Alarm Notification System - Alerts by Phone, Email or Text
The Alarm Notification System will send alarm notifications to off-site operators by any of phone, email, pager message or SMS-text. Operators will see or hear the details of active alarms and (optionally) may acknowledge those alarms using the same format with which the alarm was sent.
This feature is an optional part of your VTScada license. Contact a representative of Trihedral Engineering Limited for further details. It is not available to VTScada Light installations.
Customers using the modem dialer feature of the Alarm Notification System must ensure that they apply Windows updates on a regular basis.
Updates to VTScada will often include modem drivers that have been patched to work with the latest Microsoft updates for your version of the Windows operating system. They may not work if you have not applied those updates to your system.
If using a voice modem, the workstation name configured in the modem tag must have fewer than 15 characters.
If running multiple applications (for example, hosted systems) then you cannot share modems, SMS devices, or Twilio accounts between applications. You must have independent modems or Twilio accounts for each application.
Only alarms with priority Critical (1) or High (2) are sent, and those only after they have gone unacknowledged for a configured length of time.
If a new alarm should occur while operators are being notified of existing alarms, or if the first person in the active roster has already been informed of an existing alarm when the new alarm occurs, the Alarm Notification System will start through the roster again with the first person on the contact list.
Having an operator sign in remotely through the Alarm Notification System does not affect the status of any operator who is signed in at the site.
The Alarms Tab of the Edit Properties Page contains several settings that control alarm notification behavior. See: Alarm Notification Options These should be reviewed before proceeding.
Hardware and Software Requirements:
VTScada cannot send notifications unless you provide the means to do so, therefore you must configure at least one of the following.
- For spoken alarms, the Alarm Notification System uses either a modem, the Twilio service, or a VoIP service to make outgoing calls.
- For email notifications, create an account on your email server then configure VTScada with the credentials to send and receive email through that account.
- For SMS-text notifications, you will need an SMS appliance or Twilio.
Many customers find it easier to send an SMS-ready email than to configure an SMS appliance. - For pager notifications, the system can use only a modem.
For the SMS text option: While VTScada will always attempt to send the text message, there is no guarantee that your the cellular provider will deliver all messages. Use the SMS option with caution.
The Roster tag will not allow you to configure a contact method that does not exist on your system. Ensure that you have at least one of the above before proceeding.
VTScada Tag Requirements:
You will need to configure some or all of the following tags in your VTScada system:
Modem Tags - A Modem tag, if using a voice modem.
SMS Appliance Tags - A SMS Appliance tag, if sending and receiving text messages.
Roster Tags - One or more Roster tags, to control who is contacted, and how the notification is sent.
Trigger Tag - Trigger tags to automatically activate Rosters on schedule. Manual switching is done with a Make Active widget.
Other Configuration:
In addition to hardware and tag configuration, you may want to use the following:
Using Twilio for Alarm Notifications - Configure VTScada to send notifications using your Twilio account.
Alarm Area Filtering - Alarm Area Filtering or ...
Realm Filtering - Realm Filtering, to control which alarms an operator may view.
Speech Lexicon Configuration - Voice Lexicon configuration to control how words are pronounced.
Make Active Widget - Draw the Rosters as Make Active buttons, to enable manual switching from one roster to another. Automatic switching is done with a Trigger tag.
Alarm Notification Options - Configure which alarm priorities trigger a notification and the delay before sending. Also, which menu or sub-menu to read first in Alarm Notification System calls.
Alarm Message Templates - Template configuration to control what is sent in the alarm message.
Allow Acknowledgment by Email or SMS Text - Configuration requirements to allow acknowledgment.
Accounts and Roles - Configure security accounts to control who may acknowledge alarms, and to associate a user name with each alarm acknowledgment.
Alarm Notification System Properties - Related settings and properties.
Alarm Data Logging - Alarm System Event Logging
Roster Selection Hierarchy - Rules governing which roster to use for an alarm.
Activate a Roster - Covers manual and automatic activation.
The Alarm Page - Operator instructions for using the alarm page and alarms sent from the Alarm Notification System.
