It's time for some monitoring! 

 Watch the video below for an introduction to Alerts and Events within the Watchful platform. You’ll also get a walkthrough of key features designed to help you accurately assess what’s happening within each alert.  

Key questions to answer while watching this tutorial:

1. What is the relationship between Alerts and Events in Watchful?
   
   

2. What is the purpose of the Event Timeline within Watchful?
   
   

3. What are some of the main features that help you successfully investigate events on the Watchful platform?

Intro to Watchful Monitoring Basics - Watch Video!

Key Terms

• Alert - A collection of one or more motion-activated events from the cameras you are monitoring. Each alert is identified by a unique alert number and may include images from multiple cameras within a site or zone you’ve set up. Events are grouped into alerts based on a predetermined time window (set by your administrators). For example, all camera activations on a site within a 30-minute period will be grouped into a single alert, giving you contextual insight into what has been happening on-site. 
• Event - An individual snapshot generated whenever motion is detected by a monitored camera. Each event represents a single moment in time and becomes part of an alert when grouped with other events during the specified time window. 
• Event Timeline - A visual timeline located at the bottom of the monitoring platform. It allows you to easily view and navigate through the sequence of events contained within an alert.
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• Pulsing Event Dots  - These dots appear on the Event Timeline and represent individual motion-triggered events. A pulsing dot indicates an event that has not yet been reviewed by an agent. Once viewed, the dot becomes static, signaling that a team member has already assessed that event. 
• Colored Event Dots or Indicators-Event dots are color-coded to help you quickly identify the type of activity detected:

  • Blue indicates a vehicle

  • Red indicates a person

• Live View - Most Watchful integrations include a Live View feature, offering a two-pane display:

  • The left pane replays the captured event

  • The right pane shows the current live feed from the site’s camera
    This layout helps you compare what was detected with what is happening in real time.

• Motion Grids - Customizable grids applied to a camera's view that restrict motion detection to specific areas. This helps reduce unwanted activations by ignoring irrelevant zones within the camera’s field of view. 
• Analytics - Technology built into modern security devices that detects and highlights objects of interest—most commonly people and moving vehicles. These detections enhance situational awareness and reduce the need to manually monitor video feeds. 
• Analytic Boxes - Visual indicators, often shown as colored boxes, that surround objects of interest identified by analytic technology (e.g., people or vehicles). Different analytics services may display these boxes in various ways. Most Watchful integrations allow you to toggle the visibility of analytic boxes for a clearer or more focused view. 
• Image Download - The ability to download the currently displayed event image directly from the alert dashboard. The download icon is located in the upper left corner of the event image.