On the incident Automation tab, you can define how the system changes the properties of an incident and how it responds automatically to user actions, events, and other incident events.
Configure a flowchart using flowchart activities. The available activities are
described in the following sections. If there are errors in your flowchart, error messages
appear at the bottom of the Automation tab.
Incident management activities
The following incident management activities are available:- Change additional field value
- Update the value of user-defined Additional fields using user input or inputs aggregated from the specified events.
- Change description
- Replace the incident description with the specified text.
- Change incident state
- Forcibly change the incident to the specified state, regardless of its current state.
- Change incident type
- Change the incident type. You can transition between normal and collaborative incident
types.
This activity must be last in the automation workflow because it ends the current automation and starts a new automation with the new incident type.
NOTE: The Wait for TTR event, including time to response not respected and time to resolution not respected events, can only be triggered once. If an incident type is changed using this automation workflow activity, these events cannot be triggered a second time. - Change priority
- Change the incident priority to the specified priority.
- Close incident
- Close the incident when its state changes to the specified state. Specify the following:
- State
- Set the state that the incident must reach to trigger the Close incident activity.
- Delay
- Set the number of seconds, minutes, or hours after which the incident must be closed.
- Column color
- Highlight the incident in the incident list by changing the background color of the selected columns or row. To remove the highlight, change the color back to default. There is a custom palette of colors available in addition to the basic palette.
- Dispatch incident
- Send the incident to selected users or user groups. Select one of the following options:
- Forward
- Forward the incident to additional recipients.
- Transfer
- Transfer the incident to selected recipients.
- Enable/Disable state transition
- Enable or disable the option to manually change an incident state in the
Incident monitoring task.NOTE: This does not affect the system's ability to change the incident state if the Change incident state activity is configured. Users who have the Forcibly close unresolved incidents or Forcibly resolve incidents having non-validated steps privilege can override this selection.
- Export incident
- Export the incident to a specified folder in either XML, PDF, or HTML format.
- Reminder
- Display a reminder in the notification tray of all incident recipients who are online.
- Recurrence
-
The interval at which the reminder
notification is displayed throughout the life of the incident. Select one of the
following:
- Every minute
- Every minute.
- Hourly
- At a specified minute of every hour.
- Daily
- At a specified time every day.
- Weekly
- At a specified day and time every week.
- On startup
- Immediately.
- Interval
- At a regular time interval in days, hours, and minutes, starting from the time the reminder is created.
- Display a specific message
- Display a text message with the incident reminder.
- Trigger incident
- Incident type to trigger every time the reminder is displayed.
- Trigger and add sub-incident
- Trigger a sub-incident and add it to a collaborative incident.NOTE: This activity is valid only when triggered in the automation workflow of either a collaborative incident or a sub-incident of a collaborative incident. When used in the automation workflow of a sub-incident, the incident triggered in this activity is aggregated to the parent collaborative incident.
- Trigger incident
- Trigger an incident. You can optionally include a comment and the area where the incident occurred.
- Wait for event
- Wait for an event to occur. Specify the following:
- Event category
- Security Center or any custom plugin that is installed.
- Wait for event
- The event you are waiting for. Select one of the following:
- Any event
- All events match your criteria.
- Any event except
- Specify a list of events that do not match your criteria.
- Specific events
- Specify a list of events that match your criteria.Tip: Click
to add precision to
the event filtering using parameters such as
Priority, State,
Trigger entity, and so on.
- Previous event
- The event that must precede the event you are waiting for. Select one of the following:
- Don't care
- A previous event is unnecessary.
- Any event
- Any event is acceptable.
- Any event except
- Any event is acceptable except the ones that you include in the exclusion list.
- Specific events
- Only an event found in the specified list is acceptable.
- Event source and alarm configuration options
- Choose to configure Event sources and Related
alarms or select the Aggregate all related alarm
instances option.
- Event source
- Specify the common source for your events.
- Don't care
- The source is not important.
- Specific source
- Specify a list of entities that are eligible as event source.
- Any source except
- Any source is acceptable as long as it is not found in the specified exclusion list.
- Incident location
- The entity on which the incident is active. It can be an area, video entity, door, and so on.
