Introducing New Emergency Scenario Functionality to Access Control
As schools and workplaces navigate an increasingly complex security landscape, crisis response planning has become more critical than ever. Protecting students, staff, and other parties in a building requires thoughtful strategies for a wide range of emergencies, from severe weather to active threats.
To help organizations respond with greater precision and confidence, we're expanding beyond lockdowns to introduce a broader set of emergency response scenarios in Access Control. Leaders can now both lock and unlock doors during emergencies and design scenarios modeled after the “I Love U Guys” Foundation’s Standard Response Protocol (SRP) in Command.
The Standard Response Protocol
The ILUG’s Standard Response Protocol is an action-based framework that helps schools and workplaces respond to different emergencies in a clear and consistent way. It consists of five specific actions:
Hold: The protocol used when hallways need to be kept clear of occupants.
Secure: The protocol for locking outside doors to safeguard people within a building.
Lockdown: The protocol used to secure individual rooms and keep parties in place when active threats are in a building.
Evacuate: The protocol used to move people from one location to another, in or out of the building.
Shelter: The protocol used to provide specific guidance for different environmental hazards, like tornadoes, earthquakes, hazmat spills, and more.
Verkada Scenarios
We have evolved our lockdown functionality in Command to enable schools and other organizations to program response scenarios modeled after the SRP.
Under the "Scenarios" tab in Access Control, admins can now build custom configurations for any of the five SRP actions.
Next, admins can not only designate which doors should lock to keep threats out but can now also select which doors should unlock to facilitate a rapid evacuation or allow first responder entry. Admins can also configure a scenario with no door state changes at all: this is useful for signaling an emergency response – through sirens, strobes, or other alerting functionality – without affecting doors.
As before, admins can delegate specific permissions to staff for activating lockdowns, releasing lockdowns, or unlocking doors while scenarios are in effect.
Beyond changing the state of doors, all scenarios can be configured to trigger automated alerts sent to web, SMS, and mobile apps.
Scenarios can be activated via Command web, Command mobile app and Pass app, mounted panic buttons, and third-party platforms via API. Once a scenario is activated, a color-coded tile will appear in the bottom left of the Command interface, providing instant visual confirmation of the scenario in effect.
Clicking on this tile will bring the user to the “Active Emergencies” tab, where they can see additional details and manage the scenario. This view aggregates all live emergencies – from access control scenarios to raised alarms – across every site.
With these changes, schools and workplaces can more confidently and precisely respond to different emergencies impacting their campuses.
Availability
The new “Scenarios” experience will be available in Command to all organizations on May 14, 2026. For more information, contact your sales representatives or consult our Lockdown and Scenarios Overview doc.
