The following is a brief outline of the structure of the Administrator Guide, which should help you identify the parts that will be relevant for you as you go about the work of configuring TelAlert.
3.3.1 Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter presents a general overview of TelAlert from a product perspective.
3.3.2 Chapter 2: Technical Overview
This chapter presents a general overview of TelAlert from a technical perspective.
3.3.3 Chapter 3: Implementation Planning
The present chapter focuses on familiarizing you with the work you must do to configure TelAlert to meet your organization’s specific needs.
3.3.4 Chapter 4: Configuration Basics
Beginning with version 5.0, TelAlert can be configured using either a text editor or a graphical interface provided by MIR3. This chapter discusses the differences between the two approaches, helping you choose the one that is right for your organization.
3.3.5 Chapter 5: The Role of Ports in TelAlert
[Port]
definitions are key to all notifications. This chapter explains their standard role and the settings you need to understand in order to take advantage of special port-related functionality, including port backup and notification via remote ports. The things you will learn in this chapter will be relevant to a great deal of the other work you will do while setting up TelAlert.3.3.6 Chapter 6: Dialing the Telephone
Many of TelAlert’s paging and voice notification capabilities rely on dialing the telephone. This chapter explains all of the configuration settings that control how TelAlert dials the telephone, teaching you to handle a wide variety of special dialing scenarios, from overlapping area codes to special billing codes to inside and outside lines. The things you will learn in this chapter will be relevant to a great deal of the other work you will do while setting up TelAlert.
3.3.7 Chapter 7: Configuring for Paging Notification
Paging is the most commonly used notification medium supported by TelAlert. Setting up paging involves setting up
[Configurations]
definitions for all the paging services and pager types your organization uses and then creating a[Destinations]
definition corresponding to each of the pagers to which you want notifications to be sent.This chapter walks you through the procedures required to set up a number of different types of paging: numeric and alphanumeric (i.e., text), and two-way. It also covers the differences between sending pages using a standard modem connected to the machine on which TelAlert is running and Internet-based access to paging services.
3.3.8 Chapter 8: Configuring for Text to Speech (TTS) Notification
Text to Speech (TTS) is the second most commonly used notification medium supported by TelAlert. If you plan to use TelAlert’s voice capability, you should have purchased a TelAlert Dialogic telephony card and installed and tested it following the directions in the TelAlert Voice and Hardware Guide. Once TTS is in place, most of your work will consist of setting up specific
[Configurations]
and[Destinations]
definitions appropriate for voice notifications.One important aspect of this process is determining how TelAlert should behave when a number it calls is answered—for instance, whether it should expect to reach a voice mail system or a human user whom it must ask for identification before reading its message.
All the information regarding the TelAlert Dialogic telephony card and software configuration for voice functionality is now covered in chapters 2 through 4 of the TelAlert Voice and Hardware Guide.
3.3.9 Chapter 9: Configuring for Other Notification Media
Because paging and voice are the notification methods most often used by TelAlert users, the Administrator Guide deals with them in separate chapters. In this chapter, you will find coverage of the setup required for sending notifications via other supported media, including email,
command line destinations, electronic signboards, SpectraLink campus phone systems, other computer systems (UNIX syslog processes, AS/400s, and TelaConsole installations), and Web-enabled and text-screen-equipped cellular phones.
3.3.10 Chapter 10: Applying Filtering Techniques
Once you understand the basics of sending messages (covered in the chapters on paging, voice, and other notification media), you can use a variety of techniques to have TelAlert restrict the messages it sends, based on specified conditions. You can have TelAlert delay sending a message for a certain amount of time, send the message only after it has been asked to send one or more duplicates, send the message immediately and then suppress all duplicates, or send the message immediately and then send only a subset of duplicates. You can also use
[Filter]
definitions and-tags
values to invoke additional rules for deciding which destinations in a group to choose when sending a message. This chapter covers these and other filtering techniques.Information on Configuring for TTS Notification is now in the TelAlert Voice and Hardware Guide
Since TelAlert TTS functionality requires a TelAlert Dialogic telephony card, the
information on software and hardware configuration for voice functionality now resides in the TelAlert Voice and Hardware Guide.
3.3.11 Chapter 11: Setting Up and Applying Schedules
[Schedule]
definitions can be invoked in[Destinations]
or[User]
definitions. At whatever level you invoke a schedule, TelAlert uses this information to evaluate affected destinations and determine which are valid at the time TelAlert sends a notification.Schedules can play a role in notifications sent to a single destination, but primarily they serve to determine which of a group of destinations are valid at any given time. They are an important part of implementing TelAlert’s escalation capabilities, but, even when used solely in conjunction with simple group sends, they allow you to differentiate between on-duty and off-duty destinations so that the right people are notified every time.
TelAlert’s scheduling feature allows you to do more than simply indicate when a user or destination is to be considered on duty. As explained in this chapter, you can also set an
AlternateSchedule
andOverrideSchedule
value for each, making it possible to extend the hours during which a destination is valid, depending on message priority.3.3.12 Chapter 12: Representing Users
[User]
definitions are a means of representing people in your TelAlert configuration. This allows you to store certain user-specific information conveniently and apply it where necessary (in a[Destinations]
definition, for instance) simply by referring to the appropriate[User]
definition. This offers advantages for both sending messages and administering the sending of messages. Also,
[User]
definitions are required for certain types of notifications. This chapter explains all you need to know about defining users in the TelAlert configuration file.3.3.13 Chapter 13: Enabling Responses
Recipients of TelAlert messages can respond remotely using two-way pagers or touch-tone telephones; they can also issue a command line response on a machine on which
telalertc
is installed. The most basic aspects of TelAlert’s support for responses require no setup; this chapter covers these but focuses on techniques for creating customized[Response]
definitions. These can play a role in escalations; they can also be used in conjunction with[Notifications]
definitions to initiate additional actions.
3.3.14 Chapter 14: Broadcasting to Groups and Creating Escalations
Groups are collections of destinations. Setting up
[Group]
definitions is very simple; the principal challenge is looking at your organization and its notification needs and deciding what groups to create. The best way to approach this issue is to consider what groups already exist within your organization—implicitly or explicitly— among the pool of potential message recipients. You might form groups on the basis of a wide range of traits: e.g., functional area, physical location, shift, or level of responsibility/authority.You can use
[Group]
definitions to send messages to a number of destinations at once(broadcasting). You use a combination of
[Group]
and[Strategy]
definitions to perform an escalation—sending the message either to a series of individual destinations, one at a time, or to all the destinations comprising one subgroup, then to all the destinations comprising the next subgroup, and so on. This chapter covers all the details of creating[Group]
and[Strategy]
definitions and using them for broadcast notifications and escalations.
3.3.15 Chapter 15: Processing Events
TelAlert is able to recognize a wide range of internal events—some relating to notifications, some relating to input from environmental monitors, some relating to logging, and some relating to the state of TelAlert’s constituent processes. This chapter explains the procedures for having TelAlert pay attention to designated events and process them according to rules you specify.
3.3.16 Chapter 16: Miscellaneous Administrative Tasks
This chapter covers a variety of administrative tasks, including running TelAlert as a service on Windows, setting up the TelAlert Web client, installing clients, and starting, stopping, and initializing TelAlert.
3.3.17 Chapter 17: Security Features
This chapter shows how security enhancements have been woven into the architecture of TelAlert, along with some practical examples of new security features.
3.3.18 Chapter 18: Integrating XML Output
This chapter shows how TelAlert’s XML output can be integrated with various third-party applications.