With Scheduled Spot Check, you can detect people, objects and scenarios to help you monitor key aspects of your business on every camera - all you need to do is provide the instructions and set a schedule.
Some more examples of prompts Sidekick is capable of responding to include:
Whether an aisle in your store is accessible or blocked by an object.
If employees are providing active service to customers or are not providing any customer service at a given time.
If security guards are present or absent from their posts.
Whether the store is opened too late or closed too early.
Note: Scheduled Spot Check requires a subscription to Solink's AI Package.
How Scheduled Spot Check Works
Scheduled Spot Check uses Sidekick AI to generate a response to a prompt on a scheduled interval.
You can configure the schedule, as outlined in the Create a Scheduled Spot Check section below. For example, you can create a Spot Check to run every 4 hours at one of your locations that asks the question: "Are there any employees looking at their phone in the store?"
Please note: Sidekick is not designed to respond to prompts that measure tasks, actions etc. over a period of time, including:
Calculating speed of service.
Evaluating order accuracy.
Real-time theft detection.
Speed of travel.
Spot Check Monthly Limits
There is a monthly limit on the number of spot checks you can use.
You can refer to the monthly limit - which resets at the beginning of each month - in addition the estimated usage of the current Scheduled Spot Check, at the bottom of the spot check menu:
Refer to the Spot Check Balance and Estimated Usage before scheduling Spot Checks to ensure you do not exceed your monthly limit.
Note: By default, all subscribed locations will have their spot check balance pooled together. For example, you are allotted 10,000 camera checks per location; with 10 locations, you can use up to 100,000 camera checks per month across all locations.
The following chart provides a breakdown of how your monthly balance is impacted based on the frequency you run spot checks at and the number of cameras per spot check:
Note: Calculations listed in the table above are based on hours of operation.
Note: The monthly limit does not rollover month-to-month. The monthly limit resets to your maximum amount at the beginning of each month.
Create a Scheduled Spot Check
To create a Scheduled Spot Check:
From the Video page in the Solink platform, select the Sidekick button near the top of the page:
In the Sidekick window, type a prompt in the search bar OR select a template {premade prompt} directly below the search bar:
Sidekick expertly rewrites your prompt to achieve better results. However, you can edit the prompt further via the Prompt field:
Sidekick also generates a Response Format to ensure the responses to your prompt are clear and predictable. It is recommended to leave this information in place but you may edit it if needed via the Response Format field:
Select the "Schedule" button to configure a schedule for your spot check:
Select the start date and time for your spot check to begin on:
Choose an interval for the Sidekick spot check to repeat - for example, if you select “every 6 hours”, the prompt will be sent to Sidekick and the AI will evaluate the selected cameras every 6 hours, starting from the date and time you specified. You can also select Does Not Repeat to conduct the spot check once. If you configure spot checks to repeat Daily, select the weekdays to run the spot check on.
In the Expiration section, choose whether the spot check expires:
On a specific date.
After X number of occurrences.
Never.
Click Select Cameras to Run Spot Check to choose which cameras you would like to conduct the Scheduled Spot Check:
Select the desired cameras to run the Scheduled Spot Check on, then click Select Cameras to confirm (you can also choose the Select All option to select all cameras from all locations at once):
Sidekick loads a preview of the spot check. Please wait for Sidekick to load the responses (this may take a few minutes depending on the number of cameras you selected). You can review Sidekick's analysis of each location and cross reference with the camera screenshots above:
Note: If you have selected more than 250 cameras, only the first 250 will be available for preview. The remaining cameras will still be included when you schedule the spot check.
If you are happy with the preview, select Schedule to schedule the spot checks:
Locate Scheduled Spot Check Events
To locate your Spot Check events, select the Spot Check tab in the top-right corner of the Events page:
Use the following filters to further enhance your search for Scheduled Spot Check events:
Activity Title: This filter allows you to search for the name of the Scheduled Spot Check event. You assign the Activity Title during Scheduled Spot Check creation.
Spot Check Answers: Use this filter to search for the response text in the Scheduled Spot Check event card. For example, if you specified a certain format for the response - respond with "active service" or "inactive service" - you can use this filter to search for either of those terms and locate the corresponding Scheduled Spot Check event.
Once you have located a Spot Check event, you can review the prompt and answer within the event card. Select Show Prompt to show the original prompt:
Edit Existing Scheduled Spot Checks
To edit a Scheduled Spot Check:
In the Sidekick menu, select the Active tab on the left-side of the menu:
Select Edit for the spot check you want to edit:
From here you can edit your Scheduled Spot Check, including the expiration, number of occurrences, etc.
Delete Scheduled Spot Checks
You can delete a Scheduled Spot Check via the "trashcan" icon in the Sidekick menu:
