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 5 minutes to complete.

Detailed explanation 

Alert management rules

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 -- triggered when a higher and more significant threshold is breached. 

Accordingly, more attention should be given to warnings compared to cautions.  

Start your work on the Alert Management page, available in the Administration menu. 

In this example, for the Minimal flight level during cruise alert, the threshold for the caution and warning are set at the same value.

To change the Signal Lost rule, click the Edit icon for the corresponding rule (in this example, the Warning Signal lost rule).

Click the Edit icon.

Click the Threshold input field.

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 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.

 That's where you'll do it for this example.

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.

HINT 

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.  

Click the Save rule button.

Having defined the threshold to be used, you can now activate the Signal Lost warning rule. 

Click the Activated slider.

HINT 

When you activate an alert, N-Tracking immediately emits alerts for any flights for which the threshold conditions are met.

Next, review the display of cautions and alerts on the map.

Click the Map tab.

In this example, the Flight list indicates one aircraft has an associated warning and a different aircraft has an active caution.

The warnings and cautions for the different types of alerts all look the same at this stage. The color (red or orange, respectively) tells you the severity of the alert. To see the alert context, open the Flight details pane to review the alert text.
 

HINT 

You can click any of the aircraft icons or click the flight in the Flight list to display flight details. 

Click the red aircraft icon.

Review the warning detail.

When a warning (or caution) has been acknowledged by a user, a message displays above the text, like this: .

Click anywhere on the  map.

Although most customers leave the default colors (red and orange) for warning and caution alerts, you can customize these colors using the Color menu option on the Administration menu.
 

HINT 

To change Flight list banner and aircraft icon colors, use the technique outlined in the topic, Assign colors to the Flight list and to aircraft icons on the map.  

SUCCESS 

Congratulations! You have learned how to update and activate or deactivate alerting rules.

The topic, View automatic alerts and create manual alerts in Working with flights on the map provides more information on working with alerts -- and alert notifications. It is recommended that you, as an N-Tracking Administrator, review this important topic to fully understand N-Tracking alert functionality.