Creating and Configuring ESPA Paging System

Scenario: You want to configure the ESPA Paging System device.

 

Reference: For background information, see the reference section.

 

Workflow diagram:

 

 

Prerequisites:

  • ESPA Paging System Device is installed and configured.
  • System Manager is in Engineering mode.
  • System Browser is in Management View.

 

Steps:

1 – Create and Start a ESPA Paging System Driver
  1. Depending on where you add the ESPA Paging System driver, select one of the following:
  • Project > Management System > Servers > Main Server > Drivers
  • Project > Management System > FEPs > [FEP Station] > Drivers
  • Object Configurator tab displays in the Primary pane.
  1. In the Object Configurator tab, click New and select New ESPA Paging System Driver.
  • In the New object dialog box, the Child type field is set to ESPA Paging System Driver, the name and description are also pre-defined.
  1. Click OK.
  • The ESPA Paging System driver displays in the System Browser and is selected by default.
  1. In the Operation tab, navigate to the Driver Status property and click Start.
  • The ESPA Paging System Driver is created and started.

 

2 – Configure a ESPA Paging System Driver
  1. In the System Browser, select the ESPA Paging System driver and click the Driver Editor tab.
  1. (Optional) In the Driver Settings expander, modify the description.
  1. In the Configuration Properties expander, proceed as follows.
  • In the Device Request Timeout field, enter 10000 (value in milliseconds).
  • In the the Check Status Rate field, enter 30000 (value in milliseconds).
  1. In the Notification Integration expander, proceed as follows.
  • Set the Batch Size field value as 50 (default is 100). Batch size specifies the size in which the request is processed by the driver. The batch size displays the number of devices to which Notification interacts in one instant. For example, if there are 100 devices on which a message has to be displayed and a batch size of 10 is entered, Notification will send the message to batches of 10 devices each.
  • Enter a value into the Expected delivery time field (default is 10 seconds).
    NOTE: Notification does not guarantee the message delivery will be completed within the time entered in the Expected delivery Time field. This value is solely used to compute delivery statistics indicating whether message delivery to the ESPA Paging System server was on-time or late.
  • On-Time or Late displays are based on the time it takes for Notification to deliver the message to the ESPA 4.4.4 server and not the time taken to deliver the message to the actual recipient.
  1. Click Save .
  • The parameters are configured for the ESPA Paging System driver.

 

3 – Create ESPA Paging System Field Network
  1. Select Project > Field Networks.
  • The Object Configurator tab displays.
  1. Click New object and select New ESPA Paging System Field Network.
  • The Create New Object dialog box displays with the Child type field pre-set to ESPA Paging System Field Network.
  1. Enter a name and description.
  1. Click OK.
  • The ESPA Paging System field network node displays in the field network hierarchy and is selected by default.
  • The ESPA Paging System driver is automatically associated to the field network. In the Network Editor tab, under the Network Settings expander, you can see that the values are preselected, and the driver is already assigned.

 

4 – Create ESPA Paging System Device
  1. Navigate to Project > Field Networks > ESPA 444 Interface Field Network.
  1. Click the Network Editor tab.
  1. Click Create .
  1. In the New object dialog box, enter a name and description.
  1. Click OK.
  1. In the Device Editor tab that displays, proceed as follows:
  • In the Device Settings expander, enter a description for the device.
  • In the Test Pager Connection expander, enter the pager number and message in their respective fields. Click Send to send the test message. The sending result is displayed in the expander once the message is sent.
  1. In the Routing Configuration expander, enter values as detailed in ESPA Paging System-Routing Configuration.
  1. Click Save .
  • The user device type is automatically configured. In the Recipient Editor tab, under the User Device Types expander, you can see that the ESPA 444 Driver is set as the handling driver and modality is set as Pager.

 

5 – Configure Recipient User Devices
  • You have added one or more users as Recipients into Notification that use a Pager as a recipient device.
  1. In the Recipient User Devices dialog box, from Type drop-down list, select Work Pager for these recipient users.
  1. In the Address field, enter the pager number.
  • The Preferred delivery sequence field is automatically populated with Pager.
  1. Click OK.
  1. Set up message template and incident template with these users as recipients.
  1. Initiate incidents.

Once the incident is initiated, the recipient user in the message template receives pager message with the content as described in the corresponding message template. The initiate incident is performed using Command and Reaction.