AppArmor has an additional interface that can be used to send notifications, called the “Advanced Notification” interface. This interface is meant to allow advanced users of the system to send a notification in a single-page interface, instead of the standard “Wizard” approach.
If you’d like to consider using this interface, please reach out to AppArmor Support, and they can assist you with the migration from the Wizard.
Sending a Notification
The numbered screenshot below provides the suggested order in which the elements of the Advanced Notification interface are completed.
Event and Template
Sending Profiles
Message Content
Deactivation
Preview
Send Button
1.Event and Template
The options in this section set the content for the mass notification.
New or Existing Event
Choose whether you want to send an Update Notification to an existing Event, or if you want to create a new Event. Updating an existing event will populate the entire Advanced Sending interface with the settings that were chosen when the previous Notification in the event was sent, and will link the notification you’re sending to the existing event.
This dropdown field automatically defaults to updating the most recently updated active event.
Event Type
Choose Actual, Exercise, or Test from the Dropdown List. This will affect the Sending Profiles you have access to when Sending.
Understanding Event Types
Generally our clients configure Sending Profiles to make it intuitive for senders, and in compliance with the CAP protocol. Here’s the general configuration we recommend, and the explanation from the CAP Standard documentation:
Type | Standard Use Case | CAP Standard Definition |
|---|---|---|
Actual | Used in scenarios where you want to target a large number of recipients, which generally fall into 2 categories:
| “Actionable by all targeted recipients” |
Exercise | Used for training purposes. The ideal configuration is that you’d set up Exercise Sending Profiles as a direct mirror of your Actual Profiles, but without having them point to a large number of subscribers. | “Actionable only by designated exercise participants” |
Test | Used for testing the functionality of the system. | “Technical testing only, all recipients disregard” |
Category
You can optionally filter the “Template” field by Category. The available categories are based on the CAP Standard, and are as follows:
“Geo” - Geophysical (inc. landslide)
“Met” - Meteorological (inc. flood)
“Safety” - General emergency and public safety
“Security” - Law enforcement, military, homeland and local/private security
“Rescue” - Rescue and recovery
“Fire” - Fire suppression and rescue
“Health” - Medical and public health
“Env” - Pollution and other environmental
“Transport” - Public and private transportation
“Infra” - Utility, telecommunication, other non-transport infrastructure
“CBRNE” – Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or High-Yield Explosive threat or attack
“Other” - Other events
Once you've selected a category, the options for available Templates will appear.
Template
Choose from the Templates available in the Dashboard. If you’ve selected an option from the “Category” field, only Templates in those categories will display.
Variable Fields
After you select a Template, the system will display the variable fields that must be completed in order to complete the notification content before sending. There are 3 types of variable fields you may encounter:
Free Text Field
You must type in a value to fill this variable type.
Standard Dropdown
Select an appropriate value from the dropdown list. Administrators will have attempted to include all possible values in the list, but if you need to add a value that’s not available in the dropdown, you can click the “+” button instead:
If you click the “+” button, a dialog will appear allowing you to add a new option to the dropdown list, which will be available in future sends.
Location Dropdown
AppArmor has a special kind of Dropdown list called a “location” field. Administrators will have set up location options that you can select from the dropdown list. Unlike a Standard Dropdown, a Location Dropdown allows you to select multiple options, which reflects the reality that safety situations often affect multiple locations at once. When sending a Notification, you can search for and select multiple locations from the dropdown list.
Parent/Child Relationships
Your Administrator may have created one or more sets of Parent/Child relationships in a Location Dropdown. Parent/Child relationships are represented by the existence of one or more dashes in front of a location name. Each additional dash signifies an additional layer of depth.
The system will assess the input, and will attempt to "roll back to the parent" if the message is too long to be fully reflected in any character-limited Alerting Mechanisms reflected in the selected Sending Profiles.
In order to take advantage of this feature, you should only select the most granular location values (ie, lowest level children) that you'd like to target. Avoid selecting children in addition to selecting their parent, as this could cause the system to roll back multiple times, displaying redundant values.
2. Sending Profiles
Select the Sending Profiles to which you want to send an alert. Every institution has different criteria for when to use each Sending Profile, and this should be elaborated on by administrators as part of training.
3. Message Content
If there is information that needs to be sent in the notification that is not part of the Template or variables, you can manually edit the content of the information by changing the fields manually.
Note: modifying the message content manually should not usually be required, if the Templates have been well built. If you notice that this needs to be done frequently, consider modifying Templates to minimize how frequently this needs to be done.
Special Field - Headline
This field is the “Short Version” of the message. The Headline field is unique, in that there are a number of elements that respond to the selections you’ve made elsewhere on the page. For example:
The Headline field displays a character counter. The character limit for the Headline field is decided based on the Sending Profiles you’ve selected - it is set to the character limit for the Alerting Mechanism with the shortest character limit that is present in a Sending Profile that you’ve selected. For this reason, do not be concerned if the character limit is different for different notifications that you send.
If your system is configured with Location Variables that have parent/child relationships, the headline will “roll back to the Parent” as required in order to keep the content of the field in accordance with the character limit.
If your system is multilingual, the character counter will be dynamically shared between the languages. For example, if one language has longer values for the selected options, characters will be taken from the language with the shorter variable values and allotted to the language with longer variable values.
4. Deactivation Settings
You can optionally set your notification to Auto-deactivate after a specified period of time, or else set to manual deactivation.
5. Preview
You can use the Preview modal to see what content will display on the different Alerting Mechanisms after you send the notification.
6. Send
Click the Send button to send your notification!