When Should I...?
This document outlines the common decisions that Monitoring Companies must make to determine which type of account or system to create in a Manitou record. Your company's Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) may vary.
Create a separate account?
When you have a separate physical address, that requires a separate account in Manitou.
If there are suite numbers and different people to contact at the same address, based on the suite number or other delineation, then it may be useful to have separate accounts and relate them by another means.
Use Master and Related to Master?
A good rule of thumb is, “Do I need to know these accounts are related to put accounts On Test, or during Alarm Handling?”
If either is yes, but the accounts must be separate due to differing behavior per system, Master and Related to Master is a good way to keep them close.
For example, I have a school with a single address, but the campus has several buildings, and when an alarm trips at any building, the alarm drops to the first available operator. Creating a Master customer SCHOOLMASTER and relating all the accounts on that campus to that Master, the alarms, no matter which building trips, all stay with the first tracked operator. Each account is separate, and actions follow the account, but there is a much lower chance
of double dispatching because two or more individual operators got an alarm on a portion of the campus.
Use Main and Sub?
Main and Sub accounts are best used when there is one signaling communicator that, based on an area or zone, signals for different addresses or suite numbers.
Think of a Strip Mall, the fire panel may be located at 123A Main Street, but each business represents a zone on the fire panel. Main and Sub accounts allow for the ability to “push” the zones (or areas) that pertain to the other address, such as 123D Main Street, to that Sub account.
Create a Separate System on the Same Account?
The quick and easy rule of thumb to determine if you should create a separate system or just an additional transmitter is:
Are the areas and zones exactly the same? If not, create a separate system. If so, an additional transmitter under the same system will suffice.
Sometimes, even when the zones and areas are exactly the same, there is some differing behavior for signaling coming from the individual transmitters, then a separate system could be appropriate.