Handover at 7am
The night controller is tired. She tells the day controller that the mobile unit went to an alarm at the industrial estate and is waiting for the keyholder, that the guard at the car dealership reported feeling unwell and a supervisor is on the way, and that a client rang about tomorrow's extra cover. The day controller nods, writes some of it down and takes the first call of the day.
At 9am the client who rang about extra cover rings again, annoyed that nobody got back to them. The notes are in the night controller's notebook. The alarm callout has finished, but whether the keyholder attended is in a spreadsheet the day controller has not opened. The supervisor visit to the unwell guard is not logged anywhere the day controller can see.
Why control room information scatters
Control rooms grow system by system: the alarm monitoring software, the welfare call sheet, the keyholding spreadsheet, the phone, a notebook for anything else. Each holds part of the picture. There is no single list of what is open, so handover depends on the controller remembering to mention it.
| Event type | Where it is logged now |
|---|---|
| Alarm activation and response | Alarm software, then a callout spreadsheet |
| Welfare checks | A sheet or a separate app |
| Guard issues, such as illness | Notebook |
| Client requests by phone | Notebook or email |
| Keyholder attendance | Keyholding spreadsheet |
What scattered logs cost
Things fall between shifts: callbacks not made, issues not followed up, client requests forgotten. Clients notice, and it is the kind of service failure that is hard to explain away. If an event is later investigated, the record is in several pieces with gaps. Controllers waste time looking across systems. And managers cannot see the control room's workload, so staffing decisions are guesswork.
One control room log with handover built in
- Every event is logged in one place with a type, site, time, who logged it and a status of open, in progress or closed.
- Events from other systems, such as alarm activations, missed welfare checks and patrol alerts, arrive in the log automatically where those systems can send them.
- Phone calls from clients and guards are logged with a quick form, including callbacks promised and by when.
- Each event keeps a timeline of actions: calls made, units dispatched, keyholders contacted, outcomes.
- Open events are always visible on a board, sorted by urgency, so nothing depends on memory.
- At handover, the outgoing controller reviews open events and adds a note to each. The incoming controller confirms they have read the handover, and the time is recorded.
- Managers see workload by hour and event type, which shows when the control room is stretched, and when it is quiet enough to take on new contracts.
- Callbacks promised to clients have a due time and an alert.
- Every event can be exported with its timeline if a client or insurer asks.
- Controllers can search past events by site or client.
The same handover with the log
At 7am the day controller opens the board and sees three open events: the alarm callout, waiting for keyholder confirmation; the unwell guard, with the supervisor en route; and the client's extra cover request, with a callback due by 10am. The night controller has added a note to each. The day controller confirms the handover and gets on with it. The client gets their callback at 9.30.
The alarm software and welfare system stay as they are. The log sits over the top and joins them up.
Getting controllers to use it is mostly about speed. Logging a phone call has to be quicker than writing it in the notebook, so the forms are short, the site and client are picked from a list as you type, and the common event types are one click. We set it up with your controllers, watch a few shifts, and cut anything that slows them down, because a log nobody fills in during a busy night is no better than the notebook it replaced.
Is your handover a conversation?
- Open items are passed on by word of mouth.
- Logs are split between software, spreadsheets and notebooks.
- Client callbacks get missed between shifts.
- Investigating an event means gathering several records.
- You cannot see how busy the control room is by hour.