Monitoring

What is alarm escalation?

Alarm escalation can refer to three different things. With our products, all user requirements can be met.

• Resending the alarm message
• Forwarding the alarm message to another user
• Sending a reminder if the situation gets worse

Resending the alarm message

Most mature devices, such as Poseidon2, Damocles2, Ares, HWg-WLD or WLD2, can resend alarm messages. This feature is called Periodic Alarm. Simply specify a time in minutes or seconds (depending on the device type). If the alarm lasts longer than the specified time, the alarm messages are sent again.

Devices intended for home use, such as HWg-STE, STE2 or SD devices, do not support this feature directly; however, the feature is available through the Sensdesk.com portal.  

The portal supports the feature for the SafeRange as well as for all Notice ranges – see below.

Forwarding the alarm message to another user

It is often needed to escalate alarms to another operator or to a supervisor. This function would be difficult to define within a device, hence it is implemented in its entirety within the SensDesk.com portal. That way, it is possible to configure the escalation in a user-friendly way, present an overview of all alarm messages, and provide central management. Escalation uses the Notice range feature and its Delay parameter. Simply set up a new Notice range with its limit values equal to an existing range and set the Delay to the required escalation delay. At the respective sensor or device, create a new action, set its target to the person handling the escalation and choose the range with the delay. It is possible to define multiple ranges and actions for several escalation levels, e.g. to send an alarm immediately to the technician on duty, one hour later to the back-up technician, and after two hours to the operations manager.

Note: When defining Notice Ranges, keep in mind that the PushPeriod can prolong the delay. For example, if the delay is 3600s (60 minutes = 1 hour), the escalation can take up to 4200s, that is, 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes). If you need to escalate after 60 minutes at most, set a shorter delay, e.g. 55 minutes (3300s).

Escalation when the situation gets worse

This type of escalation only applies to sensors, i.e. analog values. It cannot be defined for binary inputs and outputs. It is similar to the escalation to another person as described above: instead of a delay, specify a different range of values. For example, when monitoring the temperature in a cabinet, one action can turn on back-up AC at 35°C, another action notifies the property maintenance at 45°C, another one shuts down the servers at 55°C and a yet another one notifies the fire brigade at 85°C.

Useful tips

Always set a hysteresis – Just as with in-device SafeRange settings, it is highly recommended for Notice Ranges, too.

Give descriptive names to Ranges and Actions – When creating a new Range or Action, a name needs to be specified. Choose names that are easy to understand. This will make it easier to edit Ranges and Actions and create new ones. When creating an action, it is necessary to select an existing range. At that moment, ranges named “Range1” and “Range2” don’t really help. On the other hand, ranges named “20-40C” or “20-40C 60min” are easy to distinguish.

All sensor's data from your user account on the SensDesk.com (SensDesk technology based portal) are available for some time in the XML format that can be periodically downloaded over http or https (XML Application Note is here). 
However, the XML format is not very suitable for IT environments that need quick and brief responses. To address this, a SNMP agent feature was added. This request-response protocol runs on top of UDP, It allows targeted queries for one specific value, without downloading lots of unneeded data.

Core information:
The SNMP implementation in the portal supports SNMPv1 and/or SNMPv3 over UDP.
All settings can be configured at the user’s login page, http://sensdesk.com/user/.
SNMP Server Address is portal address (ex.: Sensdesk.com), SNMP port is 1161.

Results of SNMP Walk request with Paessler SNMP tester

Showing all sensors data from the portal user account. The user / Team account is identified with using the Community.

Results of SNMP Walk request with iReasoning MIB Browser

Showing all sensors data from the portal user account. The user / Team account is identified with using the Community.

How to configurate SNMP on the SensDesk.com portal:

Every user can create two SNMP accounts. SNMP version and access permissions can be configured separately for each account. (At this moment, only read access is allowed.)
The community for SNMPv1 or the user name for SNMPv3 are randomly generated, and are unique within the whole portal. It is possible to regenerate them on saving.

The generated community or username is also shown in the user account properties.

The MIB table is currently under development and available for download in the user account.

The devices themselves support numerous protocols; one could therefore avoid a common concentrator and modify the communication protocols directly in the devices. However, this is not realistic due to their different characteristics, communication interfaces, age, and the need to maintain backward compatibility.

For instance, Narrowband devices (NB-devices family) do not offer any standardized outputs and only communicate using a proprietary protocol. Devices connected over GSM/LTE cannot be accessed for reading. And even Ethernet devices have very different properties. The solution is to use the portal. In addition to other functions, the portal provides current values from all devices in a unified way using XML or SNMP.

