Temperature Monitoring with Voice Alerts

Summary

In this example, we’ll be using a Dragino LTC2-SI LoRaWAN RTD Temperature sensor on T2U’s IoT Platform to trigger Email and SMS alerts 24/7, but for added protection and reassurance, we’ll also configure a voice alert on any temperature excursions that occur after hours (5pm-7am). Voice calls sent via T2U are automated and must be acknowledged by the recipient with a key press (1). If the call is not acknowledged or it goes to voice mail, the next recipient in the priority list will be notified via a voice call. This will happen for up to three registered users consecutively, greatly increasing the chances that any alert events are acknowledged and actioned and potentially save any monitored asset(s) before it’s too late.

Prerequisites

A Telemetry2U paid subscription that includes SMS and voice alerts. Refer to the T2U Quick Guide to help get up and running.
You’ve been granted ‘Company Admin’ and ‘Alert Admin’ privileges in your user configuration.
A Dragino LTC2-SI LoRaWAN RTD Temperature sensor already configured and working on your T2U account.
Within range of a private LoRaWAN gateway pointing to Telemetry2U or successfully integrated to a public LoRaWAN network such as Helium or TTN.
All required users/recipients registered and linked to your Telemetry2U company account.

Create and Configure Notification Groups

On T2U’s IoT Platform, alerts can trigger Email, SMS, or voice notifications to any number of users within a notification group(s). In this example, we’ll want to create three notification groups. One for all users to receive email notifications 24/7, one for all users to receive SMS alerts 24/7 and finally, one to receive a voice call after hours only - between the hours of 6pm to 7am, 7-days a week. Technically, it would be possible to configure a single notification group to handle this task, but it’s often easer to create separate groups so you have more control when configuring multiple alerts.

Log into Telemetry2U’s IoT platform and navigate to Admin >> Notification groups. Hit the Create New link in the top right corner and give it a description. We will use Email 24/7> in this example, but you can use any other name of your choice. Click the Create button when done and you should be taken straight to the notification group settings. By default, alerts will be sent 24/7 so you will not need to make any adjustments to the time filters. Select which Members should receive the notifications and check the Send Email boxes accordingly.

Repeat the above process to create an SMS notification group called SMS 24/7. Once again, select which Members should receive the SMS alerts and check the Send SMS box accordingly.

Finally, create another notification group called Voice Call - After Hours. Select which Members should receive voice alerts with the Voice Alert check box(s). For voice alerts to be triggered after hours only, configure the time filter settings as the following

Start Day: Sunday
End Day: Saturday
Start Time: 18:00
End Time: 07:00

Note:

The time must be in 24-hour format.

The Priority field only applies to voice calls. Voice calls sent by T2U are interactive, meaning that must be acknowledged with a key press (1). If the call isn’t acknowledged or goes to voice mail, another voice call will be made to the next user in the order of the selected Priority. Select the order you want the voice calls to be made with the Priority dropdown (1-3).

Create Voice Call Alert notification group

Make sure you click the Save button when you have finished configuring each notification group. For more infomation on configurng notification groups, Click Here...

When complete, you should end up with three separate notification groups as per the example below.

Create an alert to trigger the notification groups

In this example, we will use a Dragino LTC2-SI LoRaWAN RTD Temperature sensor configured and running running on the Helium network to trigger the notifications from an alert condition on the external temperature sensor when it is Greater than 8.0C.

Firstly, navigate to Admin >> Alert Maintenance and click the Create New link in the top left corner. Give the alert a description of your choice and click the save button. You should be taken straight to the alert configuration page. The alert defaults to Active. From the Alert Conditions section, select your LoRaWAN sensor from the dropdown box to add it to the list. Configure it with the following settings.

Input : temperature
Comparison: Greater Than
Threshold: 8
Consecutive Readings: 1
Minutes Between Alerts: 60
Alert Action: BLANK
Send on Recovery: Checked
Recovery Action: BLANK
Active: Checked

Now, you’ll need to select which notification groups are triggered in an alert condition. In this example, you would want to select the three new notification groups you created in the previous section (Email 24/7, SMS 24/7, and Voice After Hours)

The Priority field only applies to voice calls. Voice calls sent by T2U are interactive, meaning that must be acknowledged with a key press (1). If the call isn’t acknowledged or goes to voice mail, another voice call will be made to the next user in the order of the selected Priority. Select the order you want the voice calls to be made with the Priority dropdown (1-3).

Once you have configured to the above example (or any configuration you desire), click the Save button to complete the process.

If everything has been configured correctly, you should receive an email and SMS any time of day but only receive a voice call between 6pm and 7am.

If it doesn’t work, ensure that all users within the notification group(s) have been added correctly. Some common mistakes are when the alert email address has not been entered correctly or the Alert Phone numbers, and Voice Alert mobile numbers are missing or have not been entered in international format (e.g. +61-xxx-xxx-xxx).

You can read more about adding users, configuring notification groups and configuring alerts in the Telemetry2U Quick Guide.