How to track activity at a loading dock

A loading dock generates a dispute sooner or later. A pallet that was supposedly delivered never shows up on the shelf, a haulier claims their driver waited two hours and wants demurrage, or a damage claim lands on a load nobody remembers arriving in that condition. In every one of those cases the honest answer is on the dock camera already; the problem is that nobody watched it in real time, and scrubbing an afternoon of footage to find one truck is its own kind of afternoon lost.

Why a written log falls short

Plenty of docks keep a sign-in sheet or a whiteboard, and it helps until the shift gets busy, a driver skips the office, or the handwriting from the night shift is anyone's guess by morning. A written log only records what someone had time to write down, at whatever level of detail they happened to choose. A camera doesn't get busy, and it doesn't summarise; it just keeps recording, and the record is there to search when a question actually comes up.

Turn the dock into a searchable record

This is what the Loading Dock Activity Log check does. It's a report check, not an alerting one: rather than watching for a single event and paging someone, it reads the whole timeline of the dock's footage and turns it into an operations record, arrival, loading, unloading, departure, each entry linked back to the moment it happened. That makes it the right tool for the question 'what happened at bay 2 on Tuesday', answered by a search rather than a rewind.

If the dock also needs live watching, alerting checks like Restricted Zone Intrusion or Forklift / Pedestrian Proximity can run on the same camera alongside the activity log, one producing the record and the other flagging danger as it happens. They're separate checks, switched on independently, and neither depends on the other.

1. 01

   Cover the bays with a camera

   The camera already covering the dock is usually enough. An RTSP feed from the existing recorder works as-is, Svid captures it on our side, and a phone propped up covers a bay that's currently blind.

2. 02

   Turn on Loading Dock Activity Log

   Create an account at app.svid.ai. Onboarding suggests a check bundle and a watch level from four quick questions, both editable, with the full price derivation shown before Stripe checkout. Report checks like this one are the cheap tier in Svid's pricing, starting from a $3 a month floor at the Store's own usage-based quote.

3. 03

   Search the record when a question comes up

   In the Library, search the folder the dock footage sits in: 'white curtainsider at bay 3 on Tuesday' or 'last truck to leave on Friday' lands on the moment directly, instead of scrubbing the recording.

4. 04

   Pull the record for a dispute or a claim

   Because the log is built from the whole video, a disputed week can be reconstructed after the fact, not just watched live. That's the record to hand a haulier querying demurrage or an insurer assessing a damage claim.

What it settles, and what it doesn't

The log answers when a truck arrived and left, whether loading happened in a disputed window, and what was moving across the dock around the time damage supposedly occurred. It's a strong piece of evidence in each of those arguments. It doesn't resolve a dispute on its own, and it isn't a substitute for the paperwork a haulier or insurer expects; it's the footage-backed record that makes those conversations shorter, because both sides are looking at the same timestamped account of what happened.

Does it alert me live when a truck arrives?

Not on its own. Loading Dock Activity Log is a report check that reads the whole video and builds a searchable record; it doesn't fire live alerts. If live notification matters on the same camera, an alerting check like Restricted Zone Intrusion can be added alongside it.

Can it tell me exactly when a specific truck left?

Search by description, for example 'white box van at bay 1 this morning', and it lands on the arrival and departure moments in the footage, each with a timestamp.

Does it read number plates?

No. There's no ANPR in Svid. Vehicles are logged by type, colour and activity, which is what most dock disputes actually turn on.

Does it connect to our warehouse or transport management software?

Not as a native integration. Notable events can be delivered as a JSON webhook, which a system you already run can pick up, but Svid doesn't claim a specific TMS or WMS connection.

What does it cost?

Report checks like this one sit at the cheap end of Svid's pricing, starting from a $3 a month floor, priced from your own usage in the Store. It joins a subscription with a $9 a month floor overall, with the full arithmetic shown at signup.