The Podcatcher Platform – Guide-ID Knowledgebase

Useful Insights right at your fingertips

Actionable Insights transforms your Podcatcher Pro system data into timely recommendations that help you prevent disruptions and optimize visitor experiences. This intelligent notification system keeps you informed about hardware status and tour performance, allowing you to address potential issues before they affect your guests.

Quick Reference

Access Message Center: Dashboard → Message Center icon
Email configuration: Profile → Email Preferences
Notification Levels: Minor, Moderate, Severe (prioritized by urgency)
Key Benefits: Proactive maintenance, reduced downtime, optimized visitor flow
Primary Features: Hardware monitoring, tour performance insights, email alerts

How Actionable Insights Works

The Actionable Insights system continuously monitors your Podcatcher Pro environment, analyzing both hardware status and visitor interactions to identify opportunities for improvement. When the system detects an issue or optimization opportunity, it generates a notification with a clear recommendation for action.

Notification System

Actionable Insights categorizes notifications by priority to help you focus on what matters most:

Minor Notifications (Informative)
- Informational updates that don’t require immediate action
- Examples: system updates available, infrequently used tour stops
- Useful for long-term planning and optimization
Moderate Notifications (Requires Attention)
- Issues that should be addressed to maintain optimal performance
- Examples: low IDentifier batteries, missing Podcatcher devices
- Important for preventive maintenance
Severe Notifications (Requires immediate action)
- Critical issues requiring immediate attention
- Examples: offline basecamps, Podcatchers in error state
- Essential for preventing disruption to visitor experiences

Using the Message Center

The Message Center serves as your central hub for all notifications, providing clear information about each issue and recommended solutions.

Accessing the Message Center

Log in to the Guide-ID platform
Look for the Message Center header in the top left bar
Click to open your notification dashboard

Understanding Message Center Alerts

Each notification in the Message Center includes:

Alert icon indicating the priority level
Clear description of the detected issue
Actionable recommendation to resolve the problem
Timestamp showing when the issue was detected

For example, a typical notification might alert you that “IDentifier with serial number BP.000.433 is low on battery” and recommend that you “Please replace or recharge the battery to keep using this IDentifier.”

Note: For a complete reference of all possible notifications and recommended actions, see [Notification Types and Recommendations].

Managing Your Notifications

The Message Center allows you to:

Review all active notifications in one convenient location
Dismiss notifications once you’ve addressed them
Track resolution status as the system automatically removes fixed issues

Accessibility Consideration
The Message Center is designed to present critical information at a glance, making it valuable for busy museum environments, where staff may only have moments between visitor interactions to check system status.

Email Notification System

To ensure you never miss important alerts, Actionable Insights extends beyond the platform with strategic email notifications.

Email Alert Types

Weekly Summary Emails
- Comprehensive overview of all pending notifications
- Prioritized by urgency level
- Provides a convenient way to stay informed even when not logged into the platform
Urgent Alert Emails
- Sent when critical issues require immediate attention
- Focus specifically on severe notifications

Customizing Email Preferences

You can tailor your notification experience to match your museum’s needs:

Navigate to Profile -> Email preferences in the Guide-ID platform
Select Notification Preferences
Choose which E-mail types you’d like to be sent.
Save your settings

Key Monitoring Capabilities

Actionable Insights monitors two primary aspects of your museum experience:

1. Hardware Health Monitoring

The system proactively tracks the status of your Guide-ID hardware, including:

IDentifier Battery Levels
- Alerts when batteries reach low thresholds
- Helps prevent audio tour disruptions in specific exhibit areas
- Enables planned maintenance rather than emergency responses
Podcatcher Device Status
- Identifies missing devices to maintain inventory
- Detects Podcatchers in error states
- Monitors Sync Device connectivity

2. Tour Performance Analysis

Beyond hardware, Actionable Insights helps optimize the content experience with:

Usage Pattern Analysis
- Identifies underutilized or highly popular tour stops
- Helps you understand visitor engagement patterns
- Provides insights for content improvements

Troubleshooting Actionable Insights

If you encounter issues with the Actionable Insights system, try these simple solutions:

Issue	Solution
Not receiving email notifications	Check your spam folder and verify your email address is correct in User Settings
Missing expected notifications	Confirm your notification preferences are properly configured, and that you have not dismissed the message
Dismissed notification reappears	The underlying issue may not be fully resolved

Warning
If you dismiss multiple IDentifier battery warnings without replacing batteries, you risk unexpected audio tour disruptions for your visitors. Always follow recommended actions when possible.

