About the Email Alarm Acknowledger

The EmailAlarmAcknowledger component (AX-3.5 and later) provides a way for users to acknowledge alarms by sending an email reply to an email alarm notification. This component is available in the email palette and works with alarm notifications that are sent out using the On Call Service or directly from the Email Service.

Figure 207. Email Acknowledger locations and properties

The EmailAcknowledger properties include:

Status

This display-only field shows the current condition of the Email Acknowledger. For example, the current Status may be ok, disabled, fault, or some other condition.
Enabled

This field allows you to enable or disable an EmailAlarmAcknowledger component by selecting the true or false option, respectively.
Ack Alarms From Same Source

When you select the true option for this property, in addition to the current alarm, all previous alarms from this source are acknowledged with a single email reply. For example, a single control point may be going in and out of alarm repeatedly and have 23 unacked alarms reported and displayed in the alarm console. If you set this option to true all 23 alarms are acknowledged when the EmailAlarmAcknowledger receives a single email acknowledgement. If the false option is selected, a single alarm is acknowledged and 22 unacknowledged alarms remain.
Last Alarm Acked

This field displays the identity of the last alarm that was acknowledged.
Last Alarm Acked Time

This field displays the time that the last alarm was acknowledged by the EmailAlarmAcknowledger component.
Last Alarm Acked Failure Time

If there has been a failure in the attempt to acknowledge an alarm, this field displays a message indicating the time of the last failure.
Last Alarm Acked Failure Cause

If there has been a failure in the attempt to acknowledge an alarm, this field displays a message indicating the possible reason for the last failure.
Total Alarms Acked Today

This field displays the current number of alarms that have been acknowledged for the day. This number is reset to zero at midnight.
Total Alarm Acked Failures

This field displays the current number of alarm acknowledgement attempts that have failed for the day. This number is reset to zero at midnight.
Total Messages Received Today

This field displays the current number of email messages that have been received for the day. This number is reset to zero at midnight.

In order to use the EmailAlarmAcknowledger component, you need to do the following:

Setup the EmailService

See About the EmailService.
Setup the IncomingAccount

See About the IncomingAccount.
Setup the EmailAcknowledger

See About the Email Alarm Acknowledger.
Setup the EmailRecipient

See About the Email Recipient (email-EmailRecipient).

In addition, note the following requirements for configuring the EmailRecipient when using the EmailAlarmAcknowledger.

A User is required

When properly configured, the EmailAlarmAcknowledger looks at incoming emails and checks to see if the the sender’s email address matches the email address of a User that is currently in the local UserService database. No alarm is acknowledged unless it is first determined that the acknowledgement email is sent from a matching user and email address or phone number. This validated User name is also assigned to the alarm database as the person who has acknowledged the alarm.
A UUID required (NiagaraAX-3.5)

The UUID is the unique identifier that is assigned to every alarm and is used for keeping track of the alarm. The UUID must be in the subject of the acknowledging email. To ensure this, you must enter the following text in the EmailRecipient Subject property: UUID:%uuid%.

Figure 208. Adding UUID to the EmailRecipient Subject property (NiagaraAX-3.5)

See, About the Email Recipient (email-EmailRecipient) for more information about the emailRecipient.

In NiagaraAX-3.5, the EmailService only acknowledges alarms that contain the UUID of the alarm in the subject field of the EmailRecipient property view. Use the following syntax for configuring the EmailRecipient Subject property for use with the EmailAlarmAcknowledger component: UUID:%uuid%Starting in NiagaraAX-3.6 the message-id and reply-to email headers are used to track emails associated with an alarm. No alarm identification is required in the email subject or content.