Even if you consider yourself a Boring super user, I guarantee you that there is more you can be doing with The Boring Toolbox to make your job managing Milestone XProtect even easier!
How do I know this?
Because the other day I was on a call with a customer and they taught this old dog a new trick! It is such a cool feeling to see how our features can be applied to a million different use cases.
Our customers are so smart!
If you’re thinking “what is The Boring Toolbox?” let me fill you in.
The Boring Toolbox is an add-on for Milestone XProtect that gives you added functionality for configuring, monitoring, and reporting on the health of your VMS.
It includes things like:
In summary, The Boring Toolbox gives you more control and visibility into your surveillance system so you can minimize camera downtime and ensure your video is always available when you need it.
Anyway, this interaction made me think about all of the other cool features that you may be sleeping on. So, here are a few of my favorite lesser known features of The Boring Toolbox that you’re probably not using but definitely should be!
Behind the dashboard, reports are probably our most loved feature, and for good reason. They give you all of the information you need about your system configuration and performance in one neat, informative little excel spreadsheet.
You probably already have a regular system overview scheduled and maybe even a daily report to check on any cameras not recording.
That’s a great start, 200 points for you. That’s a great start, 200 points for you. ⭐️
Level up by creating a scheduled report that sends in the wee hours of the night.
Make sure to toggle camera snapshot ON so a snapshot view is included for each of your cameras.
This is insanely helpful for catching things like dust, glares, reflections and other weird stuff that is affecting your camera’s visibility at night.
The last thing you want is to go pull your video from an evening incident and realize that all you can see is an intricate spider web glistening in the moonlight.
Learn from my personal experience, it’s not a good time.
When troubleshooting, being able to see the data organized in different ways (like grouped by recording server) helps your brain make connections more easily and therefore solve problems faster.
Try it, it’s great.
From the dashboard, click on your down cameras. That will take you to a list like the one below.
Click the three dots and then select “group by recording server”
This is less of a trick and more of a huge feature that way too many people are sleeping on.
The BoringBot integration for Slack and Microsoft Teams is awesome and will change the way you work (for the better).
I’ve heard the arguments for why people aren’t using it yet…”
“My team doesn’t use Slack or Teams”
“IT controls Slack and Teams and I don’t want to involve them”
But hear me when I tell you, IT’S A FREAKING GAME CHANGER.
Seriously. It’s totally changed the way my team and I collaborate on managing the system.
Picture this: a camera goes down. Everyone on your team gets the notification. Everyone thumbs ups it to acknowledge that they’ve seen it. Joe Shmoe, on your team, let’s you know that the breaker in that building was tripped but it should be back online soon. Cool.
Being able to have a back and forth conversation while troubleshooting saves so much time and eliminates unnecessary emails.
You can also use gifs which makes the whole experience way less boring.
There you have it friends, my top 3 Boring Toolbox features that you should definitely start using if you aren’t already.
Not already a Boring customer?
This is just a taste of what you can do with The Boring Toolbox!
Check out our youtube channel to see our features in action. When you’re ready, schedule a demo or sign up for a 30 day free trial!
It’s the newsletter security professionals use to work smarter. We promise you’ll learn stuff and enjoy a few blissful moments of productive procrastination.
Your go-to XProtect eXPerts. We learn the technical stuff that will save you time and make it less boring.
Your go-to XProtect eXPerts. We learn the technical stuff that will save you time and make it less boring.
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