- Incident area
- The area in which the incident is active. Child entities of this area are included, unless they are area entities.
- Related alarms
- Specify alarms associated with the incident.
- Don't care
- The source is not important.
- Specific source
- Specify a list of alarms that impact incident management.
- Incident alarms
- Aggregates events from a previously aggregated alarm.
- Add custom field
- You can select relevant custom fields such as Alarm context.
- Wait for incident priority
- Wait for any or a specified incident priority.
- Wait for incident state
- Wait for any or a specified incident state.
- Wait for procedure
- Wait for the dynamic user procedure steps from this incident type to be resolved with specific answers. You can specify multiple steps, and this activity waits for the first among the selected steps to be resolved.
- Wait for TTR event
- Wait for incident response time not respected, incident resolution time not respected,
or the first of either event to occur. Specify one of the following:
- Granted incident response time not respected
- Trigger when the maximum response time granted to this incident type has not been met.
- Granted incident resolution time not respected
- Trigger when the minimum or maximum time granted to resolve this incident type has not been met.
- Dynamic user procedure step resolution time not respected
- Trigger when the minimum or maximum time granted to resolve one or more dynamic procedure steps for this incident type has not been met.
Security Center activities
Only the following Security Center actions are supported as flowchart activities:- Acknowledge alarm
- Acknowledges all active alarms aggregated in the incident or triggered from any of the
related entities in an incident. Select one of the following:
- Acknowledged (Default)
- The system automatically acknowledges the alarm.
- Acknowledged (Alternate)
- The system automatically acknowledges the alarm using the alternate mode.
- Acknowledged (Forcibly)
- The system forcibly acknowledges the alarm.
- Arm zone
- Arms the selected Virtual zone.
- Cardholder
- Activates or deactivates cardholders related to the incident or all cardholders enrolled in the system.
- Credential
- Activates or deactivates credentials related to the incident or all credentials enrolled in the system.
- Disarm zone
- Disarms the selected Virtual zone.
- Display entity
- Displays a selected entity in the Security Desk Monitoring task
of configured recipients. Specify the following:
- User, User group
- The user or user group who receives the selected entity.
- Owner only
- When selected, only the incident owner receives the selected entity. This setting overrides other configured recipients.
- Display entity
- The entity to display.
- Video mode
- The following options are available for camera entities:
- Live
- Playback from current time
- Playback from incident trigger time
- Maintenance
- Choose to turn on or turn off maintenance mode for selected source entities related to the active incident.
- Play a sound
- Plays a sound bite in a user or user group’s Incident monitoring
task in Security Desk. This action is ignored if the user's Incident
monitoring task is not open or if the specific user does not have their
status as Available. Specify the following:
- User, User group
- Select a user or user group.
- Sound to play
- Select the .wav file to play. The standard alert sound files that come with the installation are located in C:\Program files\Genetec Security Center <Version>\Audio.
- Occurrence
-
- Once
- Play the sound once.
- Continuously
- Play sound continuously till the operator takes ownership of the incident or clicks on the mute icon in Security Desk.
- PTZ command
- Commands the PTZ camera to perform an action. Specify the following:
- Action
- The PTZ action to perform. Select one of the following:
- Go to preset
- Commands the PTZ camera to go to the specified preset.
- Run a pattern
- Commands the PTZ camera to run the specified pattern.
- Go home
- Commands the PTZ camera to go to its home position. Not all PTZ cameras support this feature.
- Camera
- The PTZ camera to perform the selected action.
- Public addressing
- Send an .mp3 or .wav audio message to
selected recipients or to the incident location.NOTE: A compatible Sipelia™ version must be installed on the Genetec Mission Control™ server. For more information about configuring Sipelia Public address, see the Sipelia™ User Guide.
- Reboot unit
- Reboots one or more units. You can select a dynamic source, such as incident location, or a static source, such as a video unit or an access control unit.
- Reset area people count
- Resets the people counter in the selected area.
- Run a macro
- Runs the selected macro. Specify an execution context:
- Use default execution context
- Context variables are populated with values from the Default execution context page of the macro in Config Tool.
- Override context manually
- Context variables are populated with values that you specify in the automation workflow activity.
