Functions

Basic functions of Alert are the following:

• Management of modems (telephone or GSM) , ISDN controllers (compatible with the CAPI 2 interface) or specific call systems via the PC communication ports: direct handling of physical ports (COM1 to COM64) or throw the TAPI interface of Windows (modems installed in the Control Panel). Voice Over IP capabilities (integrated SIP protocol) allowing voice communications with operators through the IP network without any modem or telephonic adapter.
• Management of a user database which can contain until 999 operators: name, first name, identifier, password, language, user class, call numbers, on -duty / off-duty status, substitute, duty schedule, weekly program of call numbers. An operator can be declared as virtual in order to define a media used by several operators (e.g. mobile phone or pager). Management of availability statuses of operators (available, unavailable, meeting...).
• Management of on call groups, a group defining a list of operators who can be called to intervene on a specific alarm category ("Fire" group for example), with facility of relief group. Capability of command transmission to an external application to signal starting, success, failure or acknowledgment of the call of the group. Capability of transferring alarms to another group in support or substitution.
• Management of on call team s, a team corresponding to a list of operators who will be called either simultaneously or by rotation (according to option), with possibility of declaring relief operators to call in case of call failure.
• Management of a schedule table by group, each tabl e defining the team schedule for a group over one year. The time periods can be defined with a resolution of one hour, a half of hour or a quarter of hour. It is possible to define "reduce duty" periods (time during which only important alarms trigger the call of operators). Weekly programs can also be defined (with holiday management) for the pre-programming of on -call teams in the schedule. Possibility of schedule derogation with option to redirect calls to a specific team. Management of team changeover p ossible (clock in and out) with option of mandatory team changeover for the strict control of the on-call teams.
• Definition of tags to supervise: type of tag ( simple variable, event, alarm or acknowledgment), reference, station (localization), functional g roup, polling mode (DDE or OPC tags). For event or alarm tags: transitory type or no, alarm condition (numerical or alphanumeric state) or threshold detection (absolute value or variation), weekly schedule for validation, numerical, alphanumeric and vocal messages, list of actions to perform. For alarm tags: priority, possibility to declare a masking alarm, text file containing instructions attached to the alarm.

1. Management of various data servers (alarm generator applications) with possible control of the status of each data server from an external application through the DDE or OPC interface of ALERT.

• Supervised tags can be organized in a tree structure of functional groups for the synoptic visualization of alarms (physical or functional localization), th e statistic treatment of alarms and creation of alarm synthesis (synthesis of all alarms of a group).

• On alarm or event detection, or on return to a normal state, recording of the event in the event log. On alarm setting, recording of the alarm in the alar m table, with all contextual information associated.

• On event set or reset, or on alarm acknowledgment, possibility to execute a configurable list of actions : call of on -call groups, call of operators, execution of a sequence of commands, execution of a message processor script, launching of an application, playing of a vocal message on the local station.

• Triggering of calls using the available resources and the suitable media. For alarm calls, management of resumption procedures and call of relief operat ors in case of failure or no call acknowledgment.

• Transmission of alphanumeric, numerical or vocal messages. Possibility of formatting of alphanumeric message with static parameter (group, priority...) or contextual and dynamic information (current state or value of tags of the supervised application). Multilanguage management of messages allowing alarm messages and associated information to be transmitted to recipient operators in their respective language.

• Call acknowledgment (taking into account of the received call by the operator), either locally or at a distance by telephone (DTMF keys) or from a remote terminal.

• Alarm acknowledgment (taking into account of the alarm by the operator), either locally or at a distance by telephone (DTMF keys) or from a remote terminal. Possibility to acknowledge alarms either individually, by functional group or globally. Option of automatic alarm acknowledgment on event reset or group warned. On option, automatic synchronization of acknowledgments with the supervised application.

• Possibility of masking and unmasking of alarms, with date and operator's name recording. An alarm masking can be temporized (limit date and time). A comment can be attached to the masking operation. Possibility of automatic masking of an alarm by another one, in order to limit the avalanche effect following upon certain failures (e.g. power down).

• Possibility to dispatch service messages to the on call team or to any operator. Messages transmitted to an operator are recorded in its mail box. It is also possible to trigger file transfers to one or several stations as well as station synchronizations.

• Possibility to program calls of operators, at beginning or end of their on -call period, as well as cyclic calls or periodic calls (at a given time o f a week day), with optionally an attached text file. Possibility of embedded dynamic values in the transmitted message or attached text file. Possibility to program cyclical or periodical files transfers or station synchronizations.

