How to: Configure Aware deployment settings

Last modified: Thursday November 02, 2023.

Keeping your Alta cloud-based video security systems up-to-date is important to ensure you have the latest security patches, bug fixes, and new features installed. Alta Aware automatically updates using the maintenance period you define.

When Avigilon Alta releases new versions of Aware or the Alta camera software, the Dashboard shows a banner for all users with access to the System tool. Clicking the banner opens the update dialog.

Prerequisites

Only Administrator and users with a role assigned the View system settings permission can access the Alta Aware System tool.

Task — Open the Deployment settings dialog

  1. Log in to Alta Aware as an Administrator.
  2. Click New tool, then select System System.
  3. From Deployment, select Settings.

Task — Set the language for system generated emails

Set the language used for Aware generated email messages. See How to: Manage language preferences in Aware for more information.

  1. Choose General.
  2. Select your Language for system emails.

Task — Enable or disable automatic password rotation

By default, Aware automatically rotates the passwords for Avigilon Alta cameras and Alta Cloud Connectors. To modify this behavior:

  1. Select General.
  2. Enable or disable Automatic password rotation.

Task — Enable or disable Wi-Fi for the deployment

Some cameras — for example, Avigilon Ava Flex cameras — include the ability to connect using Wi-fi to your network. Ensure Wi-Fi connectivity is enabled for your Aware deployment to use Avigilon Ava Flex cameras connected using Wi-Fi.

Only enable Wi-Fi if you are adding Wi-Fi enabled devices to your Aware deployment.

  1. Select General.
  2. From Allowed Connections, check that Global Wi-Fi & Bluetooth settings is enabled.

Only enable Wi-Fi if you are adding Wi-Fi enabled devices to your Aware deployment.

Task — Set default deployment measurement units

You can choose the default currency format and units of measurement for sensors in the deployment. Individual users can override these settings in the Aware Timestamp & Measurement settings in their user profile. Emails and Webhooks sent from the deployment always use the default units.

  1. Select Measurement units.
  2. Set the default Temperature and Pressure units.
  3. Configure the default currency formatting.

Task — Check the currently installed firmware version

  1. The currently installed software version is displayed on the main Software pane.
    To view the full Aware software build number, hover over the three-digit friendly version name.
  2. (Optional) If a software update is available, click Update available to immediately start a manual upgrade, or wait until the next configured Maintenance period for an automatic software update.

    Updates can take several minutes to apply, and your cameras might stop recording for a period during this time.

Task — Configure your preferred Maintenance period

  1. Click Maintenance period.
    The Maintenance period dialog is shown.

    Normally, updates for Alta Aware and Alta cameras are rolled out to customer deployments over the course of a few days. This means that your deployments might not upgrade on the day the software release is announced.

    The full roll out for each release can take between one and two weeks to reach all deployments. However, the updates always follow the configured maintenance period for your deployment. For example, if your deployment is configured to update weekly, overnight on a Tuesday, then your deployment will update on either the first or second Tuesday following the release.

  2. Configure your preferred maintenance schedule using the available options.
    Once configured, your deployment uses the schedule to check for new software versions for Aware Cloud and your Alta cameras, and if new versions are available, updates the relevant components.
  3. Click Done.

Task — Select the Upgrade channel for your Aware Cloud deployment

Avigilon Alta releases fully-tested software to the Stable upgrade channel.

However, for test or proof-of-concept systems, if enabled by your Avigilon Alta sales partner, you can test the newest features being developed by Avigilon Alta. This beta software is released to the Beta upgrade channel.

We recommend that the Beta upgrade channel is only used for test systems — production security systems should update from the Stable upgrade channel.

  1. From Software, select the required software Upgrade channel.
    If Stable is the only option available, your deployment does not have the Beta upgrade channel enabled for upgrades to your deployment.
    Contact your Avigilon Alta sales partner if you need access to beta features for testing purposes.
  2. If enabled by your Avigilon Alta partner, select your preferred Upgrade channel, either Beta, or Stable.
  3. Click Done.

Task — Configure the use of person attributes per site

Alta Aware can use Face search to find video footage of a specific face, and person attribute recognition to search for people with specific attributes (gender, clothing). The use of these features requires Alta Aware to store biometric data. To comply with regional privacy and data protection laws, you have to specifically enable face and person attribute analytics for sites that are located in geographies that allow the use of such analytics. For more information on where Aware stores data, see Reference: Avigilon Alta data residency.

  1. Select General.
  2. From ANALYTICS, choose Custom custom analytics settings.
  3. Choose the video analytics to use for each site:
    1. None — Person detection only (no biometric data storage)
    2. person attributes recognition — Use and store person attribute biometric data (age, gender, clothing, accessories, etc).
    3. person attributes recognition + facial recognition — Use and store facial and person attribute biometric data.