Alarms in the Zoho IOT application are generated based on Alarm Rules. The Alarm Rules created for models are referred to as
Alarm Rule Templates. These are prototypes attached to the
model and get copied to devices, assets, or locations (instances) that are created from these models.
At the instance level, the rules are referred to as
Alarm Rules. In addition to Alarm Rules that got copied when the instance was created, you can create instance specific alarms to generate alarms for the particular instance.
Difference between Alarm Rule Templates and Alarm Rules
Alarm Rule Templates are templates that are created for a model. Whereas, Alarm Rules are created for a particular instances. When you add an Alarm Rule Template to a model, it gets included in all instances derived from that model. This ensures consistency and simplifies the process of creating the same alarm rules for instances derived from the same model.
Whereas when you add an Alarm Rule to a specific instance, the template gets included to that particular device, asset, or location.
Let's try to understand more about the Alarm Rules Templates and Alarm Rules.
Alarm Rule Templates
To understand the Alarm Rule Templates and Alarm Rules better, lets consider a Diesel Generator(DG) model AlphaDG in your setup with Alarm Rule Templates named Fuel Level Monitoring added to the model. These templates are configured to generate alarms based on the fuel level datapoint values of the model.
Now let's create three asset instances namely AlphaDG_1, AlphaDG_2, and AlphaDG_3 for the model AlphaDG. You will find the alarm rule templates Fuel Level Monitoring added to the three assets.
This is based on the model-instance relationship design in the IoT Application.
Image: Alarm Rule Templates at the Device Model are present iin the devices created from that model.
Alarm Rules
Alarm Rules are created for any instance (if required). And they get included only to that particular device, asset, or location instance.
Here, if you add an Alarm Rule to the instance AlphaDG_1, the rule will get added to the AlphaDG_1 only. This Alarm Rule will not be present in AlphaDG_2, and AlphaDG_3.
Image: Chart Representing the Model-Instance Relationship
Adding an Alarm Template at the Device Model.
In both Alarm Rule Template and Alarm Rule, in addition to generating alarms, you can configure the triggering of specific actions. This includes tasks such as alerting relevant personnel by
email notifications, executing
custom functions, and integrating with external applications using webhooks, etc.