Success Indicators

You’ll know you’re effectively using Actionable Insights when:

Preventable hardware issues decrease across your museum
Staff can address potential problems before they impact visitors
Your battery replacement process becomes proactive rather than reactive
Missing Podcatcher incidents decline

For additional assistance with Actionable Insights, contact Guide-ID support through the platform’s Help Center or email Helpdesk@guide-id.com.

Exporting Analytics Data for Custom Analysis

Download your tour metrics as CSV files for external processing and deeper insights

The Export feature lets you download comprehensive tour analytics data for custom analysis in your preferred tools. Follow these simple steps to access your valuable visitor engagement metrics.

Quick Reference

Navigate to Analytics → Export in the main menu
Set your desired date range using the From/To date selectors
Click the “Export” button to generate your data file
Download the CSV file when processing is complete
Files are named automatically with your site name and date range
Use it in your data platform

Accessing the Export Function

Log in to the Guide-ID platform
Select “Analytics” from the left navigation menu
Click the “Export” tab in the top menu bar

Setting Export Parameters

Use the date filters in the right sidebar:
- Click “From date” to select your starting date
- Click “To date” to select your ending date

Generating Your Export

Click the blue “Export” button
Wait briefly while the processing indicator shows your file is being prepared
When complete, the file will automatically download to your device
Files are named “SiteName-Analytics-YYYYMMDD-YYYYMMDD.csv”

Understanding Your Data

Your exported CSV file will contain the following data columns:

TourName: The name of the tour as configured in the platform
Date: The date when the visitor interaction occurred (YYYY-MM-DD format)
StopName: The specific audio stop or IDentifier point
Language: The language code selected by the visitor (e.g., en-EN, nl-NL)
Device: The playback device type (Podcatcher or PWA for web app)
NumberOfTimesListened: Total play count for each stop

Troubleshooting Export Issues

Issue	Solution
CSV file shows incorrect formatting	Open in a dedicated spreadsheet program rather than a text editor
Missing data for specific tours	Check that the tours were active during your selected date range

By exporting your Guide-ID analytics data, you gain the flexibility to perform deeper analysis beyond the platform’s built-in visualizations. This direct access to your visitor engagement metrics empowers data-driven decisions about content development, tour optimization, and resource allocation.

Analytics overview

When you and your visitors use the tours you have created on the Guide-ID Platform, the system automatically collects analytics data.

These metrics are invaluable for evaluating the performance of your tours, stops, and clips, as well as analyzing user engagement with quizzes and surveys.

Finding the analytics page

Upon logging in to the Guide-ID Platform, you will land on the Dashboard. To navigate to the Analytics page, simply locate it in the sidebar below the Dashboard section.

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Tours

Within the tours tab, you will find a collection of informative graphs that provide key details about your tours. These include the number of tours played, the total number of stories shared, the duration of each tour, and the average number of stops visited per tour.

Stops

The stops tab offers valuable insights into the most and least played stops, as well as the triggers that prompted their playback. Popular stops typically indicate visitor preferences, while less frequented stops may be situated in less accessible areas or encountered when visitors are fatigued from the tour through the museum.

Clips

This section provides information on the chosen options and how they compare to alternative choices, offering valuable insights into visitor preferences.

Alarms

In the alarms tab, you can monitor the frequency at which alarms were triggered and identify the most commonly activated alarm (if multiple alarms are set up).

Group tours

This is subscription based for Podcatcher Pro clients. For questions please contact our Helpdesk or one of our Business Managers

Heatmap

This section provides information about visitor counts and percentages for the selected tour stops.
You can select a month and year and then choose a specific tour.

The stops for the selected tour are displayed in a table, organized by day.

The table shows listening rates as percentages. To switch between percentage values and visitor counts, click the Toggle Visitor Count/Percentage button.

The color of the table cells varies based on the listening percentages

Export

From the Export tab, you can download analytics data about stops yourself, to be used to create your own displays or to combine with data from other analytics platforms you use for your museum. See our Exporting Analytics Data for more information.

Dashboard Overview

Your dashboard provides a snapshot of the performance metrics related to your audio tours. It helps you evaluate how well they are doing and plan for future improvements.

Tour data

The tour data section shows you how many visitors your site has served with audio tours in the past day, thirty days, this year, and the total number of tours.

Tours played

The tours played graph offers a detailed breakdown of the number of tours served throughout the past year. This information is further segmented based on the platform used, allowing you to analyze tour consumption across different channels such as the Podcatcher and PWA.

