Log an Incident

Log an Incident

This guide walks community staff through filing a new incident in MyWatchtower's Reporting module. For a tour of the whole module, see Incident Reporting Overview; if you don't see Reporting in your navigation at all, see Enable Incident Reporting.

Before you start

You need Incident Reporting enabled for your community and incident write permissions on your role. Staff with read-only incident permissions can browse incidents but won't see the buttons for creating one.

Start a new incident

• Step 1: Go to Reporting and open the Incidents tab.
• Step 2: Click New Incident. (You can also start one from the Dashboard tab's Report Incident card — see Reading the Incident Dashboard.)
• Step 3: The Report New Incident form opens.

Fill in the incident

Category. Choose an Incident Type from the list. The list comes from the incident categories your community admins maintain in Settings (see Enable Incident Reporting). Two special behaviors:

• If your community allows it, an Other option appears at the end of the list. Choosing Other adds a required Specify Incident Type field so you can describe an incident that doesn't fit any listed category. The incident is then filed as "Other - " followed by your text.
• If the category you pick is marked as vehicle-related in your community's settings, a License Plate field appears. Entering a plate is optional; letters are stored in uppercase. If the plate matches a vehicle on record in your community, the incident's detail page links straight to that vehicle.

When it happened. The Date & Time field defaults to now; adjust it if you are filing after the fact. This field is required.

Where it happened. Choose one of the two location tabs:

• Select Property — search for a property by address (type at least 3 characters) and pick it from the results. This is optional.
• Drop Pin — click a spot on the map to mark the exact location. The selected coordinates are shown under the map, and a snapshot of the pinned map is saved with the incident as an attachment.

What happened. Use the Notes field to describe the incident in detail. A clear description is what makes the incident useful later in lists, reports, and searches.

Photos & Attachments. Under Photos & Attachments, add supporting files:

• In a web browser: Upload Files lets you attach one or more files.
• In the mobile app: Take Photo opens the camera, Gallery picks existing photos, and Attach File adds other files.

Images are compressed automatically before upload, and each added file shows a preview you can remove before submitting.

Submit

• Step 1: Review your entries — Incident Type and Date & Time are required.
• Step 2: Click Submit Report.
• Step 3: You'll see a confirmation, and the incident appears in the Incidents list and counts toward the Dashboard stats.

If your organization runs several communities as a group, a Community selector at the top of the form lets you choose which community the incident is filed against — see Incidents Across a Community Group.

What happens next

The incident starts in Active status. From its detail page you can edit it, add or remove attachments, close it when resolved, share it, or export it — see Working an Incident.

Need help?

Use the Contact Support form in the app, or contact your community's management office.