Auto Status Monitoring

Auto Status Monitoring (automated client schedule status monitoring) is Patriot's most powerful tool for monitoring clients' daily scheduled open/close (unset/set) events.

1: Prerequisites

Auto Status Monitoring Enabled:

Auto Status Monitoring needs to be enabled in the Data Service Settings.

Go to:

System -> System Wide Settings -> Data Service Settings

Make sure 'Auto Status Monitoring' box is checked.

This setting should not be toggled on and off without good reason, and the Patriot server processes must be restarted for it to take effect. It is recommended that large CMS consult with Patriot support before enabling/disabling Auto Status Monitoring.

Note:

As an alternative to Auto Status Monitoring the Unset List tool can be used to perform a simplified form of Schedule Monitoring.

Open / Close Setup:

For auto status monitoring to work correctly the Event Types for the Client/Site must be correctly setup

• Open and Close Signals: Open and Close signals should correctly set the Client/Site as Open or Closed.

  	When an Open signal is received, the signal should be logged with an Opening Action plan and the status of the site should change to Unset (indicated by the dark blue icon on the left of the client screen)
  	When a Close signal is received, the signal should be logged with a Closing Action plan, and the status of the site should change to Set (indicated by the dark blue icon on the left of the client screen)

  If this doesn’t happen, see Action Plans and Event Type Templates sections for further details as the Open and Close settings are not correctly configured.

Event Type Setup:

• The following Event Types should be setup in the Event Type Template that the client is using, and be set up with a priority action plan.

  • Late to Close: 65001

  • Unset(Open) out of Hours: 65007

  • Late to Open: 65051

  • Set(Closed) out of Hours: 65052

2: Client Setup

Auto Status Monitoring settings in the Schedule tab.

In the Schedule Tab of a client record, there are check boxes for each of the four common schedule monitoring applications that Patriot supports:

• Late to Close

• Unset(Open) out of Hours

• Late to Open

• Set (Closed) out of Hours

Late To Close

This feature will create an alarm activation if the Client/site has not closed within a set time frame after their scheduled close time.

1. Enable 'Late to Close'
2. Enter the time between each Late to Close Alarm Activation. In the example after the first Late To Close Alarm was Activated a second would active every 30 minutes.
3. The client tolerance is not used here instead the scheduled tolerance is used.
4. A schedule must be set up. Late to Close will only function if there is a Site/Client scheduled close time.
5. This shows the next expected set time.

Late To Open

This feature will create an alarm activation if the Client/site has not opened within a set time frame after their scheduled open time.

1. Enable 'Late to Open'
2. Enter the time between each Late to Open Alarm Activation. In the example after the first Late To Open Alarm was Activated a second would active every 40 minutes.
3. The client tolerance is not used here instead the scheduled tolerance is used.
4. A schedule must be set up. Late to Open will only function if there is a Site/Client scheduled open time.
5. This shows the next expected set time.

Example Late to Open Signal as seen from Activations Window

Open Out Of Hours

This feature will allow a time period where the Client/Site alarm can be Unset outside of the scheduled hours without an Unset Out Of Hours Alarm Activation. You can set a time limit that if the Alarm remains unset for longer than, an Open Out Of Hours Alarm Activation will occur.

1. Enable 'Unset Out Of Hours'
2. Enter the time between each Unset Out Of Hours Alarm Activation. In the example after the first Unset Out Of Hours Alarm was Activated a second would active every 15 minutes.
3. In the example the alarm tolerance is set to 20 minutes which means if the site is opened out of the scheduled opening time then the control room will not be notified until the tolerance period has ended, this can give users time to open the site for speical purposes. Individual User Tolerance can also be setup in the user details. This allows that particular user to briefly enter the premises after hours, cleaner, owner while still creating an alarm for other users.
4. A schedule must be set up. Open out of Hours will only function if there is a Site/Client scheduled open time.
5. This shows the time that the Out Of Hours Alarm will activate unless the alarm is Set.

You can set individual User Open Out Of Hours Alarm Tolerance in the Client->User tab as shown below.

Each User can be given specific Alarm Tolerance and this overrides the Alarm tolerance entered at the Schedules->Auto Status Monitoring window. Make sure you also check the days of the week that this users Alarm Tolerance applies to.

Close During Hours

This feature will allow a time period where the Client/Site alarm can be Set during scheduled hours without a Early to Close Alarm Activation. You can set a time limit that if the Alarm remains Set for longer than, an Early to Close Alarm Activation will occur.