To do list

Lastly, the to-do list feature guides you through the necessary steps to ensure your audio tours are ready for your visitors. This convenient checklist helps you stay organized and ensures a seamless experience for your audience.

Hardware notifications

Our platform automatically alerts you when your equipment needs attention. This page explains what each notification means and how to fix it.

Understanding Severity Levels

🔴 High Priority – Act immediately to avoid disruptions
🟡 Medium Priority – Address soon to prevent issues
🟢 Low Priority – Informational, no immediate action needed

Basecamp Offline

🔴 High Priority

What this means

Your Sync Device hasn’t communicated with our system for over 24 hours.

What to do

Check that the Sync Deviceis plugged in and turned on
Verify your internet connection is working
Look for any error lights on the device
Once reconnected, the notification will disappear automatically
Otherwise, please contact support

Why this happens

The Sync Device may have been turned off, lost internet connection, or experienced a technical error.

Podcatcher Malfunction

🟡 Medium Priority

What this means

A Podcatcher with a red light was placed back in the Sync Device. A red light means the device is broken.

What to do

Follow our returns and replacements guide to send back the broken Podcatcher and receive a new one
Your other Podcatchers should continue working normally

Why this happens

The Podcatcher has experienced a hardware failure and needs to be replaced.

IDentifer Battery Low

🟡 Medium Priority

What this means

An IDentifier’s battery has dropped below one-third capacity. You still have several weeks to months of battery life remaining.

What to do

Replace the batteries of the IDentifier or replace the IDentifier with an other IDentifier.

Why this happens

Battery levels update when a Podcatcher scans the IDentifier and syncs with a Sync Device.

Podcatcher Not Seen for a Week

🟢 Low Priority

What this means

We haven’t detected this Podcatcher in over a week, but less than a month.

What to do

If you have the Podcatcher, place it back in a Basecamp
If you’ve already returned it, we may still be processing it – the notification will clear automatically
The notification will stop after 30 days

Why this happens

The Podcatcher may have been left out, used for testing, or returned but not yet processed in our system. For more information, see our Missing Podcatchers FAQ.

Message Center

The Message Center will show all kinds of notifications regarding “actionable insights”. This usually means the museum needs to take actions to fix something.

The color bar on the left indicates the severity of the notification:

🟢 Green	Low severity : informational, no action required or at least not immediate
🟠 Orange	Medium severity : action required, however not immediate
🔴 Red	High severity : immediate action required

The meaning of the severity may be subject to change as soon as we have actual notifications with different severities.

The icon indicates the type of notification

The message text informs you about what is going on and in some cases what needs to be done to resolve the issue.

The date is when the notification was created. The date is bold when the message is unread.

The X allows you to dismiss this notificatoin. You won’t receive any email reminders on this message (if you are subscribed to weekly notifications). After pressing X, the message will disappear from the overview.

The messagelist is seperated into two lists divided by a line seperator (see below) when there are unread messages since the last visit to Message Center. The first list contains the new (unread) messages since the last time this page was loaded. The second list contains the messages which are read. Messages get automatically marked as read when the Message Center page is loaded. So the next time you come to the Message Center page, all these messages are marked as read.

The Platform checks for new notifications every 15 minutes. If a new notification is available, the number displayed on the message center icon is updated accordingly.

Supported notifications

IDentifier Battery Low
When a low battery is detected on an IDentifier this notifications will show up per IDentifier.

IDentifier Battery will need to be replaced.

When the IDentifier is deleted from the Hardware IDentifiers page, the notification will be removed.

Podcatcher Error
When the Podcatcher is in error status, this notification will show up per Podcatcher. These Podcatchers will need to be returned.You can reach out the repairs or returning equipment page.

If the Podcatcher moved to a new Sync Device, the old notification will be removed. The new notification with the correct serial number will be created. When the Podcatcher is healthy again, this notification will be removed.

If you click on ‘Basecamp‘ and there is information about the latest docked Basecamp for Podcatcher, they will be navigated to the Basecamp detail page. If ther is no such information available, they will be directed to the Basecamp overview page instead.

Sync Device Offline

When a Sync Device has been offline for more than one day, this notification will show up per Sync Device. Power and network connection should be checked first.
When the Sync Device is online again, this notification will be removed.

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If you click on ‘Sync overview page‘, you will be navigated to the Sync Device overview page.
This notification takes SyncDevice type into account, text message change for each SyncDevice type (SyncConsole, Syncbox).

