Alarming Schedules

User Schedules

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The alarm notification system uses schedules to determine which users should be notified about an active alarm by looking at the users defined in the notification block. This means that notification messages are sent only to active users based on the defined schedules.

You can set a schedule for each user in the alarm notification system and utilize on-call rosters to create user groups. For example, suppose you have alarms that should be sent to all supervisors. You can put all of the supervisors in one on-call roster and the scheduling system will automatically only notify those supervisors who are on-shift (based on their individually set schedules) when the alarm goes active.

From the Schedule Management > Schedules tab, you can see the names of all configured schedules, their available descriptions, the type of schedules, and if they are currently active under the Active Now column. An alarm will be listed as Inactive when the current day and time don't match the schedule settings, or if Observe Holidays is enabled on a configured holiday. Holidays can be configured on the Schedule Management > Holidays tab or by using the system.user holiday functions.

Define a New Schedule

1. Go to the Config tab of the Gateway Webpage and scroll down to Alarming > Schedules.
   

2. The Schedule Management page is displayed. Here you can see an Always and an Example schedule.

   • The Always Schedule is a built-in schedule that is always available: 24/7/365.
   • The Example Schedule is an example of a M-F 8am-5pm schedule with a lunch break. Clicking edit will access the detailed settings.

   

3. Click on Create new Schedule.

4. For our example, we'll set up a new Standard schedule. Enter a schedule name, description, and set the hours:

   • Name: Weekend Basic
   • Description: Regular Weekend schedule, no holidays
   • Observe Holidays: No (Unselect this option)
   • All days: No (Unselect this option)
   • Weekdays: No (Unselect this option)
   • Saturday: Yes (Select this option)
   • Sunday: Yes (Select this option)

   

5. Click Add Schedule.

Schedule Restricted Settings

New in 8.1.25

If you want to ensure users are unable to log in when their assigned schedule is not active, you can select the Schedule Restricted option for the user's corresponding User Source. The user will then be denied any login access for attempts made outside active hours.

Standard Schedule Properties

A schedule defined by hours of operation on each day, with repeating options.

General

Name	Description
Name	The name of the alarm schedule.
Description	The description of the alarm schedule.
Observe Holidays	When enabled, this schedule will be inactive on any configured holidays. By default, this setting is enabled.

Schedule

At least one schedule option is required to be configured to create the alarm schedule. By default, all selections will be set to 24 hours a day. Note that a schedule is active based on the Gateway's system time, not a user's local time.

Name	Description
All Days	This schedule will have the same hours 7 days a week. This option is selected by default. No other options can be selected when this option is selected.
Weekdays	This schedule will have the same hours Monday-Friday, but will have no hours on the weekends. No other options can be selected when this option is selected, except for All Days, which will override this option.
Monday	Determines the Active hours of the alarm for every Monday. This option can be configured with any of the other individual day selections.
Tuesday	Determines the Active hours of the alarm for every Tuesday. This option can be configured with any of the other individual day selections.
Wednesday	Determines the Active hours of the alarm for every Wednesday. This option can be configured with any of the other individual day selections.
Thursday	Determines the Active hours of the alarm for every Thursday. This option can be configured with any of the other individual day selections.
Friday	Determines the Active hours of the alarm for every Friday. This option can be configured with any of the other individual day selections.
Saturday	Determines the Active hours of the alarm for every Saturday. This option can be configured with any of the other individual day selections.
Sunday	Determines the Active hours of the alarm for every Sunday. This option can be configured with any of the other individual day selections.

Repeating

Name	Description
Repeat/Alternate	Repeats an alternating schedule, determined by the Daily or Weekly settings below. Default is Off. If you set to anything other than Off, and you do not specify a starting day, the schedule will never be active.
# Days/Week On	Sets the number of days or weeks on. Default is 1.
# Days/Week Off	Sets the number of days or weeks off. Default is 1.
Starting At	Pick a date that defines the starting day or week for the repetition. For example, suppose you had a 1 week on, 1 week off schedule, and you picked a Monday of some week. The schedule would be active for that week, and would inactive on the following Monday. This pattern will then repeat indefinitely.

Composite Schedule Properties

A schedule defined by the composite of two other schedules. This type of schedule will be active whenever either of the two assigned schedules are active.

Name	Description
Name	The name of the alarm schedule.
Description	The description of the alarm schedule.
Schedule One	The first schedule configurations to apply to this schedule.
Schedule Two	The second schedule configurations to apply to this schedule.

Manage Holidays

Holidays associated with a schedule's Observe Holidays setting can be created, edited, and deleted on the Holidays tab of the Schedule Management page. To create a holiday, select Create new Holiday and enter the relevant Name, Date, and Repeat Annually values. Holidays can be edited or deleted at any time using the Edit and Delete buttons.

Holiday Properties

Name	Description
Name	The name of the holiday.
Date	The date of the holiday. Accepted format is YYYY-MM-DD. A Calendar icon is available to make entering a date easier.
Repeat Annually	Repeats this holiday on the same day each year when checked. By default, this setting is checked.

Manage User Schedules from the Vision Client

There are a few ways to manage user schedules from the Vision Client. The first is to use the Schedule Management component on a window. This component allows you to quickly and easily manage the schedules from the Vision Client.

For more granular control, you may instead want to use scripting to manage the schedules. This may offer a more granular control at the click of a button. There are a number of system functions that allow you to create, read, edit, and delete schedules or holidays from a user source using scripting (i.e., system.user.addSchedule, system.user.getHoliday, etc.). To learn what system functions are available for user scheduling and holiday scripting, refer to the system.user in the Appendix.

# This code creates a new schedule by using an old schedule but setting observe holidays to true.
mySchedule = system.user.getSchedule("WeeklySchedule")
if mySchedule != None and mySchedule.getType() == "basic schedule":
    mySchedule.setObserveHolidays(True)
    mySchedule.setName("NewWeeklySchedule")
    system.user.addSchedule(mySchedule)