If you have a Milestone XProtect Corporate infrastructure, but you want to include Arcules sites with the power of the cloud, you can accomplish this with the Arcules Plugin for Milestone XProtect.

The Arcules Plugin for Milestone XProtect provides a one-way integration from Arcules to XProtect where Arcules video and alarms are made accessible to users in Milestone XProtect.

You must be using Milestone XProtect Corporate to utilize this plugin, as Interconnect is required.

A Milestone Interconnect™ license is required for each Arcules camera you are integrating to Milestone.

Local live video with the Arcules Plugin for XProtect is currently not supported.

The Arcules XProtect Plugin will work with XProtect Corporate 2020 R1 and up.

For XProtect Corporate 2020 R1 the following patch is required:

https://supportcommunity.milestonesys.com/s/article/XProtect-2020-R1-cumulative-patch-installers?language=en_US

For XProtect Corporate 2020 R3 the following patch is required:

https://supportcommunity.milestonesys.com/s/article/XProtect-2020-R3-cumulative-patch-installers?language=en_US

It is recommended to be using Milestone XProtect Corporate 2023 R3 or higher, for best results.

There are a few steps to be done in preparation for installing the Arcules Plugin for XProtect.

NOTE: To perform this step you must be a user within your Arcules organization with IT Manager Role assigned.

Milestone XProtect requires a set of credentials be provided to authenticate to the Arcules web services, and your organization. To facilitate this it is the best practice to create an Arcules user with the role of API User. No other roles are required to be assigned to this user.

This user will need to have a valid email address, both for login, and for the situation where a password reset may need to occur.

The API user authenticates the connection for live video, recorded video, and alarms and is used when setting up the connection in the XProtect Management Client.

For assistance creating a new user, please review our guide on user and group management.

Once you have registered the user, you can now create the connection to Arcules in the XProtect Management Client for live, playback, and alarms.

For any XProtect Management Server, or Client being used to configure the Arcules Plugin, a connection to the internet must be present. It is recommended to not have the traffic for this connection be routed through any proxies.

For any XProtect Recording Server or XProtect Event Servers that will be used for ingesting Arcules streams or alarms, a connection to the internet must be present. It is recommended to not have the traffic for this connection be routed through any proxies.

To download the latest version of the Arcules XProtect Plugin, login to the Arcules portal and select the "Settings" icon.

From here, click on the Apps and Plugins menu, and download the Arcules Plugin for XProtect.

This will download the installation ArculesPlugin.msi file.

The Arcules Plugin is composed of two components for XProtect.

Prior to installing the integration,

To install the Arcules XProtect Plugin integration, run ArculesPlugin.msi as Administrator, then follow the steps below.

Click Next.

Click Auto-detect.

This step will determine which XProtect components are installed on the current machine and will automatically decide which plugin (MIP Plugin and MIP Driver) will be installed. If you want more control over what is being installed, click “Custom” instead.

Click Install and wait for the Arcules Plugin to install. XProtect Recording service and XProtect Event service will be restarted during the install (if they are present on the current machine).

Click Finish.

Once the Arcules XProtect Plugin is installed, the integration can be configured using the XProtect Management Client application. The sections below describe how to configure the different aspects of the integration.

Once you log into XProtect Management Client, you will scroll down on the left panel to the Arcules Cloud Services. You will click on the Connections section nested underneath it.

First, a connection to Arcules must be created.

In the center pane, select "Connections", then right-click and select “Add New…”

A new connection will be created, you will need to fill in the Connection Information to proceed.

Name Unique name representing this connection

Cloud Region: The Arcules Cloud region where XProtect will connect to retrieve video and alarms.

Username/Password: This will be the API User's credentials you created earlier to authenticate this integration.

Before saving the connection, first, click on the “Test Connection” button to make sure the Arcules Cloud server is reachable and that the specified cloud address and credentials are valid.

Click the "Save" button at the top left of the window.

In order to add Arcules Locations and cameras to XProtect, click on the “Devices” tab, at the bottom of the window.

Click "Add"

In the Add Location dialog, make sure you select:

Click "Close"

In the event, you have modified a location by adding or deleting cameras from the Arcules portal, log in to the Milestone Management client to check for updates.

Select "Modify"

Click "Check for updates"

If updates are available, check the relevant cameras and click "Save".

This will enable and add the additional cameras to XProtect.

After the cameras have been added in the Arcules Cloud Services section, you will be able to view the cameras in the XProtect Management Client under Devices -> Cameras.

By default they come in under Cloud Cameras.

Underneath the Cloud Cameras folder, it will be listed by the Arcules Site and Location hierarchy.

You can click on any of the cameras to preview the video feed. You should not have to adjust any settings on the camera in XProtect, as the stream settings are managed in the Arcules Portal.

From here you can assign these cameras to View Groups, as you would any other XProtect connected camera.

To send alarms to XProtect, you must create a rule in the Arcules portal. Rules can be set-up to trigger alarms e.g. based on video analytics or device health events.

The API user previously created must be added to the alarm action directly or through a user group.

A help article on creating Rules and Video Analytics can be viewed here.

To start synchronizing alarms from Arcules into XProtect, enter XProtect Management Client, and scroll down to the Arcules Plugin. Click on Connections.

In the center pane, select your connection you wish to synchronize alarms for.

Now, at the bottom of the right pane, enter the “alarms tab” and make sure the “Sync Alarms from Arcules” checkbox is checked.

From the page, you can also specify from which date synchronization will start and at which interval the synchronization will be performed.

Go into Add/Remove Programs or Programs and Features (depending on your version of Windows) and find the Arcules Plugin, and click Uninstall.

Follow the uninstall wizard as below to remove the Arcules Plugin.

Problem: In XProtect Smart Client, the source of alarms originating from Arcules is set to the Arcules connection name instead of the camera.

Problem: The “Arcules Plugin” item doesn’t appear in the navigation tree of XProtect Management Client

Problem: Alarms created in Arcules do not appear in XProtect Smart Client.

Problem: Locked out of Arcules portal account

In addition to the normal logs created by XProtect, additional logs created for the MIP Plugin are found in the %ProgramData%\VideoOS\ArculesMIPPlugin folder. A different subfolder is created for every process that loads the plugin.