★Carried & Installed
Genetec video & access management · Kansas City.
IntegrateIT carries and installs Genetec across the Kansas City metro — the software that records the cameras, decides at the door and reads the plate at the gate, so an event and its video are one record. One precision first, because the trade is sloppy about this word: Genetec is a line we carry and install under distribution, not one we hold our own dealer agreement on, so we do not call ourselves an authorized Genetec dealer. What we are is the people who walk the site, design what has to be one system before anything is bought, and commission what we install. Phone: (913) 804-7575 or office@integrateit.tech.
What we carry and install from Genetec
Genetec describes its platform as a unified security platform on an open architecture where you choose your own hardware, and the product names below are its own, read off its product pages. It is software, so the work is in what it is paired with and how it is commissioned. We specify, install and commission to order.
- Security Center. The platform that incorporates access control, video surveillance, automatic license plate recognition and communications into a single solution, with a desktop interface and web and mobile apps. Genetec says capabilities can be turned on as a system grows. It is what our commercial surveillance designs sit on when the site wants one record rather than three.
- Omnicast. Genetec’s video management system and part of Security Center. It supports a range of IP cameras and encoders, and the Axis and Avigilon cameras we install are checked against Genetec’s supported-device list, model by model. Genetec lists evidence management, video analytics and data protection features, and Security Center Federation for watching several sites from one place.
- Synergis. Genetec’s access control system: cardholders, credentials, readers, door controllers and locks managed in one place, with ClearID available to manage access rights by role. Genetec lists proximity cards, smart cards, PINs, biometrics, license plates and mobile credentials among the credential types. This is the software behind our access control scope when a building wants it. Genetec also lists the Synergis Cloud Link, which it describes as an access control IoT gateway.
- Axis Powered by Genetec. Synergis software combined with supported Axis network door controllers in one unit, with local logic that Genetec says keeps working through a network, power or server outage. It is the clean answer where the building is already built on Axis.
- AutoVu. Genetec’s automatic license plate recognition, fixed or mobile. The fixed device is the AutoVu SharpV, which detects plates and streams video inside Security Center; the AutoVu SharpZ3 is the mobile device. Where a gate needs a plate read we compare it with Vaxtor per site, as our driveway and perimeter page describes.
- Security Center SaaS. The cloud-native version, bringing video, access control, intrusion and communications together, with cloud-managed appliances that Genetec says run video, access control, intrusion detection and communications on one device. Genetec says it can be deployed in the cloud, on-premises or as a mix, which matters for a site that cannot move everything at once.
- Communications, intrusion and decision tools. Sipelia is Genetec’s communications management system, Mission Control is its collaborative decision management system, and Security Center takes intrusion panels in through an integration. We mention these so you know they exist; we scope them only when a site has a reason to ask.
How a Genetec site gets designed
Software that unifies video and doors is only as good as the decisions made before the first camera goes up. These are the ones we make on paper.
- Start from the event you need. A forced door with its camera, a gate that opens for a known plate, a delivery that never leaves the lobby. We write the list of events that have to be one record, and the design is whatever delivers them.
- Check the device list before the order. Each camera model and each door controller is checked against Genetec’s supported-device list, and the software release is named in the proposal. For the controller layer we look at HID Mercury and the Axis door controllers.
- Servers, storage and the network are part of the system. Recording capacity is sized from the camera list and the retention you need, and the cameras sit on their own lane with their own switch capacity. Our commercial network and rack build scopes exist because of this.
- Commissioning means causing the events. We open a door and watch the camera call up, drive a plate past the reader, and unplug a link to see what each device does alone. Alarms and notifications go to the people who will answer them, named in the document.
- Documentation and a calm update plan. Device addresses, labels, administrator credentials, the software and support terms and the design file land in your portal, and software updates are scheduled with you, so nobody finds out after the fact that a release changed a screen.