- Override context using incident properties
- Specific context variables are populated with the matching incident property.
- Send an email
- Sends an email to users, user groups, cardholders, cardholder groups, or recipients
not registered in Security Center. All selected
recipients registered in Security Center must
have an email address set up in their profile, and the mail server must be configured
for Security Center, or the action is ignored.
Specify the following:
- Recipients
- The users, user groups, cardholders, or cardholder groups who should receive the email.
- External recipients
- The external recipients who should receive the email.
- Report
- Attach a saved public report to the email. For more information, see Saving tasks.
- Subject
- The email subject.
- Message
- The email message.
- Add field
- Add context variables such as
Incident ID,Source entities, and more to the subject, message, or both. Before sending the email, these variables are automatically populated with information from the incident. - Latest activity
- Add one or more of the following placeholders to the
Message field:
- System actions
- Comments
- SOP completion
- Monitoring
- Warnings
- TTR Events
- Notes
These placeholders are automatically populated with the latest information when the email is sent.
- Priority
- Set a priority level for the email.
- Set threat level
- Sets a threat level on your Security Center system, or the incident location. By
default, the threat level remains active after the incident is closed but an automation
activity can be configured to deactivate it after the user procedure. Specify the following:
- Threat level
- The threat level to set.
- Area
- The area to set the threat level on. The area can be your entire system, or the incident location.
- Shunt inputs
- Shunt or unshunt specific input devices in incident locations or related entities of
the incident. Specify the following:
- Location
-
- Incident location
- Shunt or unshunt inputs on the location on the incident.
- Related entities
- Shunt or unshunt inputs of the related entity.
- Specific location
- Choose locations in your system to shunt or unshunt inputs.
- Shunt area
- This option is available when you choose Incident location. Select the checkbox if you are shunting a dynamic entity source.
- Inputs
- Select one of the actions for the input device:
- Shunt
- Prevent access or exit through an entity by deactivating the input.
- Unshunt
- Allow access or exit through an entity by activating the input.
- Shunt reader
- Activate or deactivate card readers on an entity. Specify the following:
- Location
- Select a dynamic source such as an incident location, or a static source such as an area, door, or elevator to activate or deactivate card reader.
- Shunt area
- Select the checkbox if you are shunting a dynamic entity source.
- Reader side
- Select the sides of the reader to which the automation applies:
- Enter
- Exit
- Both sides
- Reader
- Select one of the actions for the reader:
- Shunt
- Prevent access or exit through an entity by deactivating the card reader.
- Unshunt
- Allow access or exit through an entity by activating the card reader.
- Trigger alarm
- Triggers one or more alarms. This action might generate additional events, depending
on the alarm configuration. You can aggregate all the alarms triggered to the incident
by selecting the Aggregate alarms option.NOTE: Select the Aggregate alarms option to be acknowledged by the Acknowledge alarm activity.
- Trigger output
- Triggers one or more entity outputs. You can select the desired output behavior.
For more details on output behaviors, see About output behaviors and Output behavior - Properties tab.
- Unlock door explicitly
- Temporarily unlocks the specified door for the standard grant time configured for that door.
Watch this video to learn more. Click the Captions icon (CC) to turn on video captions in one of the available languages.
Generic activities
The following activity types are generic flowchart activities. You can use them to hide details from your top-level flowchart.- Conditional activities
- Add
IF-ELSEconditions. - Delay
- Pause the automation workflow for the specified duration or until the specified time.
- Flowchart
- Add a flowchart.
- Parallel tasks
- Add a node for parallel tasks. Each parallel task can be an activity, a flowchart, or
a sequence of activities. By default, you exit the node when all parallel tasks are
completed, or you can exit when just one of the parallel tasks is completed.CAUTION:If a parallel task contains an infinite loop and you select Exit when all branches are completed, this activity might continue until the incident is closed.
- Sequence
- Add a sequence of activities.
Watch this video to learn more. Click the Captions icon (CC) to turn on video captions in one of the available languages.
NOTE:
Although we do our best to keep our videos current, the
information presented in this video might become outdated with each new release. If you
find anything wrong with this video, feel free to contact
us.