Glossary Index

This index provides quick definitions of key terms used throughout the Watchful Platform.

Use your browser’s search (Ctrl/Cmd + F) to find a specific term, or browse alphabetically below.

Add Customer – The process of creating a new customer profile in Watchful. You can add company details, contacts, and link sites and devices.

Admin Portal – The main web interface where administrators manage customers, sites, and system settings.

Alert – A collection of one or more events that occur at a site within a defined period. Each alert is identified by a unique alert number.

Alert Review – A dashboard for reviewing, filtering, and actioning alerts raised across customer sites.

Alert Status - The current state of an alert in the monitoring workflow, indicating whether it's new, assigned to an agent, being investigated, resolved, or dismissed. This helps teams track and manage alerts from detection to completion.

App User – A person granted access to the customer-facing Watchful app for a specific Monitoring Group.

Armed - A state where a site (or component) is actively monitored for motion. All relevant cameras will generate alerts while armed.

Arming Schedule – The timetable that determines when a site or zone is armed or disarmed.

Assigned Alert - An alert that has been assigned to a specific monitoring agent, indicating responsibility for handling it.

Audit Log – A record of all changes made within a monitoring group, found under the Logs tab on a site’s detail page.

Component - A camera, speaker, relay, or other device feeds within a site.

Contract – The agreement between your organisation and a customer. Each contract defines the monitoring arrangement for a site and enables the creation of a monitoring group in the Admin Portal.

Customers – Companies that have engaged your organisation to monitor their sites. Each customer may have one or more monitoring groups (sites).

Devices – Cameras, NVRs, or VMS systems connected to a customer’s site for monitoring.

Disarmed - A state where motion events do not generate alerts. Useful during on-site work or scheduled access.

Disposition – A required classification for each alert in the Monitoring Portal. Options include Intruder, Possibly Staff, Confirmed Staff, Weather/Environment, False Positive, No Threat, and Other/No Action Required.

Event – A single snapshot activation from a device, generated through webhooks sent to Watchful. Each event includes an image that has been processed by AI, object analytics, and the monitoring group’s filters. Multiple events from the same site within a specific time period are grouped together to form an alert.

Event Schedule – A calendar view that allows users to arm or disarm sites automatically at set times.

Guard Response – A feature that helps dispatch guards to a site during an active alert.

Guard Response Enabled – When activated for a monitoring group, this option changes the intruder workflow so monitoring officers must confirm that a guard has been contacted before closing the alert.

Help & Support – A section in the Admin Portal where users can submit and view support tickets and access the Knowledge Base.

Home – The default landing page in the Admin Portal. Provides quick access to all major sections via the left-hand toolbar.

Incident - A significant event requiring follow-up, such as confirmed intrusions or repeated system issues. Incidents may prompt investigation or customer communication.

Intruder - A Disposition option in the Monitoring Portal that represents the highest level of escalation. Selecting Intruder typically triggers a guard response or the dispatch of law enforcement to the site.

Integrations – The connection setup between Watchful and external cloud-based VMS systems.

Missed Man-Alive Activation (MMA) - In the Monitoring Portal, monitoring officers must remain active while on site. An MMA is triggered if an officer is inactive for four minutes. A pop-up notification will appear to alert the officer of the inactivity.

Monitoring Agent - A user who has the Monitoring role and is responsible for reviewing and handling security alerts in real-time. They work within monitoring companies (like security operations centers or SOCs) to process alerts that come through the Watchful system.

Monitoring Companies – Also known as Teams; the groups responsible for monitoring customer sites.

Monitoring Contact – The primary contact person (or people) for a site. Monitoring officers contact them to confirm whether a person on site is authorised or an intruder.

Monitored Devices - Devices on a contract that have been set up within a Monitoring Group.

Monitoring Group – Often referred to as a site, it contains the configuration, rules, and instructions used to generate alerts and send them to the monitoring team.

Monitoring Overview – A summary page that shows monitoring performance statistics filtered by agent and time period.

Monitoring Portal – The workspace where monitoring agents view and manage alerts during their shifts.

Monitoring Team – A group of monitoring officers who respond to alerts. In the Admin Portal, these appear as alert monitoring companies, each consisting of users assigned to monitoring groups to receive alerts.

No Threat Criteria – Instructions given to Quill to identify normal or low-risk activity that should not trigger alerts.

NVR - An NVR (Network Video Recorder), is a hardware device that records and stores video footage from IP (network) cameras. It is one of the device types alongside Cameras, Sensors, Speakers and Relays on the Watchful platform.

Quill – Watchful’s AI-powered automated assistant that analyses and classifies events.

Quill Audit – A tool for reviewing Quill’s performance and accuracy.

Quill Automation - Defines how Watchful’s AI assistant handles events and alerts.

Quill Automation Levels – Defines how much control Quill has in processing alerts: None, Assistant, or Full.

Resolved Alert - An alert that has been fully actioned and closed with a final disposition.

Sales Order – The form used to create a new contract in the Admin Portal.

Sales Person – The person within your organisation responsible for overseeing a site. They receive maintenance alerts, such as camera cleaning or grid adjustments. The contract creator in the Admin Portal is automatically set as the sales person but can be changed later.

Siren Settings – Options to configure the siren behaviour on a site.

Site – A customer location where devices are installed and monitored.

Site Details – Configuration settings that control how monitoring operates for a specific site.

Site Instructions – Notes for monitoring agents that appear in every alert for a site.

SLA Breach - In the Monitoring Portal, a five-minute timer begins when an alert is opened. An SLA Breach occurs when this timer expires before the alert is actioned.

Stages – IDs used by organisations to manage monitoring centre configurations.

Teams – Groups of monitoring agents responsible for handling alerts in the Monitoring Portal.

Test Mode – A state used for testing device configurations without sending alerts to agents.

Threat Criteria – Parameters provided to Quill that help define what activity should be treated as a potential threat.

Time Zone – Automatically assigned based on the site’s address or coordinates.

Users – People granted access to the Watchful platform with specific roles and permissions.

User Roles - Current User Roles include "User", "Monitoring", "Sales Person", "Installer", "Project Admin", "Company Admin", “Integrator Admin", and "Super Admin".

VMS - A VMS (Video Management System) is software that collects, manages, and stores video footage from multiple cameras across one or many locations. Unlike an NVR (which is hardware-based and typically handles a single site), a VMS is a cloud or server-based software platform that can manage cameras at scale.

Workflows – Customisable sets of instructions or steps that guide agents through responding to alerts.

Watchful Platform – The complete suite of tools including the Admin Portal, Monitoring Portal, Quill automation, and customer management features.

Zones - Sites can be separated into separate zones to provided more organization for your monitoring teams. The various zones on a site can have different arming schedules and will also be grouped into separate alarms. Example: You might have a large residential complex and decide to divide the site into 3 zones: Parking garage cameras, Lobby cameras, and Exterior Exit cameras.