Re: alarm auto dialer

[Matt Newville <newville@cars.uchicago.edu>]

Hi Patrick,

As others have pointed out, it's pretty easy to write scripts that
sends email on any condition.   For a simple solution, see
    http://pyepics.github.com/pyepics/alarm.html

which can easily be made to send an email message on an alert.  This
is used at the APS to push some status messages to twitter accounts
(eg http://twitter.com/APS_13ID), which can then be followed by
anyone.

For a more complicated but also more flexible option, the web-based
data archiver we use at our beamline also sends emails when PVs meet
"alert" conditions (not exactly the same as being in alarm condition,
as different people may want messages for different non-alarm
conditions).  This has a web-interface for adding and managing alerts,
including what email addresses get the messages, the text of the
message, and so on.
    http://millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov/cgi-bin/pvarch/help.py?section=alerts

Cheers,

--Matt Newville