Action Rule List
In the List tab, you can add, edit, enable, disable, and delete action rules. Surveillance Station uses two kinds of rules to automate a variety of surveillance functions: triggered and scheduled. Triggered action rules are executed when certain event conditions are present. Scheduled action rules are executed according to schedule. A list of all events and actions can be seen at Action Rule.
To add a triggered action rule:
- Click Add to create a new action rule.
- Enter a name for the action rule in Name.
- Select Triggered from Rule type.
- Select either Interruptible or Uninterruptible from Action type. Interruptible rules will not ignore other newly triggered action rules. The newly triggered action rule will be executed instead of the originally triggered action rule. Uninterruptible rules will ignore other actions rules, continuing to execute the originally triggered action rule until the action is complete.
- Click Next to continue.
- In the Event window, configure the following parameters that will be used to trigger the action rule.
- Settings:
- Logical operator: Select either of the following options when there are multiple events:
- AND: Trigger actions if all events occur within 30 seconds.
- OR: Trigger actions if any one of the events occurs.
- Interval: Specify how often, in seconds, to trigger the action again for a continuous event.
- Events:
- Event source: Select the event source used to trigger the action rule.
- Server: Select which server the event source is connected to.
- Device: Select the specific device used to trigger the action rule.
- Event: Select the type of event used to trigger the action rule.
- Trigger type:
- One time: When the specified event occurs, the action will be triggered only once.
- Constant: When the specified event occurs continuously, the action will be triggered once every interval until the end of the event.
Note: You can click Add to add more events. To cancel any events, click Delete to select the events to delete.
- Click Next to continue.
- In the Action window, configure the following parameters that will be used to execute the action rule.
- Action device: Select the action device type used to execute the action rule.
- Server: Select which server the action device is connected to.
- Device: Select the specific device used to execute the action rule.
- Action: Select the type of action used to be executed. Depending on the selected action, additional parameters will be available for configuration.
Note: You can click Add to add more actions. To cancel any actions, click Delete to select the actions to delete.
- Click Next to continue.
- In the Schedule window, determine when this action rule will be active by selecting cells on the grid. You can select an entire day by clicking on a day and a specific time by clicking on the hour.
- Click Finish to save the action rule.
Note:
- You can set at most five events for any one action rule, and the trigger type depends on the Logical operator setting.
- You can set at most five actions for any one action rule. These actions will be triggered at the same time by the event of the action rule.
- When a new action rule is being added, if any devices involved in the action rule are disabled, the rule will be saved as Invalid or Partial Invalid.
- To prevent the same actions from being repeatedly triggered by different action rules, you cannot set up the same actions for scheduled action rules in the overlapping schedule. In addition, Move to preset, Patrol, Auto pan, and Auto object tracking (each related to camera control) are treated as the same kind of actions.
- If CMS is enabled, you can select a recording server from Server as well as devices connected to the recording server.
- External events are meant for third-party applications, and will be triggered by Web API. Please refer to the External Event section in Surveillance Station Web API for more information on configuring external events.
- When setting up an Interruptible action rule with camera lens control-related actions (e.g., Move to preset, Patrol, Auto pan, and Auto object tracking) as well as the event of Motion detected, any one of these actions may result in an endless loop of repeatedly triggering the same action rule as the action rule-driven motion is detected. To avoid this, you can change the Action type to Uninterruptible.
- You can select either of the trigger types for the following events: camera enabled, camera disabled, connection lost, connection normal, digital input active, digital input inactive. The trigger type for the other events is not configurable, and will be set to the default option.
- The name of an action rule is case sensitive and can contain 1 to 64 Unicode characters, excluding the following symbols: ~ ` ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) = + [ { ] } \ | ; : ' " < > / ?
The first character cannot be a minus sign or a space, and the last character cannot be a space.
To add a scheduled action rule:
- Click Add to create a new action rule.
- Enter a name for the action rule in Name.
- Select Scheduled from Rule type.
- Click Next to continue.
- In the Action window, configure the following parameters that will be used to execute the action rule.
- Action device: Select the action device type used to execute the action rule. Depending on the selected action device, additional parameters will be available for configuration.
Note: For more information on the IFTTT and Webhook options, please refer to this article.
- Device: Select the specific device used to execute the action rule.
- Action: Select the type of action used to be executed. Depending on the selected action, additional parameters will be available for configuration.
Note: You can click Add to add more actions. To cancel any actions, click Delete to select the actions to delete.
- Click Next to continue.
- In the Schedule window, determine when this action rule will be active by selecting cells on the grid. You can select an entire day by clicking on a day and a specific time by clicking on the hour.
- Click Finish to save the action rule.
Note:
- You can set at most five actions for any one action rule. These actions will be triggered at the same time by the event of the action rule.
- When a new action rule is being added, if any devices involved in the action rule are disabled, the rule will be saved as Invalid or Partial Invalid.
- If CMS is enabled, you can select a recording server from Server as well as devices connected to the recording server.
- External events are meant for third-party applications, and will be triggered by Web API. Please refer to the External Event section in Surveillance Station Web API for more information on configuring external events.
- Start action rule recording is not available for scheduled action rules. Please go to IP Camera > Recording Settings > Schedule to set up scheduled recording.
To edit an action rule:
- Select an action rule from the list and click Edit.
- Modify settings in any of the Rule Information, Event, Action, and Schedule tabs.
- Click OK to save your changes.
To enable/disable an action rule:
- Select an action rule from the list.
- From the Enable drop-down menu, click Enable to enable the selected action rule or Disable to disable the selected action rule.
To delete an action rule:
- Select an action rule from the list and click Delete to delete the selected action rule.
- A confirmation prompt will appear. Click Yes to continue.
Action Rule Status
Surveillance Station displays three unique statuses for action rules when the action rules are not functioning normally.
- Disabled: The action rule will not be executed. Action rules will be disabled when the user manually disables the action rule.
- Invalid: All actions in the action rule will not be executed. The statuses of the event device or action devices/items for all actions are abnormal.
- Partial Invalid: The statuses of some action devices/items are abnormal. Valid actions will still run, while the invalid actions will not be executed.
Action Rule Priority
When different action rules trigger the same actions at the same time, they will be executed in the following orders:
- Triggered rules have higher priority than scheduled rules.
- Manually executed actions have higher priority than event-triggered actions. If the manually executed actions are the same with the event-triggered ones, the latter will be interrupted.
Device Status Changes
The following section describes various action rule behaviors for device status changes.
- Upon deletion or model change of a device in use, the action rule status will become invalid.
- When a device in use is disabled, the action rule status will become invalid. Such action rule status will come back to normal when the device is enabled again.
- When a preset position/patrol path/audio pattern in use is deleted, the action rule status will change to Invalid.
Note:
- In the case above, we assume that the action rule was set with only one action and one event, and the action rule's status will thus change to Invalid upon the status change of the corresponding device.
- If the action rule is set with multiple actions and events, the situations below may be resulted from the following reasons:
- Invalid:
- When all actions are invalid.
- When all events are invalid.
- When some events are invalid, while the Logical operator of multiple events is set as AND.
- Partial Invalid:
- When some actions are still valid.
- When some events are still valid, and the Logical operator of multiple events is set as OR.