Smart Card Access Control for 15,000 University Students Across 25 Buildings with SIS Integration

The university's campus was, prior to this project, effectively open to all persons during daytime hours. There was no building-level access control — any student, staff member, or visitor could enter any building on campus without challenge or authentication. This open-access philosophy, common in universities, had been workable when the student body was smaller and security incidents were rare. By 2026, with 15,000 students and a campus that included science and engineering laboratories with expensive equipment, computer labs, student accommodation blocks, and clinical simulation facilities, the open-access model had produced a specific set of problems that the university's management could no longer accept.

Equipment theft from science and engineering laboratories was the most financially significant problem. Over an 18-month period, the faculty of engineering reported theft or damage to equipment totaling BDT 34 lakh: oscilloscopes, precision measurement instruments, a 3D printer, and multiple high-specification laptop computers from specialist CAD workstations. The thefts occurred in buildings that were accessible to all students regardless of programme — computer science students could enter the civil engineering laboratory, non-engineering students could access the electronics laboratory. Without any record of who had entered a laboratory when, investigations produced no actionable leads. The faculty dean had suspended three specialist laboratory facilities from student self-directed use (requiring faculty supervision for all access) — a constraint that significantly impacted the curriculum's practical laboratory component.

The student accommodation blocks presented a specific security concern. Three female student dormitory buildings housed approximately 900 residents. These buildings had no access control at their entrance — any person could walk into any dormitory building at any time. The university's student welfare office had received formal complaints from dormitory residents about unwanted visitors in the buildings, including two incidents involving non-resident male students entering the female dormitory corridors. The university's female student association had formally raised the dormitory security issue with the vice chancellor as a matter of institutional duty of care.

The absence of building-level access management also meant that students who had been suspended or had their registration lapsed for non-payment of fees could continue to access university buildings without restriction. In one documented case, a student whose enrolment had been cancelled following a disciplinary matter continued to appear in campus buildings for four weeks after cancellation — a situation that only came to light when a faculty member recognized him and reported it.

The Student Information System (SIS) — the university's central database of student enrolment status, programme, and registration — was the obvious source of access entitlement data, but it had never been connected to any physical access control system. Each new semester, the IT office issued paper-based lists of newly enrolled students to the security company, which updated a manual visitor log — an obviously unscalable and unsecured approach.

SSAL designed and installed a 60-door access control system across 25 buildings, integrated with the university's Student Information System for automated access management.

ZKTeco SF100 Smart Card Readers — 60 Units: 60 ZKTeco SF100 MIFARE smart card readers were installed at 60 controlled entry points across 25 buildings. The SF100 is a compact surface-mount card reader with MIFARE DESFire EV2 support, LED status indicators, and a weatherproof IP65 rating for external entrance doors. Card read range is 5-8 cm — requiring a deliberate card presentation gesture rather than accidental range activation, which is important in a campus environment where students carry cards in wallets that might otherwise trigger inadvertent reads.

Doors were selected for access control based on the building's specific security requirement:

• Science and engineering laboratory buildings: main entrance plus each laboratory suite entrance (28 readers)
• Female dormitory buildings: main entrance to each of the three buildings (3 readers)
• Computer science labs and CAD facilities: laboratory suite entrances (8 readers)
• Clinical simulation centre: main entrance and simulation room entrances (6 readers)
• University archive and records room: single entrance (1 reader)
• Administration building restricted areas (HR office, finance, registry): 4 readers
• Faculty library private reading rooms: 10 readers

Bosch Access Professional Edition — Access Controller Network: Bosch Access Professional Edition (APE) was deployed as the access management software and controller platform. Bosch DS150i 2-door controllers manage the electric strikes and magnetic locks at all 60 doors, networked via the campus LAN. The APE platform provides centralised management of all access permissions, scheduling, and audit logging.

Access levels are defined by programme and year of study:

• Engineering students (all levels): access to their programme's designated laboratory buildings 08:00-20:00 weekdays, 08:00-17:00 Saturdays
• Science students: access to science laboratory building, programme-appropriate laboratory suites
• All registered students: access to library reading rooms, computer labs
• Dormitory residents: access to their specific dormitory building 24 hours (with night-mode single-access per card per entry)
• Staff: building access 07:00-21:00 weekdays
• Security-cleared cleaning staff: building-specific access 18:00-22:00

SIS Integration — Oracle API: ZKBio Access software connects to the university's Oracle SIS database via a REST API integration developed by SSAL's software team in collaboration with the university's IT department. The integration runs a synchronisation process every 2 hours, which:

• Activates card access for newly enrolled students (based on new records in SIS)
• Updates access levels when students change programmes or year of study (detected by programme code changes in SIS)
• Suspends card access for students with registration cancelled, fees non-payment flag, or disciplinary suspension status in SIS
• Reactivates cards when suspension conditions are cleared in SIS

The automation means that when the student registration office updates a student's status in SIS — for any reason — the corresponding change to their physical building access is propagated automatically within 2 hours, without any manual intervention from the security or facilities team.

Emergency Access Override: All controlled doors are configured with fail-safe electric strikes that unlock automatically on fire alarm activation (relay connected to the campus fire alarm panel) and can be unlocked globally from the APE security management workstation by the security supervisor in an emergency. A physical manual release is also provided on each door for mechanical override.

Audit Reporting: The APE audit log records every card presentation at every reader — successful and failed — with student identity, door, and timestamp. Weekly access reports are generated for each faculty's laboratory manager, showing which students accessed their laboratories and when. Failed access attempts (card presentations by students who do not have access to a particular building) are reported in a daily exceptions report to the campus security office.