Alarm Actions

Owned by Nina Cardillo
Last updated: 14-Jun-2023
2 min read

An alarm manager can invoke actions when an alarm activates. There are four basic Alarm actions: sms, email, and  job.  Each action is identified with its keyword and one or more action-specific attributes. Multiple actions can be configured for an alarm.  All configured actions occur when the alarm activates.

Specific implementations may support other alarm action types, such as Slack or Twitter notifications.  Actions include template text which can be parameterized with a number of macros, such as the alarm source, and the condition which was met to trigger the alarm.  The available actions are listed in each product's documentation.

The basic Alarm actions are described in the following table. 

Action           Description     
sms

Sends an SMS text message to the specified cell phone. The sms action has one property: to, which contains an email address for use with an Email-to-SMS Gateway service, or a comma-separated list of such addresses to send the alarm to. Because SMS messages are sent using Email-to-SMS gateway services, a correct SMTP service configuration is required.

The SMS message body contains the alarm message (described in the message property), truncated to fit the SMS format, if necessary. SMS services require that the edge server has TCP/IP or GSM connectivity.

Example:
        sms: { 
            to: "4081234567@sms.mycellco.com"   
        }

email

Sends an email message to the specified email account. The email action has two properties:

  • to, which accepts a comma-separated list of destination email addresses.
  • subject, which contains the subject for the message.

The message body is constructed from the alarm message. The same macros that are available for the message body can also be used for the message subject.

Emails are sent through the SMTP server configured with the segment. Email services require that the edge server has TCP/IP or GSM connectivity.

Example:
        email: {
               to: "supervisor@acme.com, joe@gmail.com",
               subject: "Alarm: {condition}"
        }

job

Runs the specified job. The job action has three properties:

  • activate 
  • deactivate 
  • acknowledge 

Each property can specify a GLP job to be executed when the alarm is activated, deactivated, or acknowledged, respectively.

Jobs are referenced with their request channel topic.

Example:
        job: {

            activate: "glp/0/downtown/rq/job/123"
        }