Home Dashboard Overview

Summary

The Home dashboard is the first screen Super Admins see after login. It gives you a real-time snapshot of alarm activity, site status, and operational readiness. Operators land on the Alarm Center instead. Covers: What the Home Dashboard Does, Dashboard Sections, Daily Usage Pattern, Best Practices.

What the Home Dashboard Does

Home gives you an instant read on your operation — whether everything is running normally or something needs attention. From here you can check KPI performance, track device connectivity, monitor your team’s setup progress, and navigate directly to any part of the platform.

Dashboard Sections

Efficiency Overview

The Efficiency Overview cards sit at the top of the dashboard and give you a real-time view of your operation's key metrics, each with a trend indicator showing percentage change versus the previous period. Use the Viewing Period dropdown at the top right of the section to set the time window for the displayed data. The dropdown has two halves. Quick Ranges: Last 5 minutes, Last 15 minutes, Last 30 minutes, Last 1 hour, Last 2 hours, Last 3 hours, Last 6 hours, Last 12 hours, Last 24 hours (the default), Last 2 days, Last 3 days, Last week, and Last month. Absolute Range: a From / To pair (DD-MM-YYYY hh:mm) confirmed with Apply. If your account or cameras are newer than the selected period the cards show zero or a dash and populate automatically once enough data accumulates. An Explore full analytics shortcut links directly to the Analytics Dashboard. The cards shown are: Total Alarms, Passed to Operator, Filtered by NOVA99x, Time Saved, Cost Saved, Potential Capacity Increase, and Potential Revenue Increase.

What Each Efficiency KPI Means

• Total Alarms — every alarm received from your cameras during the selected period.
• Passed to Operator — alarms that reached operators for review after NOVA99x filtering.
• Filtered by NOVA99x — how many alarms NOVA99x classified as non-actionable and filtered out before they reached an operator (higher is better). No AI filter is 100% accurate, but NOVA99x is conservative — ambiguous events are passed through to operators, so filtered events skew toward clear false positives. Every event, filtered or not, stays searchable in Video Search for audit.
• Time Saved — an estimate of operator time saved: filtered alarms × average processing time per alarm. An estimate for communicating impact, not a billable figure.
• Cost Saved — Time Saved × operator hourly rate (a configurable per-account setting that defaults to a regional industry average). Directional — set the rate explicitly to reflect your real payroll cost.
• Potential Capacity Increase — the estimated percentage of additional capacity your operators could absorb using the Time Saved, at the same alarm rate per camera. Shown as a percentage headroom on the Home dashboard. Assumes current headcount and schedule; treat it as an upper bound for growth planning, not a hiring decision.
• Potential Revenue Increase — the revenue potential from the Potential Capacity headroom, using your configured average revenue per monitored camera. Override the default rate in account settings to match your real ARPU. Directional, not a procurement forecast.

How to read KPI cards correctly

• A rising alarm count is not automatically bad — it may reflect a newly activated site. Context matters.
• A falling alarm count is not automatically good — cameras that go offline stop generating alarms and will make the count drop.
• Use the Home KPI cards to spot what needs attention, then open Analytics or Video Search to dig deeper.

Quick Access

Below the Efficiency Overview cards, the QUICK ACCESS row provides one-click navigation to five key areas of the platform:

• Add new device — Guided setup, manual onboarding, or import
• My alarms — Browse alarms across all sites
• ZenMode — Focused monitoring view
• My subscription — Plan, quota and billing
• Manage users — Team access and roles

Initial State — Before Cameras Are Connected

On a new account with no cameras added yet, the bottom half of the Home dashboard shows a No cameras connected yet panel on the right side of Operations Overview (subtitled Add your first camera to start monitoring), alongside the Getting Started Checklist on the left. The right panel contains two columns:

GET STARTED

A four-step guide to getting up and running quickly:

1. Add a device — Open the guided flow and choose your camera type or alarm source.
2. Connect & verify — Complete connection details so events reach Surge quickly and reliably.
3. Monitor & search — Jump into Video Search from any camera to review clips and alarms.
4. Scale up smoothly — Add more sites or cameras when you are ready — your subscription grows with demand.

Click Management console → to go directly to Configuration.

GOOD TO KNOW

Four tips displayed alongside the Getting Started Checklist:

• NOVA99x can filter many false alarms before an operator sees them.
• Use clear site names — they show under each camera on this grid.
• Previews refresh when new media arrives from your devices.
• Add operators from the Users page so they can monitor your cameras.

Operations Overview — With Cameras Connected

Once at least one camera is connected, the OPERATIONS OVERVIEW section displays a counter row below Quick Access with three real-time dimensions:

• SITES — total registered sites, with a breakdown of active vs inactive.
• DEVICES — total registered devices, with a breakdown of active vs inactive.
• CONNECTED — devices currently reporting to Surge. A number lower than your total device count means some cameras have stopped sending events and may need investigation in Configuration.

These counters update in real time. If CONNECTED is significantly lower than DEVICES, open Configuration and check which sites are in Error or Pending status.

Getting Started Checklist

The GETTING STARTED CHECKLIST panel is an onboarding checklist displayed below the Operations Overview. Each item represents a setup step required to get GC Surge fully operational. Click any incomplete item to open a guided walkthrough showing exactly how to complete that step. The badge on the panel header shows how many items remain. When all eight items are complete, the panel header shows ALL CLEAR in green. The eight checklist items are:

• Setup your first site — Setup your first site
• Verify your email — Account Settings
• Add a device — Add a device
• Receive an alarm — Receive an alarm
• Invite an operator — Invite an Operator
• Assign your operator to a shift — Setup shifts and assign an operator to it
• Setup your alarm closure tags — Setup closure tags
• Close an alarm — Alarm Closure & Audit Trai

Latest Alarm Activity

The LATEST ALARM ACTIVITY panel shows the most recent alarm events across all your sites. Each entry displays the device name, site name, and a Real alarm or False alarm classification badge from NOVA99x. Use the VIEW ALL ALARMS link to navigate directly to Video Search for the full alarm log. When no alarms have arrived yet, the panel shows a placeholder — new alarms appear here automatically as they come in.

Alarm Center

Daily Usage Pattern

At Shift Start

1. Review the KPI cards. Check whether alarm volume is higher or lower than usual.
2. Check the GETTING STARTED CHECKLIST panel. Complete any unchecked items before starting alarm reviews — each item links to the relevant setup step. Once all eight items are checked, the panel shows ALL CLEAR.
3. If something looks off, open Analytics or Video Search for more context before starting operator assignments.
4. Record any anomalies in your shift handoff notes.

During the Shift

• After finishing a session in Video Search or ZenMode, check back on the Home KPIs.
• Use the GETTING STARTED CHECKLIST panel to direct operators toward sites requiring action.

At Shift End

• Capture a screenshot of the Home dashboard for shift handoff records.
• Document any KPI trends or site status changes in the handoff notes for the incoming shift.

Best Practices

• Use Home alongside the Analytics Dashboard. Home shows the current state; Analytics shows where things are heading. A KPI spike means more when it's been building for weeks — check the trend before acting on it.
• Set a consistent review schedule. When operators decide for themselves when to check Home, things get missed. Have everyone review it on login, at shift midpoint, and at shift end.
• Use Home during onboarding validation. After a new site is activated, the Home dashboard is one of the fastest ways to confirm that cameras are generating events and the site is healthy.