In case of SNMP, both SNMPv1 and SNMPv3 can be used. Support for SNMP traps (for alarms) is coming soon. Each user is assigned a community and a username for SNMPv3. This is to ensure that each user can only access values which they are authorized to access.

For SNMP, the principle is the same, except that the portal login username and password are used to determine user permissions.

For more information about using SensDesk.com for data concentration, see our application notes.

So far, all alarm actions in SensDesk used to be configured by editing a particular sensor. However, SensDesk now allows setting more Safe Ranges and customizing the corresponding messages. Therefore, the system of creating actions had to be changed. In a completely new Action module, users can define an unlimited number of actions (e-mails, text messages, switching of relays, and in the future also SNMP traps) for each sensor. In order to allow for the management of a large number of sensors or alarms, the method of specifying Safe Ranges and Notice Ranges, as well as message Targets and Templates, has been redesigned.

Each alarm action now consists of several elements.

Action = Range + Target + Template

In this way, a single modification to a Target, a Safe Range or a Notice Range can have an effect on multiple alarm actions. It is no longer necessary to edit each sensor separately. 

There is an exception to this rule: For some outputs, it is not possible to choose a message template and target using the Target module because it is not possible to control the output with multiple actions.  The particular output is selected directly when creating the action.

Range: What is the difference between Safe Range, SD Range, and Notice Range

The SafeRange and SD Range in SensDesk have already been covered elsewhere. In place of SD Range, users can now take advantage of the new Notice Range feature.

Safe range is the range of sensor readings that is considered safe. This notion is used in all devices capable of performing operations autonomously based on this range – such entering and exiting the Alarm state, sending alarm messages or switching outputs, as well as sending extra messages to the portal. For the portal, the SafeRange is a unique set of values that is synchronized between the portal and the device and is configured when editing a sensor. In the portal, this range determines whether the Alarm state is shown.

Notice range is an alternative range of safe sensor readings, stored in the portal. It will be used to send information (alarm) messages or control outputs. These ranges are only used to send messages and display the ranges of allowed values in charts. They are configured centrally for the entire team and are assigned to sensors by means of Actions.

Why several ranges?

For most applications, one safe range is sufficient. Is the door open or closed? There is a simple answer to that question. However, for continuous quantities, this may not always be the case, and it may be useful to send information to different people depending on the severity of the problem. Think of it as a kind of alarm escalation. For example, if we feel sick, we may decide as follows: temperature over 37 °C – stay at home, over 39 °C – call the doctor. Escalation can work in a similar way in a technology environment: If the temperature in a rack exceeds 30 °C, turn on backup A/C. If it exceeds 40°C, call the building manager. If it exceeds 50°C, shut down the equipment. And if it exceeds 75°C, call the fire brigade right away.

Working with ranges

Safe ranges are defined as usual at the Edit tab for each sensor. The only difference is that now the values are synchronized between the device and the portal. In case of a conflict, the values in the device take precedence. The synchronization must be supported by the device firmware, too. Therefore, it needs to be upgraded. For more information, see Changes in SD SafeRange in SensDesk.

Notice ranges are set in a separate module under Settings / Notices.

A list of all existing ranges can be displayed in a tile or table format depending on the user preferences.

After clicking Create new notice, fill in similar parameters as for a SafeRange:

• Name – Name of the Notice Range to identify it in subsequent operations. Take care when choosing the name. It may also include the range values themselves.
• Unit – Unit of measurement for specifying the range. When creating an Action, only ranges with the appropriate unit will be displayed. This makes the setup easier in larger systems. The unit must be chosen correctly; for example, “%” is different from “%RH”.
• Minimum value – The lowest value of the safe range. If the reading drops below this value, an action is initiated.
• Maximum value – The highest value of the safe range. If it is exceeded, an action is initiated.
• Hysteresis – A band of insensitivity that is applied at the end of the alarm. If the change does not exceed the hysteresis, the alarm is not called off.

Delay – Delay for starting the action. This can be used to eliminate false alarms or to tolerate short excursions outside of the safe range. Care must be taken to account for the period for sending data. For a Safe Range that is stored in the device, the delay can be as short as a few seconds (devices, except battery-powered ones, usually read sensor values every few seconds). However, for a Notice Range, a sensible delay is either 0 or a multiple of the Push Period (which is typically set to 15 minutes).

