|
Create new WinScry monitors by clicking the New Monitor button on the toolbar OR by clicking Create a New Monitor in the File menu of the Main Window. Either option will open the Create / Edit Monitor Installation Window. To edit an existing monitor click the |
button in your Monitor Status list in the Main Window.Creating and Editing Monitors
Click to Zoom
Every WinScry Monitor has 3 major properties which you can see in the 3 Tabs:
1.The FROM Email Settings and Alert Format. The main purpose of WinScry is to deliver alerts and reports via email from your Monitor installations to you. To do this you have to define an email account to use as the FROM email address when sending. You have several options here and all have their own pros and cons. You can opt to use the built-in WinScry SMTP accounts or you can provide your own email by creating an email address on your own email servers and configuring each monitor to use those settings. See below for a further discussion.
2.The TO Email address(es) you wish WinScry Alerts and Reports to be sent to. You can add up to 5 email addresses for each monitor installation to use.
3.Optional Additional Properties. These optional fields can be populated by you (or not). If they are entered they will be integrated into every WinScry Alert email delivered. These are common-sense values which you might want to be part of a report so that you don't have to look them up. Things like a local contact email, phone and contact person, customer ID, etc.
Configuring The From Email Settings
 Click to Zoom
While certainly the easiest option to configure, you simply check the Use the WinScry Customer Support Email Servers to send alert emails box and you are done, there are a couple of points to think about before you use this option.
FIRST you need to understand how this option works. At WinScry Customer Support we have pre-configured several "no reply" SMTP email accounts for use by our customers. Whenever a monitor installation generates an alert email the WinScry Client Console software will randomly select one of those email accounts to use.
PROS: It's very easy to configure, you just check one box and you are done.
CONS: It does mean that your entire alerts system will rely quite heavily on OUR (WinScry Support) email servers. If for some reason our email servers go down you won't receive any alert emails until they come back up. Additionally, you wouldn't know that there is a problem until someone noticed that alert emails that you should have gotten weren't received. If you configure your own email address to use as the FROM email (See Scenario 2 below), you would be more likely to know if there was some sort of problem.
|
 Click to Zoom
To configure the WinScry monitor to use your email server you simply uncheck the Use the WinScry Customer Support Email Servers to send alert emails box and then enter the SMTP information needed to create an email (similar to setting up an email address in Microsoft Outlook for example). You can verify that you have entered everything correctly by clicking the Send a Test Message button. You can even use some public email servers (Gmail etc.).
PROS: If you use your own email server you have complete control over the email address(es) your monitor installations will use to deliver alert emails. If YOUR email server goes down you will know automatically that all of your monitor installations that use them will be unable to deliver alert emails.
CONS: You have to create and maintain your FROM email addresses. If you change the email password on your email server you have to remember to edit every monitor you have created and change the password there as well, etc.
|
|
The Alert Format
In the bottom left quadrant of the FROM Email Settings tab you will see the option to select the Alert Format which the monitor installation will use when creating email alerts and reports. You have 5 different options:
1.Text - Emails are delivered as plain text 2.HTML - (Recommended) Emails are delivered as HTML emails 3.RTF (Rich Text) - Alert emails will be delivered with the alert or report ATTACHED as a Rich Text (.rtf file) 4.MS Word - Alert emails will be delivered with the alert or report ATTACHED as a Microsoft Word document (.docx file) 5.Adobe PDF - Alert emails will be delivered with the alert or report ATTACHED as Adobe PDF document (.pdf file)
|
 Click to Zoom |
Configuring The TO Email Address(es)
In Tab #2 you enter the TO email address(es). You must enter at least 1 address and you can enter up to 5 addresses.
To add an email address click the blue + button. To remove an email address from the list, click on the email address you want to delete and click th blue - button.
Receive WinScry Alerts Via Text Message: Most Wireless Cell Phone providers offer the use of an SMS and / or MMS gateway which allows you to use your cell phone number as an email address. See Getting Text Messages for more information.
Client Console Default values
In the screenshot shown to the left the area marked with a red square indicates the Client Console default values. Whenever you create a new alert using the WinScry Client Console software at this monitor installation these values will be pre-filled as the default. NOTE: These settings are only default values, they CAN be overridden in the WinScry Client Console software. This means that if you indicate here that you wish that all alerts created at this monitor would Hibernate (IE take no action, send no reports) between 9 PM and 4 AM, that value can be changed when the alert is created at the client.
|
 Click to Zoom |
Configuring The Optional Additional Properties
In Tab #3 there are the optional additional properties. All values that you enter here will be integrated into any alert emails or reports generated by the monitor with the WinScry Client Console software.
|
See Also: Client Console Help