If an Action Continues to Send Notifications Outside of a Configured Schedule

Iotplus Online offers the ability of a schedule to be applied to Actions. This enables you to only receive Notifications from an Action during specified periods of a day/week/month. When a schedule has been applied to an Action, there is a particular behavior that will allow the Notification to continue to send on its Snooze time (default 60 minutes) if the Action is not disarmed. This article will discuss this expected behavior and offer a possible solution.

Why an Action will continue to send outside of its configured schedule

The reason an Action might continue to send outside of the configured schedule relates to the Action’s Snooze setting. For information on the Snooze setting of an Action, see the following Article: Understanding the Snooze Setting of an Action in Iotplus Online. If an Action is triggered during its active schedule, and is not Disarmed before the the Action is scheduled to be inactive, it will continue to send on its Snooze time.

Note: When an action is triggered within the scheduled active time, the scheduled period ends, and the sensor readings are still within the triggering parameters the Snooze notifications will display the last reading that triggered the notification within the schedule.

Example

In this example, we will use a temperature sensor which has been applied to trigger and Action with a 45°F temperature reading with the Action scheduled active between 8 AM and 5 PM. It is worth noting also, that understanding the “Before and After” election of a sensor schedule can be critical to implementing the schedule successfully.
Action Trigger Configuration: Notify when Sensor Reading is Greater than 45°F
Action Schedule: Between 8 AM and 5 PM
Action: Send email
Snooze Setting: Default 60 Minutes
Sensor Configuration: 10 minute Standard and Aware State Heartbeat

4:23 PM > Sensor checks in reading 42°F – No Action triggered
4:33 PM > Sensor checks in reading 46°F – Action triggered, email sent (Snooze timer started)
4:43 PM > Sensor checks in reading 46.5°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 10 out of 60 minutes, no change
4:53 PM > Sensor checks in reading 47°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 20 out of 60 minutes, no change
4:03 PM > Sensor checks in reading 47.5°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 30 out of 60 minutes, no change
4:13 PM > Sensor checks in reading 48°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 40 out of 60 minutes, no change
5:00 PM > Action scheduled inactive
5:23 PM > Sensor checks in reading 49°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 50 out of 60 minutes, no change
5:33 PM > Sensor checks in reading 50°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, since snooze reached 60 minutes additional email sent, Snooze timer restarted
5:43 PM > Sensor checks in reading 49°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 10 out of 60 minutes, no change
5:53 PM > Sensor checks in reading 50°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 20 out of 60 minutes, no change
6:03 PM > Sensor checks in reading 51°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 30 out of 60 minutes, no change
6:13 PM > Sensor checks in reading 50°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 40 out of 60 minutes, no change
6:23 PM > Sensor checks in reading 52°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 50 out of 60 minutes, no change
6:33 PM > Sensor checks in reading 52°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, since snooze reached 60 minutes additional email sent, Snooze timer restarted
6:43 PM > Sensor checks in reading 51°F – Action still triggered, Action not yet Disarmed by user, snoozing for 10 out of 60 minutes, no change
6:46 PM > User Disarms Action
6:53 PM > Sensor checks in reading 49°F – Action no longer triggered, Action inactive as per schedule, no snooze timer
7:03 PM > Sensor checks in reading 50°F – Action no longer triggered, Action inactive as per schedule, no snooze timer
7:13 PM > Sensor checks in reading 51°F – Action no longer triggered, Action inactive as per schedule, no snooze timer
7:23 PM > Sensor checks in reading 48F – Action no longer triggered, Action inactive as per schedule, no snooze timer
7:33 PM > Sensor checks in reading 47°F – Action no longer triggered, Action inactive as per schedule, no snooze timer
7:43 PM > Sensor checks in reading 46°F – Action no longer triggered, Action inactive as per schedule, no snooze timer
7:53 PM > Sensor checks in reading 44°F – Action Rearmed (Reset) since sensor reading is below configured Sensor Reading threshold in the Action Settings, Action can again be triggered only during active schedule
8:03 PM > Sensor checks in reading 48°F – Action not triggered as it is outside of the active schedule, no email sent (despite the fact the reading was above triggering threshold)

As you can see in the above example, the reading continued to send on it’s Snooze time, even after the scheduled inactive time because the trigger occurred prior to the scheduled inactive time. Since it was not disarmed after this trigger, it continued to send on the Snooze time until the user Disarmed the Action. After the Action was disarmed, it went back to normal operation. The sensor had a subsequent reading of 48°F (which would normally trigger the Action), but it did not trigger because this occurred after the scheduled inactive time.

Preventing an Action from sending an alert during the scheduled inactive time, even when a trigger occurs during the scheduled active time

If you experience the scenario described above, there is a solution that you can implement that will automatically prevent the Action from sending outside of the scheduled inactive time. You can create an additional Scheduled Action to automatically Rearm (Reset) the Action at the scheduled inactive time using a System Action. To do this, follow the steps below.

  • Create a new Scheduled Action in Iotplus Online (see Creating Actions in Iotplus Online)
  • Set the time you wish this Scheduled Action to run (you will want to schedule this to be the same as the scheduled off time in the original Action schedule)
  • Under the Action configuration, click System Action (to highlight it as enabled)
  • In the System Action portion of the window, set the “Action to be done” to Full Reset
  • In the Delay field, select No Delay
  • Make sure the Action selected for “Target Notification” is the Action you wish to disable during scheduled inactive time
  • Click Save

With this Action, the original Action will be automatically reset (Rearmed) at the scheduled inactive time, so it will no longer send on its Snooze time.

Resetting itself as the Target Action

Additionally, you may consider adding a Full Reset System Action to reset the scheduled Action itself. The Scheduled Action requires a Disarm/Rearm just as any other notification. So you can either Rearm/Disarm it manually, or you could add an additional System Action so it resets itself after it runs, so it will run the following day.