About federated entities

Federated entities do not belong to your local system. You can view and manipulate them in your local system, but you cannot change their native settings. In Config Tool, you can easily identify federated entities by the yellow arrow that is superimposed on their entity icon (for example, here is a federated alarm entity —

).

NOTE: In Security Desk, the yellow arrow is not displayed on federated entities.

The following federated entities only apply to one Federation™ type:

– Federated door entity (Security Center Federation™ only)
– Federated elevator entity (Security Center Federation™ only)
– Federated cardholder entity (Security Center Federation™ only)
– Federated credential entity (Security Center Federation™ only)
– Federated virtual camera entity (Omnicast™ Federation™ only)

What entities are federated in Security Center

The following entities can be federated from a remote Security Center system:

Component	Entities
Video	Cameras and camera sequences.
Access control	Access control units, doors, elevators, cardholders, cardholder groups, credentials, intrusion detection units, and intrusion detection areas.
LPR	LPR units and Genetec Patroller™ units.
General	Alarms, cash registers, networks, areas and maps, zones, output behaviors, and custom events. Limitation: ArcGIS maps are only federated in version 5.7 and later. If you federate an older system (5.6 and earlier) that federates a system with an ArcGIS map, you will not be able to see the ArcGIS map in your system.

Roles, servers, partitions, and other entities not listed in the preceding list will not be federated.

NOTE: Visitors and visitor groups are different from cardholders and cardholder groups and are not federated.

What you can do with federated entities in Security Desk

You can perform the following operations on federated entities in Security Desk:

View live or playback video from federated cameras.
Add bookmarks, start and stop recording, and export video from federated cameras.
Control federated PTZ cameras (except PTZ locking).
Switch cameras on CCTV matrices using virtual cameras federated from Omnicast™ 4.x.
View, start and stop cycling, pack and unpack federated camera sequences.
Receive, acknowledge, snooze, forward, start and stop cycling, pack and unpack federated alarms.
View and control federated tile plugins.
Lock and unlock federated doors.
Arm and disarm federated intrusion detection areas.
Arm and disarm federated zones.

What you can configure with federated entities

You can make the following changes to federated entities on your local system:

You can assign logical IDs to federated entities. The logical ID is a local attribute associated with the federated entity to uniquely identify it within the Federation™.
You can assign local entity names to federated entities. The original entity names remain visible in Config Tool for troubleshooting purposes.
You can update the custom fields associated to federated entities. Custom fields are local to the Federation™ host.
You can choose what events you want to receive from the federated system. Based on these events, you can define event-to-actions for federated entities. The actions can either be executed on the Federation™ host or on the federated system.
You can view their activity and audit trail reports in the report pane.
You can control the visibility of the federated entities to your local users using partitions.
You can configure visual tracking for cameras federated from Omnicast™ systems.
You can use federated entities to configure local entities, such as attaching federated cameras to local entities, or using them to define local alarms and camera sequences.

Limitations of federated entities

You cannot do the following with federated entities:

You cannot change the properties of federated entities on the remote system. You can only overwrite certain properties, such as the entity name and the logical ID, locally on your system.
You cannot view the custom fields defined on the remote system. Custom fields are not federated.
Actions performed on federated entities, such as arming a zone or adding a bookmark to a camera, are not logged in the activity trails of the federated system.
NOTE: There is one exception to this limitation. Export video actions are logged in both activity trails. On the Federation™ host (local system), the user who performed the activity is logged as the initiator. On the federated system (remote system), the initiator is the Federation™ user, and the user who performed the activity on the Federation™ host is logged as the original initiator. Remote activity logging only works if the federated system is running Security Center 5.7 or later.

Exceptions for federated alarms

Not all alarm properties are federated. Most properties pertaining to the alarm display in Security Desk must be configured locally on the Federation™ host.

The exceptions for federated alarms are the following:

The alarm schedule follows the original configuration of the remote system. Because schedule entities are not federated, the default schedule Always is shown instead.
Alarm priority:
- Omnicast™: Original value is not federated. You can configure it (default=1) locally on the Federation™ host.
- Security Center: Original value is federated and cannot be modified.
Reactivation threshold is an inherent property of the alarm and cannot be modified.
Entity cycling is a local property to the Federation™ host. You can change its setting and it will not affect the federated system.
Automatic acknowledgement is an inherent property of the alarm and cannot be modified.
Create an incident on acknowledgement is a local property to the Federation™ host. You can change its setting and it will not affect the federated system.
Automatic video recording is an inherent property of the alarm and cannot be modified.
Protect recorded video is an inherent property of the alarm and cannot be modified.
Video display is a local property to the Federation™ host. You can change its setting and it will not affect the federated system.
Alarm procedure (URL):
- Omnicast™: Original value is not federated. You can configure it locally on the Federation™ host.
- Security Center: Original value is federated and cannot be modified.
Entities that are associated to the federated alarm (cameras, doors, and so on) are inherent properties of the alarm and cannot be modified.
Alarm recipients must always be configured locally for the Federation™ host.