Milestone XProtect update: version 2022 R2 released

In June 2022 Milestone Systems have released a further update to their XProtect product range. All XProtect customers with valid CarePlus can now update to the very latest version.

Here, we break down some of the most interesting and useful new features, the most important being Incident Manager, a new tool for operators to fully and accurately document incidents as they happen.

Incident Manager

CCTV operators always need a means to report on incidents that they see and respond to and all control rooms will have procedures to deal with this. However, these typically take place outside of the video management system (VMS) itself and remain separate from the system leading to inefficiencies, inconsistency and even loss of reporting.

With Incident Manager, now available for XProtect Corporate, all reporting and documentation can be done right inside the Milestone Smart Client. This ensures that operators are not distracted from the ongoing incident and can both document and report on incidents quickly and consistently. There is no further need for manual processes outside of the VMS as Incident Manager will link together all comments, actions and footage together and this can be exported as a file which includes a PDF report and all footage recorded and noted during the incident.

This is helpful for operators as everything can be done within the Smart Client, but for external authorities and internal stakeholders the consistency of report makes it much easier to build a picture of incident patterns on site.

Incident Manager brings:

• Incident reporting both live and retrospectively directly in the Smart Client
• No external manual processes required for incident reporting
• A unified and consistent means of reporting for all operators
• Easy to track the status of incidents
• Full export of incidents for the Police or internal stakeholders
• Retrospectively add footage to an incident if necessary
• New tab in the Smart Client
• Case management can be done even without the logging or attaching of video footage
• Fully integrated into XProtect’s user rights system

It’s important to note the following:

• Available with XProtect Corporate only (at this time)
• Included at no extra cost with XProtect Corporate 2022 R2
• CarePlus required to update to 2022 R2
• Incident reports cannot be shared across federated systems

What other updates come in 2022 R2?

Briefly, there are a number of further updates, fixes and notes around this new version.

Additional features:

• Smart Client search by bookmark description and title
• LPR license plate styles recognition improvements
• Audio persistence on the mobile app – i.e. audio talkback, when selected, stays open when navigating between cameras, so be aware of this
• Some navigational improvements in the web client
• Various fixes
• Support for Microsoft Server 2022 has been added

Be aware that some things have also been removed:

• Matrix capability has been removed from the management client (feature is deprecated)
• Support for Windows 8.1 has been removed
• The 32-bit Smart Client is no longer offered – this will affect some organisations still running legacy software on 32-bit machines. Note that the 2021 R2 Smart Client will still continue to work until this backwards compatibility is removed at some point in the future (usually 3 versions ahead)

To reiterate, 2022 R2 can be installed only by new customers or Milestone customers with a valid CarePlus on their license. CarePlus ensures access to new features while valid and is important for ensuring a strong system lifecycle and return on investment.

As a long-standing Milestone Platinum partner NW offers support for Milestone installations and can effectively manage your whole system, or just support your system administrators. We have multiple support packages.

Published on June 22nd, 2022 by Kevin Bowyer