Integrate Kisi with Cisco Meraki

As a Kisi admin, you can integrate your place with Cisco Meraki's security cameras. Before setting up the integration, make sure you have API access to your Cisco Meraki cameras.

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This is a Kisi-built integration, maintained and supported by Kisi.

Supported camera models

Our integration supports Cisco Meraki MV camera models that support timestamped snapshots. The MV2 is not supported.

Cameras whose snapshots can't be fetched by timestamp, or that don't belong to a Meraki network, are disabled automatically and shown as Not Supported. See Troubleshooting.

Prerequisites

• A Cisco Meraki account
• Kisi administrator access rights
• A Cisco Meraki Dashboard API key (see Generate a Cisco Meraki API key)
• At least one camera set up in the location

Watch the instructional video below for a visual walkthrough, or scroll down for detailed step-by-step instructions.

Enable API access

1. Sign in to your Cisco Meraki Dashboard as an Administrator
2. Under Organization, click on Settings
3. In the Settings page, scroll down to the Dashboard API access section and check the box Enable access to the Cisco Meraki Dashboard API
4. Click on Save Changes

Generate a Cisco Meraki API key

1. From the Cisco Meraki Dashboard, click on your email address on the top right corner and select My Profile
2. Scroll down to the API access section and click on Generate new API key
3. Copy your Cisco Meraki API key from the popup window, and check the box I have stored my new API key
4. Click Done

The API key inherits the permissions of the Meraki account that created it. Make sure that account:

• Can take camera snapshots. Without snapshot permission, snapshots fail and Kisi disables the key.
• Has write access to the camera's network if you plan to use tailgating detection, which changes camera and network settings.

caution

If your Meraki organization restricts API access by IP address, the camera list fails to load and shows "Please allow all IP addresses under your Cisco Meraki organization's API access settings for now." Allow all IP addresses in your Cisco Meraki organization's API access settings.

Set up the integration in Kisi

1. Sign in to Kisi
2. Click the integrations icon (3x3 grid of dots) > Add Integration
3. Open the Type dropdown and select Cisco Meraki
4. Click Add
5. On the Cisco Meraki Configuration screen, under Name, enter a name for the key (the default is "Default API Key")
6. Under API Key, paste your Cisco Meraki API key
7. Click Save. If the key isn't valid, you'll see "The API key entered is invalid, please update and try again!"

Add a camera

1. On the camera list, click Add Camera
2. Select the API key to use for this camera
3. Under Select Meraki Organization, select your Meraki organization
4. Under Select Meraki Camera, select the camera. Only cameras from the selected organization are listed, by name or by serial number if they have no name.
5. Under Select Place, select the place where your door is located
6. Under Search Doors, select the door you want to assign the camera to
7. Under Select Number of Snapshots, choose how many snapshots to take around each event: 3, 5, 7 or 9 (default 3)
8. Under Snapshot Offset, enter how many seconds before (negative) or after (positive) the event to center the snapshots, from -29 to 29 (default 0)
9. Optionally, turn on Enable Tailgating Detection. See Cisco Meraki tailgating detection.
10. Click Save. The camera is imported as Kisi hardware automatically.

note

A single integration is enough to create multiple cameras in the same Kisi organization. Click Add Camera to configure more cameras.

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In Kisi, you can only connect at most one door to a camera, but doors might have multiple cameras associated.

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If you have a large number of doors equipped with cameras, or if camera-equipped doors are experiencing higher loads and you've noticed significant latency before snapshots are uploaded, it's likely that the integration is hitting Cisco Meraki API rate limits. To avoid this, try setting Select Number of Snapshots to 3 (the minimum) on camera-equipped doors.

Supported events for camera snapshots

Once the integration is set up, camera footage will appear in the Event History, marked with a camera icon. Snapshots will be created on the following Kisi events:

• Door unlocked (lock.unlock)
• Door unlock failed (lock.unlock)
• Door opened (lock.opened)
• Door held open (lock.held_open)
• Door forced open (lock.forced_open)
• Tailgating incident (incident.create)

Snapshots may be delayed by up to ten minutes based on how soon they're available through the Cisco Meraki snapshot API, or longer if the API limits of the Cisco Meraki account have been exhausted. Kisi checks for pending snapshots every minute. If a set still has pending snapshots after the third attempt, it's marked as failed.

Manage cameras

• Edit a camera - click the camera in the list. You can change Select Number of Snapshots, Snapshot Offset and Enable Tailgating Detection. The API key, organization, place and door are locked; to move a camera to another door, delete it and add it again.
• Delete cameras - select the cameras with the checkboxes and click Delete. This removes them from Kisi and turns off their tailgating settings in Meraki.

Manage API keys

You can connect more than one Cisco Meraki API key. Each camera uses the key selected when it was added.

Click Settings on the camera list to manage your keys. Existing Keys lists every key with its status, Authenticated or Not Authenticated.

• Add a key - enter a Key Name and the API key, then click Add Key
• Reauthenticate a key - click Reauthenticate, enter the API key in the Reauthenticate Key dialog and click Update Key
• Delete a key - click Delete. You can't delete a key that cameras still use; delete those cameras first.

Troubleshooting

An API key was disabled

While processing snapshots, Kisi disables an API key and emails organization admins if:

• The Meraki license is invalid or has expired, for example: "Your Cisco Meraki license is not valid or has expired. Please renew your Meraki license and re-enable the API key."
• The key isn't authorized to take snapshots
• Kisi's IP address isn't in an approved subnet

The camera list then shows: "The following authentication key(s) are not authenticated: … Cameras linked to these API keys will not be able to process snapshots. Please reauthenticate or delete disabled keys."

To fix it, resolve the cause in Cisco Meraki, then go to Settings and click Reauthenticate next to the key.

A camera shows Not Supported

Kisi disables a camera and labels it Not Supported if its snapshots can't be fetched by timestamp, or if the device isn't in a Meraki network. Move the camera into a Meraki network, or delete it from the integration.

Error messages

Error	Meaning and resolution
The API key entered is invalid, please update and try again!	Cisco Meraki rejected the key. Copy the key again and paste it in full.
The MV2 camera model is not supported by our integration	The MV2 can't be used with the integration. Choose a different camera.
Camera already exists.	The Meraki camera is already added to an integration. A camera can be added to only one integration.
Delete Conflicting Camera: "A camera with the same Device ID already exists in Kisi. Do you want to delete it?"	A camera with the same device ID already exists in Kisi, for example from an earlier setup. Click Delete, then add the camera again.
Cannot delete API key. There are still camera(s) using this key.	Delete the cameras that use the key first, then delete the key.
Please allow all IP addresses under your Cisco Meraki organization's API access settings for now.	Your Meraki organization restricts API access by IP. Allow all IP addresses in the organization's API access settings.

Remove the integration

1. Sign in to Kisi
2. Click the integrations icon (3x3 grid of dots) and select your Cisco Meraki integration
3. Click Delete and confirm

Removing the integration:

• Turns off tailgating detection (MV Sense) on its cameras
• Removes Kisi's MQTT broker from every network in every Meraki organization that each stored API key can access
• Deletes every camera the integration created in Kisi