Send alarms to a monitoring station

Kalytera Cloud can send your Sites' alarms to an alarm receiving center (a monitoring station). Only portal administrators can set this up. Your service must include Monitoring-station dispatch, listed under Settings > System profile; if it is missing, ask Kalytera.

Settings > Monitoring stations shows the work in three steps: 1 · Configure station, 2 · Assign in Site setup and 3 · Set source account numbers.

What to agree with the center

Kalytera connects to the center's receiver over a supervised TCP connection, using SIA DC-09 with SIA DCS event messages. Before you start, get from the center:

• the receiver's address and port, receiver number, line prefix and supervision class (SP1 to SP6);
• an account number for each Site, 1 to 8 hexadecimal characters, and whether it is encrypted with an AES key of 32, 48 or 64 hexadecimal characters (AES-128, 192 or 256);
• a zone (1 to 999) and a partition (0 to 99) for each camera.

If the center's firewall admits only known senders, ask Kalytera for the domains and addresses to allow.

Step 1: configure the station

1. Go to Settings > Monitoring stations and select Add station.
2. Enter a Name and the receiver's Host and Port. Leave Enabled on.
3. Open Advanced settings and enter the values from the table below.
4. Select Create station.

Field	Meaning
Receiver number, Line prefix	The receiver and line at the center, 1 by default.
Heartbeat	How often Kalytera checks the line, from SP1 (12 h) to SP6 (9 s). SP3 (75 s) is the default.
Receiver response timeout (seconds)	Wait for the receiver's acknowledgement, 1 to 120 (5 by default).
Maximum retries	Resends before a message counts as failed, 0 to 20 (3 by default).
Timestamp events, Timestamp heartbeats	Add the time to plaintext alarms and heartbeats. Encrypted messages always carry it.
Attach an incident link for this station	See Incident links for the center.

Step 2: assign the station to a Site

1. Go to Sites, select Open workspace on the Site, then Alarm dispatch.
2. Under the station, select Add account number.
3. Enter the Account number and an optional Account label. Keep Account enabled on.
4. To encrypt, open Advanced configuration, set Encryption to Set key and enter the AES key. New account numbers use Plaintext.
5. Select Save account number.
6. Choose it under Account number and select Save.

A Site can send to several stations; Do not use this station leaves one out. Changing an account number to Plaintext removes its key.

Step 3: identify each camera

1. Open the camera from Cameras and select the Response tab.
2. Under Alarm reporting identifiers, enter the Reporting zone and the Partition (0 for none).
3. Select Save identifiers.

A camera sends nothing until it belongs to a Site and has a reporting zone. If two sources share a zone and partition on one account number, Alarm dispatch warns you: both keep working, but the center cannot tell them apart.

To send one camera or panel under another account number, or not at all, use Account number overrides by source in the Site's Alarm dispatch: choose Use a different account number or Do not send to this station and select Save. The camera's Response tab lists its different account numbers under Monitoring-station account number overrides.

What is sent

Alarm	Event code
Motion, and alarm emails	BA
Object detection, line crossing, intrusion and analytics rules	BV
Video unavailable / Video restored	UT / UJ
Alarm panel events	The panel's own code, zone and area

Image check alarms and recording events are not sent, nor are alarms that Cloud arming holds back, such as those of a disarmed group. Alarm emails go out only while their own dispatch switch is on (see Camera email alarms).

To send Video unavailable and Video restored, turn on Forward Video unavailable and Forward Video restored under Settings > Alarms > Video availability and select Save video availability. Both are off by default.

Incident links for the center

An incident link lets the center's operator open the alarm's video in a browser. It is added only when:

• Settings > Incident portals > Policy has Include an incident portal link in eligible monitoring-station dispatch on, and the Monitoring station permissions there allow what the center may see;
• the station has Attach an incident link for this station on;
• the account number uses an AES key. Plaintext messages never carry a link.

Each link stops working after the Link lifetime and is listed in Portal history, where you can revoke it (see Alarms and incidents).

Check the station

The station list shows each station's state with its reason, its pending or failed dispatches, and the Sites that use it. The Site's Setup summary also shows the state.

State	Meaning
Connected	The receiver acknowledges within its heartbeat window and no dispatch is failing.
Connecting	Waiting for the receiver's first acknowledgement.
Needs attention	Delivery is impaired (a refused connection, a silent receiver or failing dispatches), or no account number is enabled.
Disabled	Enabled is off. Alarms wait in the queue and are not delivered.

Under More, Reconnect restarts the connection and Retry failed dispatches requeues failed messages. Delete station works once the station has no account numbers left: remove them from the Site's Alarm dispatch first.