Alarm Transmitter Integrations Overview

Definitions and Basics

In this documentation:

• an alarm transmitter is a hardware device that sends alarms to evalink talos

  In the most typical case, the device is an alarm panel.

• an alarm transmitter integration, as opposed to other evalink talos integrations, is an integration in which evalink talos itself monitors the connection with the connected alarm transmitter device (see section Connection Monitoring Reference)

  From the implementation point of view, an alarm transmitter integration is an abstraction for the appropriate virtual receiver on evalink talos side. For example, the Ajax, Jablotron, and Risco panels interact with evalink talos via the Virtual DC09 Receiver.

  A virtual receiver is responsible for:

  • monitoring the connection with the transmitter

  • receiving alarms from the transmitter via the appropriate protocol – for example, via the SIA DC-09 protocol

    evalink talos supports a number of industry-accepted protocols: SIA DC-09, VdS 2465 / VdS SecurIP, FlexC, Sur-Gard, Paradox, etc.

tip

evalink talos integrations for which connection monitoring is performed by a third party (for example, the Alarm.com integration) are not considered alarm transmitter integrations.

Virtual Receivers

For the full list of virtual receivers and integrations powered by them, see section evalink talos Virtual Receivers.

The Company > Integrations page in evalink talos UI actually lists not alarm transmitter integrations themselves, but the appropriate vitrual receivers. In most cases, you can identify a virtual receiver by the word Receiver in the integration name – for example, Virtual TNA Receiver.

Note that Generic Surgard Receiver, Farwest IP Receiver, and Fawest VoIP Receiver are not marked as virtual, but are alarm trasmitter integrations nevertheless.

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Despite their names, Virtual SMS Receiver and Virtual Email Receiver are not considered alarm transmitter integrations, since no hardware devices and no connection monitoring are involved in these integrations.

The Alarm Transmitter Term

The term alarm transmitter may denote (see the figure below):

• an alarm panel with a built-in transmitter – a device that both produces alarms and transmits them to the alarm management system
  OR
• a group of devices
  • an alarm panel that produces alarms
  • a dedicated transmitter connected to it that transmits the alarms – for example, a Sitasys TNA device

From evalink talos perspective, there's no substantial difference between these two cases.

Connect an Alarm Transmitter to evalink talos

To start working with a transmitter, it is necessary to:

• enable the appropriate Virtual Receiver and configure the global settings for it on the Company > Integrations page. Only Administrator has the permissions to do so

  To know which Virtual Receiver is needed for a particular integration, see section evalink talos Virtual Receivers.

• connect the transmitter to the Virtual Receiver instance that is created on the Integrations tab of a particular site. This operation can be performed by Administrator or Manager

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The instructions in this section describe the generic flow. The exact configuration and connection procedures for various Virtual Receiver types are described in the dedicated sections of each virtual receiver.

By default, all Virtual Receivers are disabled.

When a Virtual Receiver is disabled globally, site-level Virtual Receiver records for this integration are not accessible, which means that:

• no new Virtual Receiver instances can be created – therefore, no new transmitters that rely on the integration can be connected to evalink talos

• if the integration was enabled previously, and some transmitters were already connected, these transmitters

  • stop receiving alarms
  • have their Virtual Receiver instances hidden from the Sites > [site] > Integrations page

Only Administrator can enable or disable an integration globally. Manager and Operator can only view the global Virtual Receiver status.

Enable a Virtual Receiver on the Global Level

To enable a Virtual Receiver and configure global settings for it:

1. Go to the Company > Integrations page

2. Find the appropriate Virtual Receiver in the list and click Add Integration

3. Configure the global Virtual Receiver settings and click Submit.

Connect a Transmitter on the Site Level

1. Go to the Sites > [site] > Integrations tab and find the respective Virtual Receiver

2. Click Enable Virtual ... Receiver button in the central part of the Virtual Receiver page

3. Specify the alarm transmitter connection settings and click Submit

After a transmitter is connected to a site, the Virtual Receiver instance record on the [site] > Integrations page displays the details and the status of the transmitter that was connected. Multiple Virtual Receiver instances may be displayed on the [site] > Integrations page.

