Health and Storage Retention Alerts
Health Alerts help identify when something is affecting the ability of hardware to capture or record video, such as Hard Drive Error or Connection Lost to Camera. Proactively respond to any issues with your system by receiving alert notifications through your OWS account.
The five types of health alerts are Abnormal Restart, Recorder Not Reporting, Connection Lost to Camera, No Recorded Video, Hard Drive Error, and Device Offline After Update. Storage Retention is treated as a separate alert type, and is sent when a recorder is failing to retain a minimum number of days’ worth of video from a camera.
Global Account Health Alert
When a new Customer or End User account is created, a Health Alert Rule will be automatically created for the account. The Global Account Health Alert is a default health alert rule for all customer accounts. The Rule Definitions will use default settings with Active Alert enabled, and Locations will have Auto Include Locations enabled. Users/Notification will have the built-in Administrator group added with the Email Alert notification option enabled.
Channel Partner Best Practice: All Health Alerts should be deemed active and channel partners can set up parameters to receive these alerts before the end user so they can proactively attend to any issues.
Create a Health or Storage Retention Alert Rule
- Within the Alerts tab in the OWS Cloud Portal, select Alert Rules from the dropdown menu.
- Click Add New Rule.
- Select an Alert Type from the pop-up menu.
- Click Next.
- Name the alert and give it a Description as desired.
- Click Create.
Defining an Alert Rule: Health Alerts
- Choose a health rule event or events:
- Abnormal Restart - Enter the number of restarts that must occur in 24 hours before sending an alert.
- Hard Drive Error - Hard Drive Error includes SMART Predictive Failure, Hard Drive Missing, Hard Drive Permission Error (read/write permission), RAID errors, and Area Status errors.
- Recorder Not Reporting - Enter the time a recorder should be offline before sending an alert. Select Hours or Minutes using the dropdown menu.
NOTE: A Recorder Not Reporting alert is also generated if System Metrics from the recorder are not received after 24 hours. If an alert is generated in this case, the recorder will remain online and can still be connected to.
- Connection Lost to Camera - Enter the time a camera should be offline before sending an alert. Select Hours or Minutes using the dropdown menu.
- No Recorded Video – Enter the time no video has been recorded before sending an alert. Select Hours or Minutes using the dropdown menu.
- Device Offline After Update – Event notification is sent when a device fails after an automatic update.
- Active Alert (Optional) - Check the Active Alert box to add the alert to the Active Alert Dashboard and tag it as an Active Alert in email notifications.
NOTE: To remove a Health Event, click the X next to the undesired event.
-
Click Save when finished.
Defining an Alert Rule: Storage Retention Alerts
- Enter the minimum number of days a camera should retain recorded video. An alert will be sent if the camera falls below it.
NOTE: Check the box below the Days of Recorded Video number entry box to prevent the system from generating alerts as long as total camera storage is increasing.
- Active Alert (Optional) - Check the Active Alert box to add the alert to the Active Alert Dashboard and tag it as an Active Alert in email notifications.
- Send To 3rd Party Integration (Optional) - Check the Send To boxes to send the alert to the associated 3rd party integration.
- Click Save.
Adding Locations to a Health Alert
- Click Locations on the navigation sidebar.
- Click Add Location Group or Add Location.
- Click
next to the Location you want to add.
NOTE: To apply the rule to all, click Enable Auto Include 
to include all accounts or locations to the health alert.
-
Click Select when finished.
NOTE: Channel Partners can add an account to a Channel Partner Health Alert Rule for all recorders within an account.
Add Users to an Alert Rule
NOTE: Adding Users to a rule automatically grants them permission to view alerts for cameras and locations they have access to based on their User Group permissions.
- Click Users/Notifications on the left-hand menu.
- Click Add User or Add Group.
- Click + next to each User or Group to send emails and push notifications when the alert is triggered.
- Click Add when finished.
NOTE: To receive email, push or client alert notifications, the Email Alert, Push Alert or Client Alert box must be checked. Simply adding a user only gives them access to see this alert’s history. See Alert Notifications for details.
Deleting an Alert Rule or Updating, Disabling, Clearing All Active Alerts
- Click General Info on the navigation sidebar.
- Edit the Name and Description as desired.
- Click Disable Rule to turn the Alert Rule off without deleting it.
- Click Delete Rule to permanently remove the Alert Rule and delete all history associated with it.
- Click Clear All Active Alerts to permanently remove only the Active Alerts from the history associated with the Alert Rule.
- Click Save when finished.
NOTE: The Name given to an alert will appear as the subject line of email notifications sent by that alert.