thinking it could tie in with clock-ins to avoid a separate swipe, but without any customization, it would affect labor hrs, etc. Just curious what the Epicor world is doing and if someone has made a customization for something like this.

If it was me, I would first figure out the policy/business case for it and get the enforcement figured out before you bother with the customization. But if you get that figured out, I would make a customization that utilizes a barcode or reader of some sort so that they user doesn’t have to type anything in. You can look at the code below for setting up a barcode listener on a screen so that it can just scan and do the work. Best case would be have 2 computers up with 2 screens so that you can have on “in” all the time facing the door as they walk in, and another facing out as they walk out. Then it’s just a barcode scan. Or make a toggle button, on for in, and one for out. I don’t think I would rely on auto toggling for in/out because if one gets messed up, they will be off until someone realizes it.

Check out the link below to look at some code that has to do with setting up a screen for listening events (like barcodes)

And the other option is a standalone program that simply uses a rest call to do the same thing. Then you don’t need an epicor license (or two) being used all the time. Both of these options would require quite a bit of coding to get working. Put as much of the logic into your UBAQ if you make the one that resides in epicor, because then if you decide to move it out to a standalone, you will have less to do.