The transmitter record displays the key integration details and the visualization of the device connection status, see section View Connection Status Indicators on the Virtual Receiver Page in this article.

View Connection Status Indicators on the Virtual Receiver Page

To access the virtual receiver page, go to the site Integrations tab (Sites > [site] > Integrations) and click on the corresponding virtual receiver subtab – for example, FlexC Receiver.

The record of the connected transmmitter on the virtual receiver page displays the following details:

• the key parameters of the transmitter

  The parameters are integration-specific: MAC address for a TNA device, account details for FlexC, etc.

• the connection status of the transmitter

  The connection status indications are explained below.

A typical transmitter record is shown on the figure below.

A separate line of connection status indicators is shown for:

• developer_board device – the overall transmitter status / site status
• each transmission path separately
  • settings_ethernet looks_one ethernet – the primary path
  • signal_cellular_alt looks_two mobile – the secondary path

For a definition of a transmission path in general, and of the primary / secondary transmission paths, see section Direct Monitoring Scheme Overview > Transmission Paths.

The following indicators are available:

• the site reporting time (supervision) status icon for device developer_board – indicates the overall connection status of the transmitter

  • check_circle status indicates that the transmitter is connected
  • warning status indicates that the site reporting time control interval was exceeded and a site failure alarm (CID 350 or its analog) was sent

    For details on the site reporting time control interval, see section Connection Monitoring Overview > Site Reporting Time in section Connection Monitoring Reference.

• (optional) the path reporting time (supervision) status icons for ethernet settings_ethernet looks_one and mobile signal_cellular_alt looks_two transmission paths – display the connection status of the primary path and of the secondary path, accordingly

  • the path reporting time (supervision) status icons for a path check_circle / warning show the status of the path reporting time control interval

    For details on path reporting time, see section Direct Monitoring Scheme Overview > Path Reporting Time in section Connection Monitoring Reference > Direct Connection Monitoring (SLA).

    A red warning icon indicates that path reporting time was exceeded and the appropriate alarm (CID 351 or 352) was sent.

  • the alive / timed-out status icons import_export / import_export icons show the status of the the poll timeout control interval

    For information about poll timeout, see section Direct Monitoring Scheme Overview > Poll Timeout in section Connection Monitoring Reference > Direct Connection Monitoring (SLA).

    A gray import_export icon indicates that poll timeout was exceeded. This status indication is purely informational and doesn't signal a connection issue yet.

  • the connected / disconnected status icons link / link icons display the TCP connection status

    These statuses are displayed only for the virtual receivers that communicate over TCP and are configured to have a permanent TCP connection with the transmitter.

    For information on the connection protocols used by various virtual receivers, see section evalink talos Virtual Receivers. A virtual receiver that communicates over TCP can be configured to use a permanent or an on-demand connection. The connection type is chosen during the virtual receiver setup according to user preferences.

    A gray link icon indicates that the transmitter is disconnected. This status indication is purely informational and doesn't signal a connection issue yet.

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  1. The ethernet and mobile transmission path names reflect the most typical configuration. In the real practice, any configuration is possible – for example, a single-path transmitter can use GPRS / mobile transmission path, or both the primary and the secondary transmission paths can be Ethernet paths. evalink talos UI will always display the primary path as the settings_ethernet looks_one ethernet one and the secondary path as the signal_cellular_alt looks_two mobile one.

  2. For virtual receivers that use indirect connection monitoring scheme and have no concept of transmission paths, visualization differs:

  • for Frontel GI Virtual Receiver, the Server Connection and Panel Connection statuses with similar icons check_circle / warning and link / link are displayed
  • for Sur-Gard based virtual receivers (Generic Sur-Gard Receiver, Farwest IP Receiver and Farwest VoIP Receiver), a completely different connection status indication is used. This indication will be described in the next documentation releases

  
  For details on indirect connection monitoring scheme, see section Connection Monitoring Overview > Indirect Connection Monitoring in section Connection Monitoring Reference.