Create a New Standard Alarm or Notification

FlowWorks' ability to trigger alarms and notifications lets you alert those who need to know when data from channel (or more) falls outside specific bounds. This permits you to respond to an adverse situation in a timely manner.

FlowWorks supports two 'levels' of data-based warnings: Alarms and Notifications. The creation, editing, disabling, and deleting for both is identical. Hence when this document speaks of 'alarm' you may substitute for 'notification'.

Standard alarms / notifications are configured by generating a series of 'rules', which look at the data from a Channel (raw or calculated) and compare it to a constant value defined by the user. Multiple lines of rules can be carefully combined by using the logical AND and OR operators to control when the alarm will trigger.

For details on alarm rules and conditions, see article, "About Alarm Rules and Operators".

For this help article, we will use a basic example. We will want this alarm to trigger if level rises above a specific level AND the rate of flow equals or slows below another value. In this hypothetical case, it could indicate a blockage downstream from this site, such that the site is not being evacuated as fast as the material comes in, thus causing the level to rise.

1. Open Alarm Configuration

  1. Click Monitor.
  2. Click Alarm Configuration.
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2. Click Create a New Notification or Alarm

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3. Complete the Notification/Alarm form

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  1. Enter a Name for the notification/alarm.
    We suggest a name that explains the reason for the existence of this alarm. This is the name that will appear when you receive notifications of this alarm being triggered. Since we are making a new general alarm, we will call it "Level Alert" for this example.
  2. Select a Site.
    This is the site that you want this notification/alarm to monitor.
  3. Select a Type. For this example, we will select Alarm.
    FlowWorks supports two 'levels' of data-based warnings: Alarms and Notifications. Both are user programmable and can be configured to trigger on any measurement or combination of measures the site is capable of collecting. While the setup, triggering and functionality of alarms and notifications are the same, when an alarm is triggered, the site's icon in Map View will turn red and any email or text messages to be sent will say "Alarm"; when a notification is triggered, the site's icon in Map View will turn orange and any email or text messages to be sent will say "Notification". Thus, you could setup both a notification and an alarm for the same site, such that the notification becomes a 'heads up' that a site could be approaching an alarm condition, while the alarm indicates that a critical condition has been met, and 'immediate attention is required'.
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  1. Select Action(s) the system should execute once the alarm is triggered. You can choose one or more.
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  1. Pick Your Alarm Type. In this example, we will choose Create a Standard Alarm/Notification. Click to expand the entry field.
  2. Create Rule #1.
    For this example, we must first setup the Level rule. We do so by choosing Level from the Channel drop-down menu.
    Next, we must specify a comparison, of which the data from this channel is to be compared against a given value. For this example, we want to be notified when the Level rises to or above a given value, so we will choose 'greater than or equal to' (>=) from the drop-down list.
    Lastly, for this example we'd like to be notified when our Level channel submits a reading greater than or equal to 4.5, so we will input this under Value.

The unit of measure for Value is always the same as what is expressed in the channel itself. Thus, if our channel expresses data in "feet", we must use this same unit for our rule's Value.

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  1. Click Add to add a second rule like for Rule #2.
    For this example, Rule #2 will refer to our Flow rule. Since we want this alarm to be triggered when Level exceeds 4.5 AND when Flow goes below 1.25, we must first choose the AND operator from the first drop-down list.
    Now, we can proceed to setting up the Flow 'rule'. We do so by first choosing 'Flow' from the channel drop-down. Next, we choose 'less than' (<) as our comparison, since we want this alarm to be triggered when a Flow reading is less than 1.25.
    Lastly, we'll enter 1.25 as our Value for Rule #2.
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  1. (Optional) Configure your preferred Advanced Settings. Click Show Advanced Settings to expand the entry field.
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  1. (Optional) Copy this alarm to other sites. Click Copy New Alarm to Other Sites to expand the entry field.
    This option will reveal a list of sites in your account that are compatible with this alarm's rule and settings. Click the checkbox next to the site name where you want a copy of this alarm created.
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4. Save the New Alarm/Notification

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You will be directed back to the Alarm Configuration page, where your new Alarm will be shown in the List of Notifications and Alarms. If you copied this alarm to other sites, they too will be listed here. You can click any of the entries in this list to view the alarm's details, and make any edits.

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