Lost Podcatcher
If the Podcatchers that have a last seen of over a week ago, this notification of total number of Podcatchers will show up per site.

If there is an Warning IDentifier, it needs to be checked.

Lost Podcatchers checked Periodically.
When a previously lost Podcatcher is seen again, it is removed from the lost count.

When there are no notifications, all is well.

Ajusting tour settings

To access the tour settings, go to the tour page and click on Tour Settings located in the top-right corner of the page. This will open up the Tour Settings pop-up.

The Tour Settings pop-up displays general information about the tour. To apply any changes, make the necessary edits and then click the Save button.

In the General Settings section, you can select which devices this tour will be available on.

In the Language Settings section below, you can select which languages the tour will be available in. Please note that it is not possible to change the main language of the tour once it has been set.

You can also customize the translated title and description of the tour for each available language.

By adjusting these settings, you can ensure that your tour is optimized for your target audience, making it more accessible and appealing to a wider range of users.

Adding layers to your tour

Adding layers can serve a variety of functions, for example when your main audio fragment for a stop becomes lengthy, you can provide more detailed information by adding a layer. For instance, you can present historical background or details about an art piece as a separate layer. This way, visitors who are not as interested in the history can still enjoy the primary story of the art.

Adding layers

To add a layer to your tour, follow these steps:

Click on a stop within the tour.
Click on “Open clip view”
Hover your mouse cursor over the clip, and a small “+” icon will appear.
Click the “+” icon, and a new clip will appear with a line connecting it to the previous clip, labeled as “Auto play.”Users can choose any of the four options: A, B, C, or Auto Play

At this point, the layer has been added, and the purpose of adding the layer becomes relevant.

If you want to include an optional segment of audio, click the “Auto Play” dropdown button and select any of the available A/B/C buttons. It’s essential to provide an explanation in the first clip to guide visitors. For example, you can include text such as “Press A to learn more about the painter’s life.”
Multiple clips require more than one option or button. Simply click on the “+” icon . After selecting Button A, the lines connecting the clips will automatically change from “B” to “C” when clicking on “+” icon.
- You can click the group icon to group the clips together and ungroup them. Grouped clips share the outgoing connection, ensuring that the following clip remains the same regardless of the chosen option.

For additional layers, click the “+” button below a clip or group and repeat the process. Note that if you want to chain a clip group to another group, you need to include an “in-between” clip. This step is crucial to ensure proper advancement through the tour, otherwise the Podcatcher wouldn’t know which of the following clips it needs to play to advance..

By incorporating layers into your tour, you can create a more engaging and interactive experience for visitors. These layers add depth, personalization, and an element of fun to your tours.

Creating tours using AI

Transform Your Exhibition Ideas into Complete Audio Experiences

The AI Tour Generation feature in the Guide-ID platform allows you to rapidly create engaging audio tours with minimal effort. This powerful tool takes your basic exhibition information and transforms it into professional, ready-to-use audio stops with consistent narration and optional translations.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:

Active Guide-ID platform account with administrator privileges
Basic exhibition information (titles, themes, key artifacts)
Clear understanding of your target audience and tour objectives
Approximately 5-10 minutes of time for initial setup (generation occurs in the background)

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Initiate Tour Creation

Log in to the Guide-ID platform
Navigate to Tours > Create New Tour
In the tour creation wizard, select AI-Generated Tour option
Enter a descriptive title for your tour, it will be used as subject of the audio tour
Select the number of stops (2-10)
The Stop titles are immediately suggested. Change them to have a different theme/focus per stop
Click “Create tour”

Tip: Choose titles that helps the AI understand what the focus of the tour should be

2. Review the created tour

Stand by AI is pondering, it normally takes between 1-5 minutes to create the tour. when it is done the following is created
1. A transcript per language
2. With the help of randomly selected voices the audio is generated
For each individual stop, review
1. Script: read the script and/or listen to the generated audio. Finetune the fragments where needed
2. Voices: the voices are selected randomly,
you can use “Ask AI” to change the tone of voice or create new translations.
Next Steps

After creating your AI-generated tour, publish and sync it.

Adding team members

To add team members so that they can log into the Platform, simply go to Site settings and click on team.

Here you can add team members by clicking on Add new teammate. Fill in their e-mail address, first- and last name (function is optional) and click on save. The team member will receive an e-mail. When clicking on the link in the e-mail they can registrate their account and log on to the Platform.

Changing or deleting account

To change or delete an account, simply click on the edit or delete icon mentioned under actions for that e-mail address.