Introduction

It is becoming more common for different parts of a Vector rollout to be done by different companies, with the physical installation often being done by different people to the configuration of a device.

This section details what you need to be aware of when looking to sub contract out the installation and then do the main configuration remotely.

Essentially it must be made clear that installing a Vector device on the ceiling and walking away will leave the device isolated and unreachable in the vast majority of cases. There is a certain amount of pre-configuration and/or knowledge of the local network required before a device can be accessed remotely, and in some cases before a device can be accessed locally too.
In all cases, make sure that devices have established a remote connection before the installation team leaves site.

 

Network Setup

As a bare minimum devices must be connected to the in house network once physically installed. This is clearly a physical cable connection but also requires some setup of the device also.

It should be noted that by default all devices will be configured to use the same default static IP address. So it is not possible to install devices and walk away without also making network settings changes.

To minimize the amount of setup required devices can be configured to use DHCP before being shipped to site, but this requires an accessible DHCP server to be available.

Alternatively static IPs can be configured instead but care should be taken to make sure all devices have a unique IP which isn't going to conflict with either, other Vectors, or more importantly, some other networked device already on site. 

See here for details of the Network settings required.

 

Device Identification

It should be pointed out that if you install a number of devices and they all connect into an Estate Manager instance you'll need to have some method of identifying each one remotely in order to correctly configure the counting line directions and so that you can correctly assign data received from each one to the correct part of the database for reporting correctly later. Don't forget that the overhead view provided by the Counting tab may not be sufficient to be able to recognize the doorway. One way of identifying the devices is to make a note of each ones serial number and its location as they are installed. A better way would be to assign identifying settings to the Site details tab of each device.

See here for details of the Site settings available.

 

Wide Tracker Settings

If multiple devices are going to be used together as part of a 'Wide Tracker' installation in order to cover a wide doorway, or a large area, then additional steps will be required.

Devices installed in a wide tracker configuration require details of their relative positions to be entered so that tracking between field of views can be maintained. This means that the distances between each device on the ceiling must either be set at time of installation or noted down for entering remotely later.

This step is very important as it is not possible to know how far apart devices have been installed away from each via a remote connection alone. 

Additionally, devices need to have their master/node status configuring, which can also be done at time of installation, or remotely, if all devices are connected into Estate Manager.

See here for details of the Wide Tracker settings required.