Setting up a Detex guard tour system - by Detex, all this information came from Detex.

General:
As a general statement, the purpose of a guard tour system is to ensure that security officers are present at specific locations at specific time intervals; to prove that the officers were or were not present at those location at those time intervals, and to provide documentation of those facts.  The Detex guard tour system may allow the documentation to indicate the names of the officers performing the tours, and permit the officers to record events or conditions that they observe while performing the tours.  Such events or incidents generally pertain to security, safety, maintenance, or other operational issues.

Guard Tour System Components:
A Detex guard tour system consists of data points - checkpoints (RFID tags), one of which is physically installed at each location that a security officer is to visit. The officer carries a device to read the checkpoint at each location; this device is referred to as the data acquisition unit - the Detex DAU.  In the Detex systems, this device may be the Escorte - which reads magnetic data strips, or the ProxiPen which reads RFID tags. As the officer visits each checkpoint and reads the RFID tag, the ProxiPen records the time, date, and the checkpoints unique identification number.

The Detex guard tour system also incudes a device for downloading the data acquired durig the tour from the DAU.  This device is referred to as the data transfer unit, the Detex DAU.