About federated entities - Security Center 5.11

Federated entities don't belong to your local system but you can view and manipulate them in the Federation™ host system. Starting in Security Center 5.8 GA, you can also change the native settings of federated entities using the Remote configuration task.

In Config Tool, federated entities have a yellow arrow superimposed on their entity icon (for example, here’s a federated alarm entity: ). In Security Desk, the yellow arrow isn’t displayed on federated entities.

What entities are federated in Security Center

The following entities and related events can be federated from a remote system:

Component	Entities
Video	Cameras Camera sequences Virtual cameras (Omnicast™ Federation only)
Access control	Access control units Doors (Security Center Federation only) Elevators (Security Center Federation only) Cardholders (Security Center Federation only) Cardholder groups Visitors (Security Center Federation only) Credentials (Security Center Federation only) Intrusion detection units Intrusion detection areas
ALPR	ALPR units Genetec Patroller™ units
General	Alarms Areas Cash registers Networks Maps Zones Output behaviors Custom events Records and Record updated 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 can’t see the ArcGIS map in your system.

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, taking into account the user level of the local users on the Federation host, when conflicts arise between federating users.
Send specific commands to federated cameras, such as arm and disarm a camera for video analytics.
Switch cameras on CCTV matrices using virtual cameras federated from Omnicast 4.x.
View, start, and stop cycling; pack and unpack federated camera sequences.
Restrict users from viewing a segment or entire video capture by blocking the camera.
Receive, acknowledge, snooze, forward, start and stop cycling, pack and unpack federated alarms.
View and control federated tile plugins.
Unlock federated doors of an area.
Temporarily override the schedule of a federated door.
Set a federated door in maintenance mode.
Shunt a federated door's reader and inputs.
Change a federated area's minimum security clearance on threat level.
Sound and silence reader buzzers.
Monitor federated input and output states on maps. Fast-changing output states, such as blinking, might not be displayed properly.
Monitor federated devices in the System status task.
Monitor the people count in federated areas. For more information, see About people counting through Federation™.
Sending federated output behaviors to federated outputs, if both belong to the same system.
Arm and disarm federated intrusion detection areas.
Arm and disarm federated zones.
View federated records and record types in Unified report task.

What you can configure with federated entities

You can make the following changes to federated entities on the Federation host:

Assign logical IDs to federated entities. The logical ID is a local attribute associated with the federated entity to identify it uniquely within the Federation.
Assign local entity names to federated entities. The original entity names remain visible in Config Tool for troubleshooting purposes.
Update the custom fields associated to federated entities. Custom fields are local to the Federation host.
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 be run either on the Federation host or on the federated system.
View their activity and audit trail reports in the report pane.
Control the visibility of the federated entities to your local users using partitions.
Configure visual tracking for cameras federated from Omnicast systems.
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.
Assign local cameras to federated doors to display camera feeds in Security Desk. This relationship remains local; the camera isn’t shared with the federated system.

Limitations of federated entities

Federated entities have the following limitations:

You can't view the custom fields defined on the remote system. Custom fields aren’t federated.
Actions performed on federated entities, such as arming a zone or adding a bookmark to a camera, aren’t logged in the activity trails of the federated system.
NOTE: There’s one exception to this limitation. Export video actions are logged in both activity trails. On the Federation host, the user who performed the activity is logged as the initiator. On the federated 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.
You can't add records to federated record types on maps.
Visitors are only federated so that people counting can work for federated areas. In the Visitor management task, federated visitor can’t be checked in, checked out, deleted, or modified, except for adding credentials. Visitors on systems earlier than 5.10.2.0 can’t be federated.
NOTE: If you don’t want to see in the Visitor management task all federated visitors that are still checked in, you can move the visitors to partitions that aren’t synchronized through Federation.

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 aren’t federated, the default schedule Always is shown instead.
Alarm priority:
- Omnicast: Original value isn’t federated. You can configure it (default=1) locally on the Federation host.
- Security Center: Original value is federated and can’t be modified.
Reactivation threshold is an inherent property of the alarm and can’t be modified.
Entity cycling is a local property to the Federation host. You can change its setting without affecting the federated system.
Automatic acknowledgment is an inherent property of the alarm and can’t be modified.
Create an incident on acknowledgment is a local property to the Federation host. You can change its setting without affecting the federated system.
Automatic video recording is an inherent property of the alarm and can’t be modified.
Protect recorded video is an inherent property of the alarm and can’t be modified.
Video display is a local property to the Federation host. You can change its setting without affecting the federated system.
Alarm procedure (URL):
- Omnicast: Original value isn’t federated. You can configure it locally on the Federation host.
- Security Center: Original value is federated and can’t be modified.
Entities that are associated to the federated alarm (cameras, doors, and so on) are inherent properties of the alarm and can’t be modified.
Alarm recipients must always be configured locally for the Federation host.

Caution about federated record types

The Federation host creates a privilege for each federated record type, just as it does for local record types. The privilege is named after the record type. If a federated record type has the same name as a local record type, it would be impossible to differentiate which privilege is for the local record type and which privilege is for the federated record type.