Setting up a new site for monitoring and reporting

Add a new site, its sub-areas, and their data sources, then include the site in a daily report — all from the web app.

This guide walks through everything needed to bring a new physical site — a facility, a depot, a plant, a property — into Highlighter so that it appears on the Operations Dashboard and is included in scheduled reporting. It assumes the account already has at least one site set up the same way, with a workflow that produces the report. If you are starting from nothing, see Creating Assessment Workflows first.

The steps are:

Before you start

Have these to hand:

Where the site is. You will find it on the map by eye, so know its neighbours or have coordinates ready.
The names you will use. Decide the site name and the names of its areas before creating anything. The same names are used in the hierarchy, in reports, and often in the system the data comes from, so a name that differs between them is awkward to correct later. If a site is likely to be renamed or renumbered, settle that first.
The object classes. The site and its areas each need an object class — for example one class for sites and another for the buildings or zones inside them. Use the same classes as your existing sites.
How the data arrives. For each area, know which external feed, camera, or bucket provides its data. For an external feed, the data must already be flowing into Highlighter under a known site and location name.

1. Draw the site on the map

Open Operate in the top navigation to reach the Operations Dashboard, and switch to the Map view.
Pan and zoom to the site. Existing sites are drawn as coloured shapes; hover or click one to see which it is. Switching the basemap to Satellite (bottom left of the map) makes it much easier to find the right spot.
Choose Draw polygon entity (e) in the map toolbar.
Click each corner of the site boundary, then double-click to finish.
In the New Entity card, choose the site's Object Class, enter its Name, and click Create.

See Adding an entity for the card's fields and how to cancel a shape. If the site is too new to show on the satellite imagery, draw an approximate boundary from its neighbours; it only needs to be good enough to find and select the site.

2. Draw the areas inside the site

Repeat the same steps for each area inside the site that you want reported on separately — each building, zone, or line. Zoom in first so the shapes are easy to place, and choose the object class used for areas rather than the one used for sites.

Create these area entities even when no cameras are installed there yet. If a report should comment on each area separately, each area needs its own entity for its data to hang from.

3. Nest the areas under the site

New entities are created at the top level of the hierarchy. Move each area under its site so the site and its areas are treated as one group:

Open the Hierarchy panel and drag each area's row onto the site's row, or
Select all of the areas (hold Shift while clicking), choose Edit entities in the Selected Items panel, and set Parent entity to the site.

See Assign a parent entity.

This is a good moment to check your existing sites too. Areas that were never nested under their site still sit at the top level of the hierarchy and can be dragged into place the same way.

4. Create a data source for each area

A data source tells Highlighter where an area's data comes from. Create one for each area:

Click the Settings (gear) button in the Operations Dashboard top bar to reach the Develop area, then click Data Sources under Media in the side navigation.
Open the data source of an equivalent area at an existing site and note its settings. Copying a working example is the most reliable way to get a new one right.
Click New Data Source and fill it in to match, changing the Name, the source URI, and the Default Subject.
Set Default Subject to the area entity you drew in step 2. This is what links the data to the area.
Click Save Data Source, and repeat for the remaining areas.

For data read from an external feed, such as sensor or controller readings, set Source Type to External api and enter a Site URI — see External API data sources for its format.

The Device field is optional and can be filled in later. It is not needed for reporting; see Default subject and device.

5. Check the hierarchy

Back on the Operations Dashboard, open the Hierarchy panel and expand the new site. Each area should be listed under the site, and each data source under its area.

If the data sources are missing, make sure the panel is showing default subject data sources — see Default subject and device. If a data source appears under the wrong area, edit it and correct its Default Subject.

This check matters because a report for the site only sees the data sources nested beneath it.

6. Add the site to the daily schedule

Click the Settings (gear) button, open the workflow that produces the report, and click its Orders tab.
Open the order that carries the daily schedule.
Scroll down to Scheduled Case Creation.
In Entities, search for and select the new site. A row for the site appears below, where you can choose its data sources.
Click Save schedule.

From the next run, the site gets its own case every night, covering the previous calendar day. See Schedule Daily Cases for exactly when cases are created, and Add or Remove an Entity for taking a site off the schedule between production runs.

7. Run a report now (optional)

The schedule first runs at the next midnight. To see a result sooner, create a case for the site by hand:

On the Operations Dashboard, hold Shift and click the site and one of its areas, then choose Create workflow order with the site's Object Class and the reporting Workflow. The area is only there to open the action and is left out of the order; see Create a workflow order.
Open the new order from the workflow's Orders tab and click Mark Ready on its case. Cases created this way start as drafts, so nothing runs until you do.

A machine step that analyses a full day of data can take several minutes. The case's progress through each step is shown on the order page — refresh it to see the latest state.

Orders are only a way of grouping cases. You can keep every site in one order or use one order per site; choose whichever makes the cases easiest to find.

8. Review the result

Open the case in the Assessment Editor with the pencil (Assess Case) button on its row of the order page, or from the Cases panel on the Operations Dashboard: click the case there, then its name in the detail panel.

The report. Files the agent produces, such as a written report, are attached to the case and listed with the case's other files. Refresh the page if the agent finished after you opened the case.
The chat. Switch the view selector at the top left of the editor pane from Editor to Chat to see what the agent did and to ask follow-up questions. Mention an agent with @ to direct a question to it. While the agent is replying, the chat shows Assistant is working…; a detailed answer can take a few minutes.

A first report for a new site is the best test of the setup. Read it for statements about missing data before reading anything else — see below.

Troubleshooting

The report says data is missing for an area. Work through these in order:

Is there a data source for that area, and is the area its Default Subject? (Step 5.)
Does the data source's URI name the site and location exactly as the incoming data does, including spelling, spacing, and capitalisation?
Was the data arriving for the whole period the report covers? A feed that was connected partway through a day only has data from that point on, so the first day's report is often incomplete. Earlier history is not always loaded when a feed is first connected.

Nothing happened after creating an order. The case is still a draft; click Mark Ready on it (step 7).

No case was created overnight. Check the conditions in Schedule Daily Cases: the order must be approved and the site listed under Scheduled Case Creation.

The site was created under the wrong name. Rename the entity from its detail panel: click Actions (⋯), then Edit. If the incoming data is also labelled with the old name, the feed's configuration and the data source URIs need to change to match; contact Highlighter support to rename data that has already been stored.

You want reports for days that have already passed. See Cases for Earlier Days. Ask for one case per day rather than one covering the whole period, so each day's data sits beside its own assessment.

Working on the map — the drawing tools in detail.
Creating data sources — every field on the data source form.
Managing Workflow Orders — approving orders, marking cases ready, and scheduling.