Introduction > Creating Alerts and Reports

With WinScry you can receive periodically scheduled email reports (the System Status Report), or you can receive email alerts which are Triggered by different event conditions (the Conditional Alert). And finally, there is a third reporting object available to you:

The File API Alert

The File API Alert allows any other program to interface with WinScry to deliver important Alerts / Reports. In the Primary Properties tab enter the Alert Name (every alert must have a unique name), the API Folder and the File Extensions to look for. WinScry will monitor that folder and whenever files of the type you have specified are detected the File API Alert will immediately trigger and dispatch an email alert with the detected file(s) included in the email as attachments.

There are some IMPORTANT caveats to understand when using this type of WinScry Alert.

1) Files are permanently deleted: After the WinScry MS Windows Service successfully dispatches an email from a File API Alert, any files in the API folder which were included as email attachments in that email are permanently deleted.

2) API files cannot be empty or too large: The WinScry Windows Service will IGNORE empty files (0 bytes) in the API folder. Also, the maximum size for any single file to be attached to the email alert is 2 megabytes. Files larger than 2 megabytes (as well as 0 byte files) are IGNORED by the WinScry Windows Service.

3) Multiple files are allowed: If multiple matching files are detected in the API Folder the WinScry service will attach up to five (5) of them to each email alert, deleting the files as the email alerts are successfully dispatched. The alert will continue to 'Trigger' until the API Folder is empty of matching files. When delivering multiple files the TOTAL size of all attached files cannot be greater than 2 megabytes. This means that if there are 6 files waiting to be delivered in the API Folder and they are all exactly one (1) megabyte in size the WinScry Service will attach 2 files to the alert email. The remaining files will be delivered every 1-3 minutes again attaching 2 of them to each email until all have been delivered.

You may create as many File API Alerts as you like but each enabled alert must use a separate API Folder.

File API Alerts (Click to Zoom)

Creating a File API Alert Primary Properties

oIn the Alert Name field enter a unique name for this Alert.

oClick the button to browse for the Windows Folder which will contain the files to be delivered.

o(Optional) Enter the File Extensions the Alert should look for (leave blank for all). You can enter as many specific extensions as you like separated by a comma. HINT: Enter JUST the extension (IE pdf, docx, txt NOT .pdf,.docx,.txt OR *.pdf,*.docx,*.txt ).

oIf you need the files to be of a certain age before they qualify to trigger the alert check the Filter based on file age box and enter how old the files must be. Example: Your process creates daily LOG files in a folder and you want the WinScry alert to deliver them to you but only when they are completed for any given day. To accomplish this, just enter the minimum file age as 24 hours OR 1 day.

oEnable the alert by checking the Enable This Alert box and then click the OK button to save changes.

oYou can also click the Email Properties (Optional) tab to set up the Hibernation Schedule or add a custom email subject or message. Clickthe SMS Text Messaging (Optional) tab to set up receiving alert notification text messages on your cell phone.