• Active surveillance of the supervised application by controlling the links with this last and possibility to perform a periodic request about specifics tags, in order to detect a no response (e.g. application crash). Possibility to set an alarm on link failure or no answer to a request.

• Active surveillance of calling systems (modems). Possibility to set an alarm in case of dysfunction of one of these systems.

• Management of an alarm table containing a time stamped list of actual and past alarms with their acknowledgment state. Every alarm recorded in the table is associated to a memo containing the alarm description (parameters and current state), instructions and contextual information (generated at event time), as well as the history of the different operations performed to al ert operators (warned operators, call failures,

acknowledgments, event reset). Comments and reports can be edited about the alarms present in the alarm table.

• Management of an alarm history containing the recording of all past alarms and their treatment: date and hour of detection, failure duration, name of the operator who has acknowledged it, its reaction and intervention time. Possibility of consultation or edition of comment or reports about the recorded alarms. The alarm history integrates some daily, weekly and monthly statistical functions on alarms, by group or for a particular alarm: number of failures, total failure duration, mean failure duration. It also integrates some daily, weekly and monthly statistical functions on operator interventions: n umber of interventions, mean time of reaction, mean time of intervention.

2. Management of a call overview, allowing the call cycles triggered by an alarm to be supervised in real time (to know who is warned) or later controlled (called groups, operators and numbers, call reports). Reports on call cycles can be printed. This new feature, attached to the data base export option, requires that option to be activated.

• Management of an event log containing a time stamped trace of all the events: user logins, alar ms, calls, acknowledgments, etc. This event log can be printed simultaneously. It can be also transmitted by DDE to client applications that requested it or to a designated DDE server application.
• Management of a logbook containing intervention reports of the operators. These reports can be either written or vocally recorded. They are automatically signed and time stamped, and they can be classified by topic. Reports can be especially attached to one or more alarms. A vocal report can also be done by telep hone; a written report can be entered from a remote terminal.

3. Integration of a supervision server to generate and animate HTML synoptic views of the supervised installation, for a better visual control and a graphical localization of alarms detected on th e installation. This feature includes the supervision server module (derived from Visual Access) for the animation of synoptic views, the Web browser plug -in to display the synoptic views on the Alert screens (server and clients) and the VAEdit synoptic editor to edit the synoptic views.

• Automatic deletion of the oldest recording files (event log, history, vocal messages). The storage duration is configurable.
• Management of client stations (server version) to operate from any network station: schedule (con sultation, configuration, derogation), alarms (consultation, acknowledgment, masking), history (consultation, statistics), journal (consultation), logbook (consultation, report edition), users and groups (creation and modification of users, groups and team s), supervision (edition and modification of the supervised variable list), etc.
• Built-in vocal server, with greeting message and vocal guide, allowing identification of the called or calling operator (by DTMF keys), listening to the alarm or service messages, alarm acknowledgment, recording of a vocal report, switching to remote terminal or callback request (callback forced on option). Operator identification results in the automatic acknowledgment of calls that has been addressed to him. The vocal messages (alarms, greeting...) can be recorded in local (if the P.C. is provided with a sound card and a microphone) or by telephone. Automatic selection of the language and voice used by the vocal server according to the connected operator. Automatic detection of an answering machine, with possibility to record a message and to switch

automatically to the following number. Capability of call forwarding (automatic call of an operator followed by the call forwarding to a telephone station in order to establish a direct voice communication).

• Voice synthesis option (Text To Speech). This option avoids recording of alarm messages (automatic synthesis from the formatted alphanumeric alarm messages) and enhances the capabilities of the vocal server (configurable greeting message, customized welcome of operators, announcement of the alarm number, timestamp of alarms, integration of dynamic and contextual information in the vocal alarm messages). Automatic selection of the Text To Speech voice according to the connected operator. An option allows presynthesis of messages to optimize the response time when a lot of alarms are triggered. The synthesized messages are saved and restored between each launching.
• Management of client stations (with the server option) to operate fro m any network station: schedule (consultation, configuration, derogation), alarms (consultation, acknowledgment, masking), history (consultation, statistics), journal (consultation), logbook (consultation, report edition), users and groups (creation and mo dification of users, groups and teams), supervision (edition and modification of the supervised tag list), etc.
• Terminal server associated, usable for the incoming calls and, via the vocal server, for the outgoing calls, from a PC (with a terminal emulatio n). Utilization of separated ports (incoming c

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