Self Service Alerts makes it easy to set and persist threshold, duration and enabled settings for your alerts in a database. For details, see Alerts>Self Service Alerts.

The Self Service Alerts demo can be modified and used stand-alone or integrated into your RTView application in order to view and administrate alerts. The demo is located under demos\selfservicealerts in your RTView installation directory and contains three displays (Alert Detail Table, Alert Administration and Alert Audit) and a pre-configured hsqldb database to store your alert settings. NOTE: For other database types, the demos\selfservicealerts\dbconfig directory contains .sql files with the correct table schemas and a README.txt that explains how to use them.

Running the Demo

In an initialized command window, navigate to the demos/selfservicealerts directory:

1. Start the XML simulator:
 

type start run_simdata

2.  Start the hsqldb database:
 

type start run_hsqldb

3.  View the demo:
 

type run_viewer

Alert Detail Table
This display shows all of your current alerts:

To view more information about an alert or to acknowledge an alert, double-click on an alert in the table to open the Manage Alert Detail dialog. You may also add a comment to the alert or clear all existing comments.

 Alert Administration
This display shows you the current values in the Alert Settings Table in the Self Service Alerts database.

NOTE: The Save Settings button is only enabled if an alert is selected and the connection to the Alert Settings Table is good.

Administration Audit
This display shows the changes made to the Alert Settings Table if an Audit Table was specified on the Self Service Alerts tab of the Application Options dialog.

Modify the Stand-Alone Demo

Replace Demo Alerts
To use the Self Service Alerts demo to monitor your own alerts, you must first replace the demo alerts with your own. There are 2 ways to do this:

Save your alert definitions in a file named rtv_alertdefs.rtv and replace the existing file, located in demos/selfservicealerts, with your own.

OR

Save your alert definitions in one or more .rtv files in the demos/selfservicealerts directory.

1. Run the Display Builder from the selfservicealerts directory.

2. In the Display Builder, select Tools>Options.

3. In the Application Options dialog, select Alerts>Alert Definitions and remove rtv_alertdefs.rtv and add your own alert definition files.

4. Save and exit the Display Builder.

Replace Demo (hsqldb) Database
To use a different database to store your alert settings, modify the ALERTDB SQL Database Definition.

1. Run the Display Builder from the selfservicealerts directory.

2. In the Display Builder, select Tools>Options.

3. In the Application Options dialog, select SQL. 

4. Edit the ALERTDB database connection to point to your database. 

5. If necessary, change the Settings Table Name and Audit Table Name entries. In the Application Options dialog, select Alerts>Self Service Alerts.

6. Save and exit the Display Builder.

The selfservicealerts/dbconfig directorycontains SQL schema files for several databases. You can use these files to create the necessary tables in your database. See the README.txt file in that directory for instructions.

Clear Demo (hsqldb) Database
You can also clear the included hsqldb by running the DATA\reset_alerts script while the database is not running. This will remove all entries from the alert settings table and the audit table.

Modify Alert Options
It is possible to limit the number of active alerts in the Alert Detail table and set the rate at which cleared alerts are removed. Currently in this demo, the Alert History Depth (i.e. number of active alerts) is set to 2000 and the Rate to Remove Cleared Alerts is 300 milliseconds (5 minutes).

If you will have a larger number of active alerts in the Alert Table at one time, you will need to increase the Alert History Depth value on the Alerts tab of the Application Options dialog.

Integrate the Demo into an RTView Application

Before integrating this demo into your RTView application, you must configure it as described above to monitor your alerts and store the settings in the database of your choice.

Once you have done this, proceed with the following instructions:

1. Copy all of the .rtv files from the demos/selfservicealerts directory to your RTView application directory.

2. Copy ALERTOPTIONS.ini and CACHEOPTIONS.ini files to the directory where you will be running the alerts. This might be your application directory or it might be the directory where you are running the Data Server if you want the alerts to run in the Data Server. NOTE: If this directory is not your application directory, move your alert configuration files (rtv_alertdefs.rtv and/or your other alert configuration files) and rt_alerts_cache.rtv to the same directory as ALERTOPTIONS.ini and CACHEOPTIONS.ini.

3. Add the ALERTDB option to the options file in the directory where you put the ALERTOPTIONS.ini and CACHEOPTIONS.ini:

   a. If the directory where you put ALERTOPTIONS.ini and CACHEOPTIONS.ini already contains an OPTIONS.ini file, then add the lines that start with sqldb ALERTDB and dbretry from demos/selfservicealerts/OPTIONS.ini file to that file.

   b. If the directory where you put ALERTOPTIONS.ini and CACHEOPTIONS.ini does not contain an OPTIONS.ini file, copy the OPTIONS.ini file from demos/selfservicealerts to there.

4. In your application directory, add the following display (.rtv) files to your panel configuration file:

   rtv_alerts_table.rtv (Alert Detail View)
   rtv_admin_alerts.rtv (Alert Administration)
   rtv_alerts_audit.rtv (Administration Audit)

5. The demo uses the style sheets rtv_darkstyles.rts and rtv_flat.rtv  to set the look and feel of the displays. If your application already uses these stylesheets or if you do not want to apply a style sheet, you are finished.

   a. If you want to apply the style sheets to your whole application:

   In the Display Builder select Tools>Options. In the Application Options dialog, select General>Style Sheet. Click Add Built-in Styles and select rtv_darkstyles.rts and rtv_flat.rts. If you do not want these style sheets applied to the main Display Builder window, deselect Apply Style Sheets to Main Builder Window. Save your options and exit the Display Builder.

   b. If you only want to apply the style sheets to the Self Service Alerts display files (i.e. rtv_alerts_table.rtv, rtv_admin_alerts.rtv, and rtv_alerts_audit.rtv):

   Open each of these files in the Display Builder and in each display, select Tools>Style Sheets. Click Add Built-in Styles and select rtv_darkstyles.rts and rtv_flat.rts. Click OK and Save each display.