Getting Started with The Boring Toolbox #3: Learn about the various health monitoring insights and features you will find on…
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Managing a video security system is no walk in the park. It takes considerable time, effort, and skill to keep your cameras up, video available, and system secure, all while putting out fires and keeping everyone safe.
We know that struggle well. In fact, those challenges were the inspiration behind The Boring Toolbox, a health monitoring and management solution designed exclusively for solving the pain-points of Milestone XProtect. It’s time-saving tools, turn your tedious to-dos into to-DONES!
Ps. You can try these out yourself, and get your system in tip-top shape FOR FREE by signing up for a free trial of The Boring Toolbox.
The nightmare of every video security system administrator is finding out that a camera hasn’t been recording. With The Boring Toolbox’s live monitoring dashboard and reporting features, you can quickly identify how many cameras are not providing video and export that list to excel in seconds.
Compare this to the Milestone Management Client, where you have to manually go into each camera and then copy and paste its information into excel. This process takes approximately 4 minutes and 12 seconds PER CAMERA.
In Milestone XProtect, you can make bulk changes to camera settings, but only if your cameras are in specific groups based on make and model. The Boring Toolbox’s Auto-Groups feature automatically creates these device groups for you, saving you from the tedious process of doing it manually. It’s like having a personal assistant who actually knows what they’re doing.
There are lots of time-saving tasks you can do with our bulk change feature but for this example we are tackling one task that is especially annoying and tedious: disabling all microphones in Milestone XProtect VMS.
When disabling microphones on individual cameras within Milestone Management Client, it takes 50+ clicks and 70 seconds.
With The Boring Toolbox, it only takes 8 clicks and 15 seconds. That’s less time than it takes to tie your shoes!
If you’ve ever wondered how much disk space a specific camera is using, you’re in good company. When a fellow VMS admin asked the Milestone support community, “How do I see how much disk space each camera is using up, per day? There has to be a better way!” we felt their pain.
So did another user when they replied “This is something that should be in the basic list of reports. I need to show space usage for budgeting camera storage.”
We couldn’t agree more which is exactly why we made it super easy to see which cameras are consuming the most storage right from The Boring Toolbox live monitoring dashboard.
Without needing any additional steps or clicks, you can see your camera storage with top consumers at the top of the list.
In this video, we walk you through how to find and report on this information in Milestone Management Client without The Boring Toolbox. It’s a manual process that requires you to go into each camera individually and then copy and paste the camera and storage information into Excel. The process takes about 50 seconds PER CAMERA. We timed it.
In the same video, we show you how to find that information on the Boring dashboard. For comparison’s sake, it takes about half a second to toggle over to your Boring browser tab and locate the info and even generate a report if you want.
Compliance with specific video retention policies is crucial in industries like cannabis, healthcare, education, and municipalities and is also a major headache without the right tools.
The Boring Toolbox’s one-click and scheduled reporting functionality allows you to quickly and easily run a report on video retention for cameras. Now you can rest easy knowing that you can easily verify compliance at the drop of a hat.
Renaming cameras in Milestone XProtect Management Client is a one-by-one process that takes many clicks and lots of time. Alternately you can use The Boring Toolbox’s bulk automation to update all of your device names at once, allowing you to reclaim hours of your life and save your clicking finger from early-onset arthritis.
To put it in perspective, it takes about 90 seconds to rename a single camera in Milestone Management Client while it takes only 19 sec to update ALL of your camera names using Boring Toolbox.
➜ If you have 100 cameras, you’d save 2.5 mind-numbing hours.
➜ If you have 500 cameras, you’d save 12.5 precious hours.
In conclusion, managing a video security system doesn’t have to feel like a never-ending marathon. With The Boring Toolbox, you can turn those tedious tasks into quick, efficient processes, giving you more time to focus on what truly matters – keeping your system secure and everyone safe.
From reporting on non-functioning cameras to renaming devices in bulk, The Boring Toolbox is your secret weapon to streamline your Milestone XProtect management tasks.
So why not give it a try? You’ve got nothing to lose and a whole lot of time to gain.
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.
Getting Started with The Boring Toolbox #3: Learn about the various health monitoring insights and features you will find on…
Getting Started #2: Learn how to configure your parent and managed sites as well as connect Boring to Milestone XProtect…
Getting Started #1: This tutorial will teach you how to install The Boring Toolbox on your server and client.
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