Home Dashboard Overview
The Home dashboard is the first screen displayed after login for Super Admins and serves as the daily operational command view. Operators land on Alarm Center instead. It provides a real-time snapshot of alarm activity, site status, and operational readiness. Start every shift with a review of the Home dashboard before entering more specific workflow modules. Covers: What the Home Dashboard Does, Dashboard Sections, Efficiency Overview, Quick Access, Operations Overview, Needs Attention, Latest Alarm Activity.
What the Home Dashboard Does
Home is designed for fast comprehension at a glance — it tells you immediately whether your operational environment is normal or whether something requires immediate attention. New accounts display an email verification banner at the top of the page until the administrator email address is confirmed. Until the email is verified, several flows stay gated: subscribing to a paid plan, transferring Site Key ownership, receiving invoices, and resetting your own password. Click the link in the verification email (check spam), or click Verify Email in the banner.
Dashboard Sections
Efficiency Overview
Displayed at the top of the dashboard under Efficiency Overview, these cards provide 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. Preset time windows: Last 24 hours, Last week, Last month, or a custom date range. 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 as a trigger for further investigation in Analytics or Video Search, not as a standalone conclusion.
Quick Access
Below the Efficiency Overview cards, the QUICK ACCESS row provides one-click navigation to five key areas of the platform:
- Management console — Sites, devices and onboarding
- My alarms — Browse alarms across all sites
- ZenMode — Focused monitoring view
- My subscription — Plan, quota and billing
- Manage users — Team access and roles
Operations Overview
Below the Quick Access shortcuts, the OPERATIONS OVERVIEW row shows a real-time count of your account across three dimensions:
- SITES — total registered sites, with a breakdown of active vs inactive.
- DEVICES — total registered cameras, 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.
Needs Attention
The NEEDS ATTENTION 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. When all seven items are complete, the panel header shows ALL CLEAR in green.
- Verify email — Account Settings
- Invite an Operator — Invite an Operator
- Assign an operator — Assign an operator
- Setup shifts and assign an operator to it — Setup shifts and assign an operator to it
- Add a device — Add a device
- Receive an alarm — Receive an alarm
- Setup your first site — Setup your first site
Latest Alarm Activity
The LATEST ALARM ACTIVITY panel shows the most recent alarm events across all your sites. 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 are ingested.
Alarm Center
The Alarm Center is a separate workspace accessible from the Operations section of the sidebar. It is the real-time shift operations hub — showing live operator assignments, the unassigned sites queue, the operator leaderboard, team availability, and shift performance data. The Home Dashboard provides the account-level overview; the Alarm Center provides the live shift view.
Supervisors typically open Alarm Center after reviewing the Home dashboard KPI cards. Operators go directly into ZenMode for alarm processing and return to the Alarm Center to view their queue.
Daily Usage Pattern
At Shift Start
- Review the KPI cards. Note whether alarm volume is significantly higher or lower than the previous period.
- Check the NEEDS ATTENTION panel. Complete any unchecked items before starting alarm reviews — each item links to the relevant setup step. Once all seven items are checked, the panel shows ALL CLEAR.
- If anomalies are found, navigate to the Analytics Dashboard or Video Search for further context before beginning operator assignments.
- Record any anomalies in your shift handoff notes.
During the Shift
- Return to Home after completing a significant workflow in Video Search or ZenMode to re-check KPI state.
- Use the NEEDS ATTENTION 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
- Pair Home with the Analytics Dashboard. The Home dashboard provides point-in-time values. The Analytics Dashboard provides trend direction. Elevated Home KPIs need trend context before action is warranted — a spike that has been climbing for two weeks requires different treatment than a one-day anomaly.
- Standardize review cadence. If every operator independently decides when to check Home, coverage gaps emerge. Define a required Home review: 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.