Alsop High School is one of the largest secondary schools in the city of Liverpool, with nearly 1800 students, including over 300 in the sixth form. In 2010 the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme provided Alsop with £22 million to create new facilities and refurbish the 82 year old school’s existing premises and playground.

“The main reason that I wanted a fingerprint access system is to remove the need for students to carry access cards because they either don’t carry them or lose them!” says Safer Osmani. “I looked at several different fingerprint systems and I had three key criteria that had to be met. The first was size - could the reader handle a database of over 1000 users? The second was speed - was the identification fast with a database of over 1000 users? And the third was redundancy - did the reader store the fingerprint templates locally so access control decisions would continue if connection to the PC failed?

The reason that I chose the Controlsoft system was that it was a proven solution that met this criteria. The readers available can handle up to 50,000 users. The reader identifies a user in one second or less even with a database of 50,000 users and finally the user templates are stored locally in the reader so the PC does not need to be on-line for an access control decision.

Furthermore I was impressed by how easy it is to enrol a new user into the system using the Controlsoft software. In 2012, this system has ninety doors controlled by fingerprint readers, just over nine hundred students / staff enrolled and has been operational throughout the school for 2 and a half years now and I am still impressed with the quick identification speed of the readers and the overall performance of the system. I also get very good support from Controlsoft, as and when I need it, which is also very important.”

Jonathan Summers, Managing Director of Controlsoft Ltd, said “the fact that the Controlsoft door control units and fingerprint readers are IP-addressable has allowed the installer to use the school’s existing network cabling infrastrucure in these large buildings, thereby saving the school money and delivering a “greener” solution.

“The Controlsoft software makes it very easy to manage student’s access rights” says Safer Osmani. “I can typically enrol someone’s fingerprints in less than one minute. I then allocate them into a predefined access group and that is it. We also use free-access schedules on certain entry / exit doors so that students can free-flow through the building at busy times during the day.”

“The key to success of our system is the enrolment score” says Charlie Hicks, Sales Manager of Controlsoft Ltd. “When users are enrolled, our software provides a numeric score and colour (Green / Yellow / Red) indication so you know if the fingerprint is acceptable or requires re-enrolment. This ensures that the reader can identify every user, every time, in one second or less.”