Alarms
In GroupAlarm, participants are notified of an operation via an alarm. The following article deals in particular with the triggering of alarms and the individual alarm modes. Details on the alarm overview of an alarm that has already been triggered can be found here.
New alarms can be created in GroupAlarm in the following ways:
GroupAlarm WebApp in your browser (described below).
GroupAlarm App on your smartphone for Android and iOS.
Flows in GroupAlarm (includes triggers for DWD weather warnings, e-mail / IMAP, HTTP, pager emergency call / dead man's switch, WDX3 and Websocket).
Via Remote Trigger by call or SMS.
Via the GroupAlarm API interface.
To create a new alarm in the GroupAlarm WebApp, click on the TRIGGER ALARM button either within an event or under Configuration ⇾ Alarms.
To be able to trigger an alarm, you must specify at least an event name, an alarm text and an alarm resource. As long as this information has not been entered, the button for triggering is greyed out and triggering is not possible.
1️⃣ Under Event, you can enter the name of the event you wish to trigger. This is a mandatory field. An alarm must always be triggered as part of an event.
💡 If you want to trigger the alarm in an existing open event, you can select the event from the drop-down menu that appears when you click in the input field.
2️⃣ The ‘Severity’ allows you to determine the criticality of an event. To do this, you can define up to 10 severity levels in your Organisation settings. This input field is optional.
3️⃣ In the ‘Alarm text’ you enter the information that the participants need for the operation. The alarm text is a mandatory field. Every alarm must have an alarm text.
You can also add predefined text templates via the document symbol on the right-hand side of the input field. The text templates can be maintained under Configuration ⇾ Text Templates.
💡 The maximum length of the alarm text is 960 characters. Please also note that SMS messages have a maximum length of 160 characters for technical reasons. If the alarm text is longer, several SMS messages are automatically sent if participants use the device SMS.
4️⃣ Variables allow you to automatically insert data from GroupAlarm into the alarm text. The variables are added to the alarm text above by clicking on the corresponding variable. When the alarm is triggered, the placeholders of the variables are then filled with the corresponding data.
5️⃣ The Resources of an alarm are used to specify which personals are to be alerted and which alerting mode is used. You can use the corresponding selection and input fields to add any number of scenarios, units, labels or individual participants to your alarm. A combination of several is also possible.
The following modes are available for the Alarm mode:
Best-Effort
Best-Effort fills the selected scenarios, units and labels as best as possible. This means that even if not all positions in a unit can be filled, the alarm will still be triggered. Alerting via best effort is the most common and recommended alerting mode.
Strict
With the Strict alarm mode, an alarm is only triggered if all requirements are completely fulfilled. If even one person is missing, the alarm is not triggered. The system adheres strictly to the specifications.
Escalation
The ‘Escalation’ alarm mode is based on the Best-Effort alarm mode and only alerts the groups of people previously defined in Shift schedules in the configured order.
This is particularly helpful if you expect too few positive responses when triggering an alarm via Best-Effort, taking into account the currently active shift schedule, and want to automatically call in an ever larger group of people - e.g. from currently inactive shift schedules or participants on standby duty.
To speed up the alerting process, you can select the escalation level at which the alerting should begin when the alarm is triggered.
When the alarm is started, the lowest escalation level at which there are enough participants for all positions is automatically determined. If it becomes clear during the alarm that not all positions can be filled due to cancellations from some participants, the next escalation level is automatically added, thereby increasing the participant pool. If the last level has already been reached, the alarm is closed, as in the other alarm modes.
As this mode is intended for the targeted alerting of participants, only scenarios and units can be alerted, but not individual participants or labels.
In addition, no substitution labels are taken into account.
Full escalation
Full Escalation works on the same principle as Escalation mode and only alerts the groups of people previously defined in the Shift schedules in the configured order.
This mode is suitable for alarms in which you need to fill all positions quickly and are prepared to accept over-alerting. In contrast to the previous alerting modes, full escalation alerts all participants in the current escalation level who are eligible for the available positions and triggers the next level with more participants after a defined waiting time if not all positions have been filled by then.
As this mode is also intended for the targeted alerting of participants, only scenarios and units can be alerted here, but not individual participants or labels. In addition, no substitution labels are taken into account.
The alarm modes ‘Escalation’ and ‘Full escalation’ are only available for selection if the Shift schedules extension has been activated.
Additional information
You can use the additional information to add a location and documents to the alarm.
1️⃣ The address and the corresponding coordinates must be transferred so that the system can use the location. The coordinates are automatically added to the alarm screen of the GroupAlarm WebApp when you select the address from the suggestions in the address field. The location can be displayed in the GroupAlarm App, for example, and used for navigation.
In order to be able to transfer the address including coordinates during an alarm, it is necessary to add the extension Geocoordinates under Admin ⇾ Extensions.
2️⃣ The document key can be used to insert documents from your GroupAlarm document storage into an alarm. The linked documents are then available to emergency services in the App. You can find details about the document storage here.
