As millions of Americans receive their COVID-19 vaccinations, workplaces and schools are showing signs of life. Meanwhile, IT professionals find themselves with a new role to manage and track their personnel safely and effectively.

In fact, this January the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provided updated guidance and recommendations to assist employers in providing a safe, healthy workplace. Identifying control measures to limit the spread of the virus is an essential element in this initiative—a responsibility that many IT departments must now assume.

Contactless attendance tracking software and authentication solutions are already playing a critical role in office environments, schools (related article here) and healthcare facilities.

Recently, a major healthcare provider engaged rf IDEAS® and partner World Wide Technology (WWT) to implement a contact tracing solution across 800 locations serving thousands of employees… all in four weeks. (related case study here)

The key elements of this successful partnership includes experience, simplicity and collaboration. Whether it’s an application involving student attendance tracking software, a corporate setting utilizing meeting attendance tracking software, or another application of a contact tracing tool, these three factors are at the heart of any deployment.

Experience

According to WWT solutions engineer Matthew Stein, many IT professionals have traditionally viewed attendance tracking as a security, HR or legal department role since it had to do with managing liability.

Suddenly, IT is faced with protecting employees or students using attendance tracking software and related readers. This is where a powerful partnership of software and hardware experts can make a vital difference.

“In most cases, every company’s legal and HR teams are already thinking about managing the responsibility for potential outbreaks,” Stein says. “IT is usually at the end of the conversation.” 

In addition, IT people may not have familiarity with working with credential readers, which are often considered a security issue.

Quickly understanding the implications of a robust contact tracing application, creating a unique and workable solution for a specific workplace or school, and deploying the technology as rapidly as possible requires outside consultation by a partner who’s already faced similar challenges. It takes innovative, big-picture ideas based on experience and practical approaches. And, of course, it relies on a portfolio of leading-edge technologies.

Stein notes, “Our goal is to demonstrate solutions that have worked so that IT can go to HR and legal and say, ‘This has been used elsewhere. Are you even thinking about this [solution].’ We want to educate IT to the ‘art of the possible.’”

Simplicity

While the pandemic has introduced a new layer of pressure, IT professionals must keep a level head when implementing their attendance tracker and specifying contact tracing tools.

The wide array of WAVE ID® readers featuring Bluetooth® technology deliver new TAP+KNOW™ options for safe, no-touch attendance tracking applications. Set-up is simplified and the versatility of existing WAVE ID readers reduces the time and expense for organizations when adding new software applications to meet their emerging needs.

On the user side, these contactless readers offer a similar level of familiarity and simplicity. In the recent healthcare application with WWT, it was crucial that thousands of employees could immediately self-screen as they entered the workplace with the simple tap of a credential versus trying to operate a complicated mobile app.

“Every user knows how to scan a badge,” Stein says. “They do it every day, 40 times a day, every time they enter a door. So when you think about the training requirements, this healthcare company trained a quarter of a million people in two weeks because it was less than a five-minute training.”

Because the solution is based on self-reporting, it seamlessly built a sense of trust between the organization and employees. What’s more, the simplicity of tapping a credential versus opening an app or answering face-to-face screening questions saved countless hours of productivity.

Simplicity is also paramount in academic environments where student attendance tracking software and contactless reader technologies mean even young children can easily swipe a credential to support the school’s contact tracing efforts whether on the bus or in the classroom.

Collaboration

The power of a solid partnership is more important than ever in attendance tracking and contact tracing deployments. When a reseller or ISV works with rf IDEAS to innovate and deploy a unique solution, IT professionals have a one-stop shop that handles technical, installation and maintenance roles.

This collaborative partnership comes down to three key benefits:

  • Access to the right tools and technologies for the application
  • A common understanding of the task
  • A joint commitment to serve the needs of the customer

“rf IDEAS gives us the sense of confidence, the acuity, that what we were building and buying was going to meet the customer needs and was going to support the software being created,” says WWT’s Stein. “So that’s partnership. That’s the tight integration you need with OEMs …every step of the way, from design all the way to how do you acquire hardware in the middle of a pandemic?”

Now It’s Your Turn

See how WAVE ID readers are the ideal hardware component when paired with attendance tracking software and other contact tracing tools. Our leadership and unsurpassed expertise make the rf IDEAS team the ideal partner for resellers and ISVs focused on this critical category.

Contact your rf IDEAS representative for more information or email sales@rfIDEAS.com to talk to an expert today.

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