How to Deploy GUARDIAN RFID
Getting Started
On average, the implementation process for GUARDIAN RFID generally takes around 90 days. There are six phases in our implementation process. This Implementation Guideline document breaks down these phases in more detail.
You’ll meet with our onboarding team first, led by your project manager, who’ll coordinate a kick-off call. This is generally a WebEx meeting. We delegate certain tasks, such as initiating integration discussions with your enterprise software vendor (if this hasn’t already happened). We’ll review other tasks, such as your Wi-FI needs. If you haven’t yet started rolling out Wi-Fi, we’ll coordinate a game plan with your IT department or networking vendor. (Check out this blog, Do I need Wi-Fi to use GUARDIAN RFID?)
There are onboarding resources we’ll share with your entire team from line staff to command staff so that every user, at every level, understands the complete scope of use, what GUARDIAN RFID will aim to accomplish near and long-term.
What's Tag Mapping?
Hard Tags are hardened RFID sensors that are strategically deployed throughout your facility that are scanned by SPARTAN to automate a wide range of data collection workflows. Hard Tags are generally assigned to pods/dorms/cellblocks, as well as individual cells, out of cell areas, and other locations where confirming staff proof of presence is critical to log cell checks, headcounts, meal and recreation, and more. This blog, What You Need to Know About Hardened RFID Tags: What They Are, Where to Mount Them, and How to Use Them?
Your Project Manager will go through a tag mapping exercise to identify all tag locations and tag names. We’ll also individually label and activate your Hard Tags with the exact installation point for your convenience. Your Hard Tags go through two rounds of quality assurance testing for tag mapping accuracy. They’ll ship to your facility. Out of the box, your Hard Tags are ready for deployment.
Integrating with your Jail Management, Offender Management, or Records Management System?
An important phase of implementation is ensuring that the integration between GUARDIAN RFID and your enterprise software is installed, configured, and running properly.
Your vendor’s team and ours will go through quality assurance testing and confirm that the interface is running properly to our Cloud. This just takes a few minutes. We’ll provide your username and login credentials to your Cloud instance, and review details together, such as your inmate population count, for accuracy. We can also walk you through the high points of our Cloud platform. (In pre-training and on-site training, we’ll cover features and functions in greater detail.)
Just so that you’re aware, GUARDIAN RFID has a deep portfolio of completed interfaces with a wide range of enterprise software systems. Our integration partners page lists our portfolio of completed interfaces.
Some of our partners, like Spillman Technologies, Zuercher Technologies, and TriTech, are Certified Integration Partners of GUARDIAN RFID. You can also review our JMS integration reviews to learn more details about certain interfaces.
If you’re deploying GUARDIAN RFID with an enterprise software system that we don’t have a common customer with yet, don’t worry: our implementation team builds new interfaces frequently and has Integration documents to share with you and your vendor.
What is Pre-Training?
Pre-training enables your team and ours to comprehensively review your use of GUARDIAN RFID. Invite potential super users, select supervisors, and leadership team members to discuss policies and procedures that may need to be created or modified prior to go-live.
This can include, for example, reviewing the use of Compliance Monitor to measure real-time performance of your security rounds and explaining to staff the notifications and emails that can be auto-generated. It can also include reviewing modules like headcount and ensuring staff know the proper procedure to execute formal (or “positive ID”) headcounts and informal counts.
The pre-training meeting generally lasts 60-75 minutes and is coordinated via WebEx. Our implementation team will send policy and procedure questions prior to pre-training for internal discussion.How do Hard Tags mount?
How Does On-Site Training Work?
On-site training includes a series of 4-hour classes that provide detailed hands-on instruction of GUARDIAN RFID. Our Chief Trainer, Greg Piper, leads groups of all sizes on how to use SPARTAN, Mobile Command, how to properly create and apply inmate wristbands, use reports, and more.
During training, Greg assembles multiple groups ranging from two to four participants and walks the entire class through specific use cases and scenarios. Repetitive, hands-on instruction, helps build proficiency and muscle memory. (And come prepared to be tested by Greg’s deep love of movies and movie trivia).
On-site training is an engaging and collaborative experience for attendees. We encourage all GUARDIANs to attend training, versus train-the-trainer approaches to learning. The best results come from having GUARDIAN RFID lead all training efforts. Our training system has been in place for over a decade. It effectively educates all staff members — regardless of their perceived (or real) lack of technical proficiency — to confidently use GUARDIAN RFID immediately.
What Happens During Go-Live?
Go-Live is scheduled within hours of the last training class. If some of your SPARTANs were used during training, our Tech Support team will remotely refresh from sandbox settings to Go-Live. The advantage of never pausing between training and Go-Live is that there’s little to no loss of information sharing. In fact, for many staff members, they’re going to apply their newfound knowledge within hours of receiving it.
During this phase, our implementation team will be on-site to shadow your Go-Live efforts. We’ll walk with you during the first few days of use. Every shift receives Go-Live Shadowing. If you have a question, we’re right next to you or just a few pods away. Go-Live Shadowing is also a great way to further optimize your use of GUARDIAN RFID, and our implementation team will provide recommendations that they may see.
Our Facility is Now Live with GUARDIAN RFID. What's Next?
Following implementation and Go-Live, your Customer Success leader will introduce themselves to you and ask how training and Go-Live was executed. GUARDIAN RFID Team Members are trained to be obsessive about your satisfaction. They’ll ask questions, such as:
What did you like about the implementation, training, and Go-Live process?
What can we improve about any of these processes?
Is there anything you need right now to be successful?
Your Customer Success leader will follow up every few weeks in the first 90 days. After six months, they’ll check-in quarterly.
Periodically, you’ll receive a single question survey via email: on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend GUARDIAN RFID to a colleague? Our goal is to aim for all 9 and 10 responses. If you answer anything below 9, let us know what we can do (or could have done) to have earned a 9 or 10 score next time.