Skip to content
NovaVMS Manual

Create a live grid

A grid is a saved collection of camera tiles arranged in a layout — 1x1 to 3x4 — with optional multi-page pagination and auto-rotate. Create one when you monitor the same set of cameras every shift, or when you want to hand a rotating view to a front-desk operator without them having to pick cameras every time.

Prerequisites

  • Operator, Admin, or Owner role. Viewers cannot create grids.
  • Fewer than 20 grids already owned by you — the per-user cap (MaxGridsPerUser = 20 in cloud/internal/grids/models.go).
  • At least one camera you can access. The picker is empty for Viewers with no site access; they cannot create grids anyway.

Procedure

Step 1 — Open the Live page

  1. Open Live from the left nav.
  2. Click + New Grid in the page header (or use the + New Grid action in the empty state if no grids exist yet).

Live page header with the grid dropdown and + New Grid button visible

Step 2 — Name and layout

  1. Enter a Name. This is the label in the grid dropdown; keep it short and recognisable.
  2. Pick a Layout: 1x1, 2x2, 2x3, 2x4, 3x3, or 3x4. Each layout defines the tile count per page (max 12). See Live grid limits for the full matrix.
  3. Choose Visibility:
    • Private — only you see this grid in the dropdown.
    • Public — every user in the org sees it (Viewers only see public grids that include cameras at their assigned sites).
  1. Click Create. The grid opens in edit mode with empty tile slots shown as dotted rectangles.

Step 3 — Fill the tiles

  1. Drag cameras from the camera picker on the right into the tile slots. Or click a slot and pick a camera from the dropdown that opens.
  2. A tile shows the camera name and live thumbnail once a camera is assigned.
  3. Need more cameras than fit one page? Click + Add Page at the bottom. Each grid holds up to 10 pages. Per-page tile count matches the layout (e.g. 3x4 → 12 tiles per page).
  1. Drag a filled tile onto another tile to swap them. This is how you reorder without removing cameras.

Step 4 — Configure auto-rotate (optional)

  1. If the grid has two or more pages, the Auto-rotate dropdown is enabled in the header.
  2. Pick an interval: 10s, 15s, 30s (default), 60s, 120s, or 300s. The grid cycles pages on this cadence whenever someone has the grid open.

Step 5 — Save

  1. Click Save. Edit mode closes and the grid renders as the active view.

Verify

  • Your grid appears in the grid dropdown in the Live page header.
  • If you picked Public, a colleague can see it in their dropdown (refresh their browser if they had the Live page already open).
  • With two or more pages and auto-rotate on, the page indicator at the bottom of the grid advances on the configured cadence.
  • Streams render within 3 seconds for a sub-stream grid (the spec target).

Common variations

  • Edit an existing grid: click Edit in the Live page header while the grid is active. Same workflow — save at the end.
  • Promote a private grid to public: edit the grid and flip Visibility. Audit log records grid.updated.
  • Saved view vs grid: a grid is a saved layout of live tiles. If you want a saved Events filter set instead, see Use saved views.

If this didn’t work

  • + New Grid is greyed out — you have 20 grids already (the per-user cap). Delete one or ask another operator to own the new grid.
  • Camera picker is empty — your role is Viewer and no cameras are assigned to your sites, or the org has no cameras yet.
  • Tiles show “Connecting…” and never render — the gateway is offline or the cameras themselves are offline. See Live view is black.