Target: What are Targets

For actions, Targets specify the destination e-mail addresses, phone numbers for text messages, and in the future, IP addresses for SNMP traps. The necessary parameters when setting a target differ for different target types (e-mails, SMS and so on). Each target may contain multiple destination addresses separated by commas.

To create a new target, click the corresponding button and select the target type. 

E-mail targets

Specify the target name and the list of destination e-mail addresses.

SMS targets

Specify the target name, the list of phone numbers, and the address of the HW group SMS gateway. If the address is specified in the team settings, it is filled in automatically.

Action: Creating actions

Actions can be created for sensors, inputs, outputs or devices. To create an action, use the Action tab.

The tab lists all existing tabs in a tile or table format. Here you can also create new actions. The following choices are available:

• E-mail
• SMS
• Sensor output

The creation of Actions follows a similar logic as the creation of Notice ranges or Targets.

Alarm e-mail

To create an alarm e-mail, fill in:

• Name – The action name can give a better overview and can be used for filtering in batch operations.
• Enable – Quickly enables or disables the action. When disabled, the action is no longer performed but it does not have to be deleted and perhaps later recreated.
• Notice – Drop-down list for selecting a range. It is possible to select the Safe Range stored in the device (- SD Range -) or an existing Notice Range. If the range needed for the action has not been created yet, click Create new Notice to create one. Currently, you will be redirected to the range creation page, and taken back after saving the range. In the future, we will add a modal dialog to make the process faster. Only ranges with the appropriate unit are displayed.

• Targets – One or more existing targets can be selected. If the target needed for the action has not been created yet, click Create new target to create one. Currently, you will be redirected to the target creation page (Targets), and taken back after saving the target. In the future, we will add a modal dialog to make the process faster. Only targets of the appropriate type (e-mail) are displayed.

• Template – Drop-down list for selecting a message template. It is possible to select the basic template (- Simple -) or an existing template. If the template needed for the action has not been created yet, click Create new template to create one. Currently, you will be redirected to the template creation page (Templates), and taken back after saving the template. In the future, we will add a modal dialog to make the process faster. Only templates of the appropriate type (e-mail) are displayed.

After the action is saved, it is shown in the list of actions.

Alarm SMS

An alarm SMS (text message) is created in a similar way to an e-mail action. To create an alarm SMS, fill in:

• Name – The action name can give a better overview and can be used for filtering in batch operations.
• Enable – Quickly enables or disables the action. When disabled, the action is no longer performed but it does not have to be deleted and perhaps later recreated.
• Notice – Drop-down list for selecting a range. It is possible to select the Safe Range stored in the device (- SD Range -) or an existing Notice Range. If the range needed for the action has not been created yet, click Create new Notice to create one. Currently, you will be redirected to the range creation page, and taken back after saving the range. In the future, we will add a modal dialog to make the process faster. Only ranges with the appropriate unit are displayed.
• Targets – One or more existing targets can be selected. If the target needed for the action has not been created yet, click Create new target to create one. Currently, you will be redirected to the target creation page (Targets), and taken back after saving the target. In the future, we will add a modal dialog to make the process faster. Only targets of the appropriate type (SMS) are displayed.
• Template – Drop-down list for selecting a message template. It is possible to select the basic template (- Simple -) or an existing template. If the template needed for the action has not been created yet, click Create new template to create one. Currently, you will be redirected to the template creation page (Templates), and taken back after saving the template. In the future, we will add a modal dialog to make the process faster. Only templates of the appropriate type (SMS) are displayed.

After the action is saved, it is shown in the list of actions.

Switching an output

“Sensor output” is an action that switches a remote output (such as a relay) whenever the range is exceeded. It can be used to turn on a warning light, sound a horn, or simply turn on a back-up system. To create the action, fill in:

• Name – The action name can give a better overview and can be used for filtering in batch operations.
• Enable – Quickly enables or disables the action. When disabled, the action is no longer performed but it does not have to be deleted and perhaps later recreated.
• Notice – Drop-down list for selecting a range. It is possible to select the Safe Range stored in the device (- SD Range -) or an existing Notice Range. If the range needed for the action has not been created yet, click Create new Notice to create one. Currently, you will be redirected 
• to the range creation page, and taken back after saving the range. In the future, we will add a modal dialog to make the process faster. Only ranges with the appropriate unit are displayed.
• Setout sensors – List of outputs that will be controlled by the action. In a JavaScript tree, it is possible to select one or more outputs to use. Selected outputs are shown in the highlighted box. Only devices that have (physical or virtual) outputs, are in the user’s own team, and for which the user has the necessary permissions are shown and available for selection. In addition, only outputs that can be controlled are shown. It is not possible to control outputs that:
  • have a Local Condition set in the device (to avoid unintended changes to the autonomous device operation), and/or
  • are already used in another action.

