Genetec plugin development
for Security Center.

What a Genetec plugin actually is

Security Center is a distributed system rather than a single application. A Directory coordinates roles; Security Desk is the operator client and Config Tool the administration client. A plugin is a .NET assembly that runs as a plugin role under that Directory, and optionally extends Security Desk on the operator side.

Built through the Genetec SDK, a plugin can own its own custom entity types, raise its own events, and take part in the same alarm and audit pipeline as native Security Center features. Done properly, an operator cannot tell which parts of the console Genetec shipped and which parts you commissioned — which is the point.

Where a plugin attaches

The plugin role

A headless service supervised by the Directory, with the failover and health monitoring that implies. This is where integration logic belongs — polling a third-party system, translating its state, and raising Security Center events from it.

Security Desk extensions

The operator-facing surface: custom tasks, tiles, map integration and controls that sit inside the console rather than beside it.

Custom entity types

Your devices and objects registered as first-class Security Center entities, so they inherit the platform's partitioning, privileges and audit behaviour instead of needing a parallel permissions model.

Config Tool integration

Administration for your plugin, in the tool administrators already use for everything else.

Inter-System Gateway and third-party bridges

For systems that need to reach Security Center from outside — perimeter intrusion panels, fence controllers, building systems. Our write-up on building a Genetec RSA fence driver with the ISG shows the pattern end to end.

Web SDK and REST

Where the consuming service lives outside the .NET process entirely.

What we are asked for most

• Access control event fusion — Genetec Synergis and third-party panels unified with video. We built exactly this for a bank, putting door events and video on one operator timeline.
• Perimeter intrusion integration — fence controllers and intrusion panels bridged in as native entities and alarms.
• LPR and ANPR — plate capture and watchlist alerting surfaced in Security Desk.
• Alarm routing and escalation — which is what XPlug.SmartNotifier does as a product.
• AI video search — plain-English search across the archive, which is what XPlug.Vision does.
• SIEM and audit export — events and audit trails pushed to your SIEM over syslog or REST.

Versions and deployment

We target Security Center 5.10 and above, on Security Desk, and build for the realities of large deployments — partitioning, privilege models, failover and the audit requirements that come with regulated sites. Plugins deploy into the Security Center the customer already runs; you point them at the Directory, map your entities and set your rules.

Partnership and certification

We are a Genetec Technology Partner and work within the Development Acceleration Program, so we hold the developer credentials and vendor relationships needed to ship production software into the ecosystem — and to get it certified rather than merely working. The Genetec SDK plugin guide covers the architecture in technical detail.

How an engagement runs

Discovery first — a short technical call where we work out whether what you want is even the right shape for a plugin. Then architecture, then working builds from week one, demonstrated weekly on real hardware rather than a slide. Certification and handover close it out.

Most projects ship a first production build in eight to twelve weeks. Certification-heavy work and large platform bridges run longer, but you get a fixed milestone plan after the architecture phase rather than an open-ended estimate. Every engagement has a named lead engineer who stays with it, and the IP transfers to you at delivery — we retain only the internal tooling and shared libraries that predate your project.

Afterwards you can take the plugin in-house or leave it with us on a support plan that tracks every VMS release and keeps compatibility current under an SLA. Most clients choose the second.

Also building on Milestone? See Milestone plugin development — the two platforms use different SDKs and deployment models, and we build for both.