1 Introduction
Alert management
In this topic, Administrators learn how to update and activate or deactivate alerting rules for the aircraft in your fleet. You learn how to use the two levels of alert and how to modify each of the alert rules.
We estimate that this will take 3 minutes to complete.
2 Detailed explanation
Alerting rules apply to the aircraft in your fleet only.
You can
configure and modify alerts based on the following criteria:
■ Signal lost
■ New destination
■ Minimal flight level during cruise
■ Squawk
■ Vertical speed
■ Horizontal or vertical deviation from flight plan
■ ETA
Alert criteria
N-Tracking supports several different types of alerts:
■ Signal Lost: Loss of
ADS-B, ACARS or any other data source position for this
individual aircraft
You can
configure the threshold time in minutes.
■ New Destination: New
destination airport activated on FMS
■ Minimal flight level
during cruise: Aircraft goes below FL150, 20 minutes after
take-off or 30 minutes before landing
You can
configure the threshold flight level.
■ Squawk:
Emergency/distress code on transponder
You select the
transponder code that raises the alert.
■ Vertical Speed:
Vertical speed during descent
You can
configure the threshold vertical speed in feet per minute.
■ Horizontal and
vertical deviation: The aircraft deviates from the flight plan.
■ ETA: ETA is later
than ETA set at takeoff.
You can
configure the threshold time in minutes.
Alert thresholds
Each alert rule has two levels of severity:
■ a caution -- triggered when the lower value of a threshold is breached
■ a warning level -- triggered when a higher and more significant threshold is breached.
Accordingly, more attention should be given to warnings compared to cautions.
Default alerting rules
By default, N-Tracking uses the following
alerting rule settings:
Signal Lost:
■ Warning -- Loss of
flight radar feed and/or ACARS information after 11 minutes
11 minutes
corresponds to the sum of:
- One minute: After 1 minute without flight radar information, N-Tracking asks for an ACARS position message.
- Ten minutes: After a delay of 10 minutes between two ACARS position reports, N-Tracking emits a warning.
New destination:
■ Caution -- New
destination airport activated on FMS because of a diversion
etc.
Minimal flight
level during cruise:
■ Caution -- When the aircraft is flying below FL150, 20 minutes after take-off or 30 minutes before landing.
Squawk:
■ Warning -- Emergency/distress code on transponder
Vertical Speed:
■ Warning -- vertical speed exceeded - 7000fpm
■ Caution -- vertical speed exceeded - 5000fpm
ETA:
■ Caution -- Last received ETA is more than 15 minutes from ETA received in OFF message
■ Warning -- Last received ETA is more than 20 minutes from ETA received in OFF message
To change the rule, click the Edit icon for the corresponding rule.
Click the
Edit icon.
Click the Threshold input field.
You can use the Activated slider on the ALERT RULE MODIFICATION panel to activate an alert OR you can activate it on the list on the Alert Management page.
When
you activate an alert, N-Tracking immediately emits alerts for
any flights for which the threshold conditions are met.
Use the information in brackets as guidance
for the value you enter.
In this example,
the number of minutes should be between 1 and 15.
Enter 10 into the Threshold field.
You cannot edit any of the fields that are
grayed out.
In this example,
you enter the threshold value and save the change.
Your next step
is to activate the alert, which triggers N-Tracking to monitor
if a threshold is breached.
Click the Save
rule
button.
If
you choose to use the Mail option and/or create a mail
distribution list (by clicking Add Contact), mail addresses
are checked to make sure they follow the standard format for
an email address e.g., name@domain.extension.
Use the Activated slider to activate
the alert.
You can activate
alerts from this list of alerts or from the ALERT RULE
MODIFICATION panel.
Click the Activated slider.
When
you activate an alert, N-Tracking immediately emits alerts for
any flights for which the threshold conditions are met.
Next, review what activating this alert means for the map display.
Click the Map tab.
The three flights whose aircraft labels
display in red meet the Warning
threshold.
The Flight
List
shows there is also one flight that meets a Caution threshold.
Click the plane icon for SCX293 to view the warning text.
Click the
plane icon.
Review the warning detail.
This warning has
already been acknowledged by user "Jinal".
Click anywhere
on the map.
By default, N-Tracking uses red and orange,
respectively to color the aircraft labels and the Flight
List
section headers for aircraft to which warnings and cautions
apply. However, you can customize these color choices, using
the Color menu item on the Administration menu.
For more
detailed information on using the Color menu item, consult
the topic, Customizing colors used on
N-Tracking maps.
Click the User
name (Admin_PF) dropdown button.
Click the Administration menu item.
Click the Color menu item.
To change these default color settings for warnings and cautions, consult the topic "Customizing colors used on N-Tracking maps."
Click the Map tab.
You now know how to set up rules that cause
alerts to be triggered within N-Tracking. You've also learned
how to access their details through the Flight
Details
pane for an aircraft subject to a warning or caution alert.
The topic "View
automatic alerts and create manual alerts" in User
Settings provides more
information on working with alerts -- and notifications of
alerts. Be sure to review that topic to complete your
understanding of alert functionality.