Concept of Disarming and Rearming Actions
Actions are the manner by which email, SMS, or Voice Call notifications are delivered to customers based on triggering conditions. There are two manners by which a user can respond when a notification is delivered. These responses are Disarming and Rearming the Action. This article will outline the concepts behind this escalation.
General Action Escalation
The two main components of an Action are a Trigger event and an Action event. The trigger is the event which initiates the escalation, and the Action is the operation the software takes in response to the trigger. Triggers can be initiated by a sensor reading event, inactivity, schedule, and other means. In most cases, the trigger takes the form of a sensor reading. Actions can take the form of a sent email, SMS, or Voice Call notification. Actions can also take the form of System Actions in which logic is executed to activate, deactivate, disarm (Acknowledge), or rearm (Full Reset) an Action. The Action can also take the from of sending a command to a Control Unit, Thermostat, or Local Alert. The focus of this article will be a standard notification Action.
In the example of a Sensor Reading Action configured to send a notification, the sensor reading will be received by the MSG O3A portal and initiate the escalation. This will send the notification to the user/s configured as Recipients. When the notification has been triggered, there is a small red dot over the “bell” icon visible in viewmysensors portal at the top left of the page. If this bell is clicked, you will see a list of notifications that have been triggered and are currently awaiting response, as shown in the following image.
If no action is taken by a user, the notification will continue to send repeat notifications on a “snooze” timer. By default, this timer is 60 minutes. This is to say, that if the triggering condition persists and a user does not disarm the Action, the notification will continue to send every 60 minutes until it is disarmed or the triggering condition returns to normal.
If the sensor that triggered the Action continues to report triggering conditions and a user wants to acknowledge this and stop the Action from sending repeat 60 minute snooze notifications while the triggering condition persists, the Action can be disarmed. This is done by clicking the bell icon in the top left (shown in the image above), then by clicking the smaller Disarm bell icon in the overlay menu that is presented. This Disarms the Action from continuing to send repeat snooze notifications while the current triggering condition persists.
Once the sensor reports that the triggering condition ended, the Action will be “Rearmed”. This is to say that the sensor detects normal conditions, and the Action has effectively been reset so that it can be triggered again if the sensor reports a triggering condition again in the future.
If a user Disarm an Action, they can also manually Rearm the Action. This might occur in the scenario where you want to stop the notification from sending as a result of the current triggering condition, but you _do _want a notification to send again if the triggering condition persists on subsequent readings. If you Disarmed and subsequently Rearmed an Action, it would effectively reset the notification completely.
Action color coding
When viewing the Actions tab in your account, you may see Actions that are highlighted in red or yellow.
- Yellow - Actions that have been Disarmed and not Rearmed and are tied to triggers that are still in the triggering state. These Actions will not continue to send notifications on the configured Snooze time.
- Red - Actions that have not yet been Disarmed or Rearmed and are tied to triggers that are still in the triggering state. These Actions will continue to send notifications on the configured Snooze time. Note: The Action can be highlighted in red indicating a Trigger sensors meets the triggering condition, even if the Action is disabled and not sending.
Disarmed, not rearmed
Not Disarmed, Not Rearmed
Also, if a sensor is selected as a trigger of an Action, and it’s reading meets the triggering condition on the Action’s Trigger, the small dot in the sensor’s graphic will show a small red dot.
Notifications will send for 24 hours then stop
If a notification is not Disarmed/Rearmed within 24 hours, it will stop sending. MSG O3A system considers 24 hours of a notification sending on the Snooze time to be enough time for a user to address the triggering condition. Therefore after 24 hours of time, the notification will no longer trigger. If a user Disarms/Rearms the Action at that point, it will trigger again. But if the Action is not Rearmed, it will no longer trigger.
Conclusion
Understanding the Disarm, Rearm, and Snooze time is essential to effectively managing your Actions. If you have further inquiries, feel free to contact MSG Support.