How Sentry, Beathan's guard post software, handles clock-in, the occurrence book, visitors, rosters and the control room for South African security companies.
Four on, four off and five on, five off both average 42 hours a week, but only one stays at 48 or under in every calendar week. The arithmetic behind a 12-hour roster, and building one in Sentry.
The page layout, the five columns, three filled-in entries and the rules that keep a paper OB believable, plus a printable A4 version emailed to you.
When an office worker takes leave a meeting moves. When a guard takes leave a post is unmanned and someone works a double. Generic HR software cannot tell the difference.
A supervisor's word against the guard's is all most operators have. Welfare checks give you a dated record, and give the guard a reason to answer.
Face recognition makes buddy clocking harder and more traceable. It does not make it impossible, and a vendor telling you otherwise is describing a product that does not exist.
All in order. 02:00. Signed. The most common occurrence book entry in the industry, and it protects nobody. Four things a useful entry answers instead.
The OB is the first thing a client or the police ask for after an incident. What it is for, what an OB number means, and why Sentry's digital OB has no incident types.
He says he is expected. Nobody told the guard, the site manager is unreachable, and there is a bakkie waiting. Whatever happens next, your guard decides alone.
On a single-guard night post, the next shift change can be the first time anyone notices something went wrong. How welfare checks shorten that gap, and how to choose the interval.
