If the client wishes to have officers record incidents that they observe while performing the tours, he should prepare a list of the incident descriptions that he wants to appear in the tour reports.  Incidents are recorded by having the officer carry a wallet-sized “incident book” with him while performing the tours.  The incident book contains a number of data points (20 for the Detex Escorte, 12 for the Detex ProxiPen); each data point is assigned a description in the guard tour software.  A list of the descriptions is written into the incident book.  As the officer performs the tour, if he observes an event or condition described in the incident book, he first reads with the DAU the checkpoint that identifies his location, then reads the data point in the incident book that describes the incident.

With these lists of tours and checkpoint descriptions (and, if desired, officer names and incident descriptions) in hand, the next step is to install the guard tour software on the client’s computer. The data transfer unit should be connected to the computer (either to a serial port or a USB port) and the DTU’s power supply connected to the DTU and to power.  In the ProxiPen system, it is then necessary to configure the DTU (primarily to set the correct time zone).

The DAU (either Escorte or ProxiPen) should be placed in the DTU and interrogated with the software’s utility function.  This function is used to configure the DTU for the correct port setting to ensure communication between the software and the DAU, ans also to set the clock in the DAU to the PC’s system time.  Once this is done, you can begin to program the tours into the software.

Let’s assume that a tour has 20 checkpoints, including the start point.  The simplest way to set up the tour is to lay out on a table or desk 20 data points (magnetic or RFID tags) and to number them from 1 to 20 (with a piece of masking tape, for example).  The list of checkpoints for that tour should also be numbered in order from 1 to 20, beginning with “1” for the start point.

With a cleared DAU (no data in the memory), read the 20 data points in order from 1 to 20.  Then download the 20 data point readings into the software.  The procedures for assigning the data points to a tour vary, depending on the software: In WinArgus for example, the 20 downloaded data point readings  must be converted to a “master file” that contains the tour.  In TopGuard Patrol, the 20 data point readings go into a “pool” from which they are selected and assigned to a tour.  Check the software’s documentation for th appropriate procedures.