The Alarm Dialer uses a modem to perform outgoing calls to designated operators in the event that one or more alarms of a user-defined priority have gone unacknowledged for a user-defined period of time. The Alarm Dialer will continue to contact designated operators in sequence until someone has acknowledged the alarm(s). If no operator has responded to the alarm(s), the Alarm Dialer will continue to cycle through the designated operators until the acknowledgement has occurred.

 

 If a new alarm should occur while operators are being notified of existing alarms, or the first person in the active roster has already been informed of an existing alarm when the new alarm occurs, the Alarm Dialer system will initiate a new call to the first person on the active roster.

 

Once a designated operator has been successfully contacted, and has logged on to the application using the password that has been assigned to their user account within the VTScada application, the VTScada "speaks" to the operator to notify him/her of the unacknowledged alarms. The operator may then acknowledge these alarms using the keypad of their cell phone.

 

Although an operator logs on remotely to acknowledge alarms using the Alarm Dialer, the operator who is logged on to the system on site through the Display Manager continues to be logged on. This ensures that on-site operators do not have to relinquish control when a remote user calls into the system.

 

The Alarm Dialer system is highly configurable. You can set:

•    The priority of alarms of which designated operators are notified (see Setting Conditions Under Which Operators Will Be Contacted By The Alarm Dialer System).

•    The amount of time an alarm must be unacknowledged before designated operators are notified (see Setting Conditions Under Which Operators Will Be Contacted By The Alarm Dialer System).

•    The operators who are to be notified of unacknowledged alarms (see Creating a Roster Tag).

•    The means by which operators are to be notified of unacknowledged alarms (voice, pager, or e-mail) (see Creating a Roster Tag).

•    The order in which operators are to be notified of unacknowledged alarms (see Creating a Roster Tag).

•    The group of operators who are to be on call at a given time (see Creating Operator Groups for the Alarm Dialer System).

•    The alarms that will be announced to operators, based on their Area property (if the application uses realm area filtering (see Using Realm Area Filtering to Restrict User Access to Groups of Alarms)).

•    The message that will be spoken, using a message template.  See Alarm Message Templates for detailed information.

 

The sections that follow provide instructions for these and other tasks.