💡 The GroupAlarm Monitor is ideal for displaying information about an ongoing alarm clearly and centrally on a screen. Details on the GroupAlarm Monitor can be found here
New alarms can be created in GroupAlarm in the following ways:
GroupAlarm WebApp in your browser (described below).
GroupAlarm App on your smartphone for Android and iOS.
Flows in GroupAlarm (includes triggers for DWD weather warnings, e-mail / IMAP, HTTP, pager emergency call / dead man's switch, WDX3 and Websocket).
Via Remote Trigger by call or SMS.
Via the GroupAlarm API interface.
To create a new alarm in the GroupAlarm WebApp, click on the TRIGGER ALARM button either within an event or under Configuration ⇾ Alarms.
To be able to trigger an alarm, you must specify at least an event name, an alarm text and an alarm resource. As long as this information has not been entered, the button for triggering is greyed out and triggering is not possible.
1️⃣ Under Event, you can enter the name of the event you wish to trigger. This is a mandatory field. An alarm must always be triggered as part of an event.
💡 If you want to trigger the alarm in an existing open event, you can select the event from the drop-down menu that appears when you click in the input field.
2️⃣ The ‘Severity’ allows you to determine the criticality of an event. To do this, you can define up to 10 severity levels in your Organisation settings. This input field is optional.
3️⃣ In the ‘Alarm text’ you enter the information that the participants need for the operation. The alarm text is a mandatory field. Every alarm must have an alarm text.
You can also add predefined text templates via the document symbol on the right-hand side of the input field. The text templates can be maintained under Configuration ⇾ Text Templates.
💡 The maximum length of the alarm text is 960 characters. Please also note that SMS messages have a maximum length of 160 characters for technical reasons. If the alarm text is longer, several SMS messages are automatically sent if participants use the device SMS.
4️⃣ Variables allow you to automatically insert data from GroupAlarm into the alarm text. The variables are added to the alarm text above by clicking on the corresponding variable. When the alarm is triggered, the placeholders of the variables are then filled with the corresponding data.
5️⃣ The Resources of an alarm are used to specify which personals are to be alerted and which alerting mode is used. You can use the corresponding selection and input fields to add any number of scenarios, units, labels or individual participants to your alarm. A combination of several is also possible.
The following modes are available for the Alarm mode:
Best-Effort
Best-Effort fills the selected scenarios, units and labels as best as possible. This means that even if not all positions in a unit can be filled, the alarm will still be triggered. Alerting via best effort is the most common and recommended alerting mode.
Strict
With the Strict alarm mode, an alarm is only triggered if all requirements are completely fulfilled. If even one person is missing, the alarm is not triggered. The system adheres strictly to the specifications.
Escalation
The ‘Escalation’ alarm mode is based on the Best-Effort alarm mode and only alerts the groups of people previously defined in Shift schedules in the configured order.
This is particularly helpful if you expect too few positive responses when triggering an alarm via Best-Effort, taking into account the currently active shift schedule, and want to automatically call in an ever larger group of people - e.g. from currently inactive shift schedules or participants on standby duty.
To speed up the alerting process, you can select the escalation level at which the alerting should begin when the alarm is triggered.
When the alarm is started, the lowest escalation level at which there are enough participants for all positions is automatically determined. If it becomes clear during the alarm that not all positions can be filled due to cancellations from some participants, the next escalation level is automatically added, thereby increasing the participant pool. If the last level has already been reached, the alarm is closed, as in the other alarm modes.
As this mode is intended for the targeted alerting of participants, only scenarios and units can be alerted, but not individual participants or labels.
In addition, no substitution labels are taken into account.
Full escalation
Full Escalation works on the same principle as Escalation mode and only alerts the groups of people previously defined in the Shift schedules in the configured order.
This mode is suitable for alarms in which you need to fill all positions quickly and are prepared to accept over-alerting. In contrast to the previous alerting modes, full escalation alerts all participants in the current escalation level who are eligible for the available positions and triggers the next level with more participants after a defined waiting time if not all positions have been filled by then.
As this mode is also intended for the targeted alerting of participants, only scenarios and units can be alerted here, but not individual participants or labels. In addition, no substitution labels are taken into account.
The alarm modes ‘Escalation’ and ‘Full escalation’ are only available for selection if the Shift schedules extension has been activated.
Additional information
You can use the additional information to add a location and documents to the alarm.
1️⃣ The address and the corresponding coordinates must be transferred so that the system can use the location. The coordinates are automatically added to the alarm screen of the GroupAlarm WebApp when you select the address from the suggestions in the address field. The location can be displayed in the GroupAlarm App, for example, and used for navigation.
In order to be able to transfer the address including coordinates during an alarm, it is necessary to add the extension Geocoordinates under Admin ⇾ Extensions.
2️⃣ The document key can be used to insert documents from your GroupAlarm document storage into an alarm. The linked documents are then available to emergency services in the App. You can find details about the document storage here.
💡 The GroupAlarm Monitor is ideal for displaying information about an ongoing alarm clearly and centrally on a screen. Details on the GroupAlarm Monitor can be found here
Updated on: 05/12/2024
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