1. Enable 'Closed During Hours'
2. Enter the time between each Closed During HoursAlarm Activation. In the example after the first Closed During Hours Alarm was Activated a second would active every 15 minutes.
3. In the example the alarm tolerance is set to 60 minutes which means if the site is closed during the scheduled open hours the control room will not be notified until the end of the tolerance period, this can give users time to close and re-open the site.
4. A schedule must be set up. Closed During Hours will only function if there is a Site/Client scheduled open time.
5. This shows the time that the Early to Close Alarm will activate unless the alarm is Unset.

Example Unset Out Of Hours as seen from Activations Window

Tolerance

For Open Out Of Hours and Closed During Hours the alarm tolerance will be added to the scheduled alarm time. For example, if a site is closed and the alarm tolerance is set to 15 minutes a user can open the site for the tolerance period and if they close before the end of the period will not cause an Open Out Of Hours activation.This gives users time to access site for short periods with out causing alarms.

For Late To Close and Late To Open the tolerance within the schedule will be used. This means a different tolerance for each scheduled event can be used and users are not restricted to having one tolerance for the entire schedule. The tolerance is a before tolerance which means it will be applied before the scheduled open or close time. See the ScheduleTab document

Its is important to note that the user tolerance metioned above will overide the schedule tolerance. See the UserTab document on how to set user tolerance up

3: Temporary Schedule Change

Temporary Schedule Change allows a client's standard schedule to be temporarily altered at the request of a verified site user. Once a temporary schedule change has been made, all of Patriot pending Auto Status Monitoring alarms will be updated to match. As soon as the first open/close signal is received after making a temporary schedule change, Patriot will revert back to monitoring the client's standard schedule.

The four Auto Status Monitoring Alarms - Late to close, Unset out of hours/Early to Open (65007), Late to Open (65051), or a Set During Hours/Early Closing (65052) - can be disabled by a Temporary Schedule Change, and thus stop the system from alarming.

Temporary Schedule Change Pop-up

This feature can be accessed by clicking on the Temporary Schedule Change button from within the Schedule tab and also from the activation report window.

As an example a Late to Close Alarm Activation occurs at a Site. An operator opens the activation and scans the recent signal list for the last set/unset signal, before contacting the appropriate site user from the response plan. The site client advises that they will be working late that night and will not be setting the alarm until two hours later than scheduled so the operator allows a Temporary Schedule Change for two hours which over rules the scheduled closing time for that night only.

There are 6 different possible cases where an auto status alarm will be generated, depending on the situation a different Temporary Schedule Change pop-up is presented to the operator.

When the Temporary Schedule Change button is pressed, the system checks which auto status event has occurred, and the and the current status of the site and displays one or two options to the operator. Where the system cannot be sure of what action the operator will require, two options will be given to the operator The system will always attempt to default to the most likely scenario.

For example, if an Unset out of Hours alarm is generated, and the operator presses the temporary schedule change button, the system can’t tell whether the operator needs to Add Unscheduled Opening or Extend Scheduled Opening, so both options are presented to the operator. If the current time is within 1 hour of the scheduled opening period, it defaults to Extend Scheduled Opening, otherwise it defaults to Add Unscheduled Opening.

A temporary schedule change can be made for all areas by checking the Area box. The Ctrl-A keyboard shortcut can be used to select unselect all areas in the list.

A Signal will be logged after every temporary schedule change, recording the details of the change. This signal is generated within the Patriot Data Service process, which can lead to a problem where regional time settings are incorrectly applied to the signal description formatting. For example the signal my be in English(US) and the date may read 01/29/2012 3.00pm but all other signals are in English(United Kingdom) and will read 29/01/2013 15.00. To ensure that schedule change signals apply the correct regional settings the Windows account under which the Patriot Data Service is running must have the correct regional settings configured. Because the Patriot Data Service is often run under a system account, the process for doing this differs from other Windows accounts: go to Control Panel -> Region and Language -> Administrative. Click on the 'Copy Settings' tick the Welcome screen and system accounts and click ok. You will then need to restart the Patriot Data Service before the changes take effect.

Reset To File

If a Temporary Schedule change open/close time has been entered but is no longer required, the Reset To File button can be used to reset the clients scheduled open/close times back to those held in the client’s normal Open / Close Times file.