Where Genetec sits beside the other lines we carry
Genetec is software you choose deliberately, usually for a commercial site that wants video, doors and plates managed together. When the site wants one vendor for cameras and access as a suite, Avigilon is the comparison. When the site is small or medium and already on UniFi, Ubiquiti UniFi is the proportionate answer and the one our residential surveillance page leads with. Genetec earns its place when a site mixes camera makers, Axis among them, has many doors, and needs records that hold up.
Common questions
Who installs Genetec in Kansas City?
IntegrateIT (Overland Park, KS) carries and installs Genetec across the Kansas City metro — commercial buildings and gated entries on both sides of the state line, and larger properties out to Lee’s Summit. To be precise about the relationship, because the trade is sloppy about this word: Genetec is a line we carry and install under distribution, not one we hold our own dealer agreement on, so we do not call ourselves an authorized Genetec dealer. What we do is walk the site, specify the software and the cameras and door hardware under it, install and commission the system, and leave you the documentation. Phone: (913) 804-7575 or office@integrateit.tech.
What is Security Center, and how do Omnicast and Synergis fit inside it?
Security Center is Genetec’s platform, and Genetec describes it as bringing access control, video surveillance, automatic license plate recognition and communications into one solution. The pieces have their own names. Omnicast is the video management system, the software that records and serves the camera video. Synergis is the access control system, which manages cardholders, readers, door controllers and locks. AutoVu is the plate recognition. Genetec says capabilities can be switched on as a system grows, so a site can begin with video and add doors later without starting over. The point of putting them in one platform is that a door event and the video of it become one record rather than two systems you reconcile by timestamp.
Does Genetec work with the cameras and door hardware you install?
Genetec describes its platform as open architecture with a published supported-device list, and that list is what we check, model by model, before a design is final. We install Axis and Avigilon cameras, and a model that is not on the list gets changed in the design rather than promised in the proposal. At the door, Genetec also lists a combined option called Axis Powered by Genetec, which pairs Synergis software with supported Axis network door controllers, and names HID among the makers whose readers, door controllers and locks Synergis works with. Anything outside the list is a conversation before the order, not after the install.
Can Genetec read license plates at a gate?
Yes. AutoVu is Genetec’s plate recognition, with fixed and mobile devices; its fixed device, the AutoVu SharpV, detects plates and streams video inside Security Center. Plate reading is a geometry job whichever engine does it: a camera dedicated to the plate, aimed at a shallow angle where vehicles are slow, at a gate or a pinch point rather than on a straight open approach. We also install Vaxtor plate recognition, and Vaxtor’s own site describes a third-party ALPR plugin into Security Center, so the engine is chosen per site and the video, the plate read and the access decision still land in one place. A known-plate list can then open the gate for family and the regular landscaper and escalate an unrecognised plate.
Is Genetec the right choice for a house or a small business?
Usually not, and we will say so. Genetec positions Security Center for organizations that want video, access and plates managed in one platform, and that is a commercial scale of problem. A house, or a business with a few doors and a handful of cameras, is better served by a proportionate system; our residential surveillance and smart-lock pages lead with those. Genetec earns its place on a multi-building commercial site, a gated entry that has to tie plates to doors and cameras, or a property with a separate commercial-style building where the records have to hold up.
What does a Genetec install involve, and what happens afterwards?
A site walk first, because the design is a cable, a sightline and a records problem before it is a software one: what must be recorded, who needs to see it, which doors and cameras must show up as one event, and where the server and the switch will live. Then installation, commissioning and documentation — every device labelled, addressed and recorded, with the design and the settings landing in your portal with the rest of the project record. Software and support terms are Genetec’s own, and we write them into the proposal so you read them before you sign. Software updates are scheduled with you rather than applied unannounced. Our installation carries a five-year workmanship warranty from the final invoice.
Tell us the events that have to be one record. The platform follows.
Or read about commercial surveillance · access control · driveway and perimeter detection · commercial networking
Written by Daniel Alon, founder of IntegrateIT LLC, with twenty years in IT and AV integration — Control4 Platinum Dealer, Crestron Elite Partner, Lutron Certified Installer, CEDIA member, HTA Certified. Overland Park, KS.