After the action is saved, it is shown in the list of actions.

Actions on the entire device

An action on a device is used to react to communication problems between the device and the portal. Although it is possible to use any action on any sensor or input since the loss of communication leads to an Alarm with a “dev. Inv” (Device invalid) value, it is easier and clearer to create a separate action on the device itself with the possibility to use a separate template.

This action is similar to the previous actions, except there is no Notice option as it would make no sense in this context.

Overview of all actions

To avoid the need to go through all sensors, inputs, outputs and devices just to find if there is an action set on any of them, the Settings section includes an overview of all team actions.

How does it work?

As from January 2020, sensor Safe Ranges in selected devices can be set directly in SensDesk. This feature is currently available only for the SD Device, NB Device and the upcoming STE r2 device families. It will be gradually extended to other device families, such as Poseidon2, Damocles2, STE2 or Ares. However, before this feature can be extended to such devices, it is necessary to maintain the possibility to have different Safe Ranges in the device and in SensDesk. Therefore, existing customers will not lose any features, they will just find them at a different place. This is also linked to other changes, such as Notice ranges and templates. Safe Ranges of devices other than SD Devices and NB Devices can be synchronized only after these changes are fully rolled out.

Security based on user permissions, of course, applies. Only users with Team Admin and Device Admin rights may modify Safe Ranges. This also prevents unintentional mistakes.

Safe Range, SD Safe Range, Notice range – what is the difference?

Safe range is the range of sensor readings that is considered safe. We started using this notion in devices capable of performing autonomous operations based on this range – activate and deactivate the Alarm state and use it to send alarm messages and control outputs.

SD Safe range is the range of safe sensor readings in the SensDesk portal. It is used when displaying sensor states as well as when sending alarm messages configured in the Email & SMS alerts section for each sensor, input or output. This range is set for each sensor separately when editing the sensor.       

Notice range is an alternative range of safe sensor readings. It will be used to send information (alarm) messages or control outputs. These ranges are only used to send messages and display the ranges of allowed values in charts.

What are the changes

First of all, the SD Safe Range disappears completely. It was confusing for SD Devices and ND Devices: in these devices, Safe range cannot be set directly in the device. However, it is needed for critical infrastructure: when the range is exceeded, the device must send a message to the portal immediately, without waiting for the standard communication window (the delay can be 15 minutes for SD devices but hours for NB devices, and that is way too late for a timely reaction). The Safe range mechanism also includes delta AutoPush; that is, if the change in the measured value is equal to or greater than this parameter, an AutoPush is sent as an immediate alert to a possible problem. This again makes monitoring simpler and more effective. For SD devices and NB devices, these parameters will be configured directly in SensDesk when editing a sensor. Therefore, it would be confusing to have a SafeRange and a separate SD SafeRange, when in fact these parameters are synchronized between the device and the portal.

However, with SD Safe Range disappearing, we wanted to maintain the possibility of specifying a second safe range, which is very useful for early warnings. Therefore, instead of one independent SD Safe Range, we will provide an unlimited number of ranges called the Notice range. These can be used in alarm actions or in charts but they are not synchronized with the device. Therefore, the possibility to have an independent range is maintained, and even extended to support an unlimited number of ranges for each sensor. For better clarity, it is not shown when editing a sensor but rather at a completely new Notice Range tab. 

Will I lose my settings?

The introduction of Safe Range synchronization between SensDesk and the device indeed links the values in the device with those in the portal; however, custom settings will be preserved. When the Notice Range feature is introduced, the existing SD Safe Range is first copied to a new Notice range together with the existing alarm actions, and only then is the synchronization between the device and the portal enabled. Therefore, for existing customers, Notice ranges will be set up automatically and none of their settings will be lost. In addition, when synchronizing, the device settings will take priority; that is, the SD Safe Range in the portal will be overwritten with the Safe range value from the device, and not vice versa.  The synchronization also needs to be supported by the device firmware. To avoid any issues, firmware versions with synchronization support will be released only after the Notice Range feature is deployed in the portal.

Time schedule for the changes

• SD devices –  already in place
• NB devices – already in place
• STE2 rev.2 – already in place
• All other devices – as from 1st June 2020