When security breaches happen, incident response time becomes very important. Browser push notifications are a great way to quickly draw an administrator's attention to alarms generated in the Genea system.
Overview
Events such as forceful door entry, multiple access denied events on a critical door or a fire alarm getting triggered demand prompt response. In such cases, getting notified through an audible browser push notification is an effective way to intimate an administrator.
Alarms can be received on different event categories such as access denied events, door contact events, monitor point events and more. Administrators can select custom roles and a subset of alarm categories. Users belonging to the selected custom roles who have browser push notifications enabled will start receiving alarm notifications for the selected subset of alarm categories.
Procedure
Here we'll describe how a user can enable / disable push notifications, how an administrator can configure push notifications for a single role and for multiple roles simultaneously.
I. Enable / disable browser push notifications for your account
Browser push notifications can be enabled or disabled at will. Here are the steps to enable the browser push notifications:
All Genea users except the ones with the "User" role will receive an application popup when they log in requesting access to show push notification. Select the Enable button.
This will in turn give rise to the browser confirmation modal. Select Allow to show notifications.
This will enable push notifications for your account for that browser.
In case you wish to disable your notifications, you can do that as follows:
Navigate to My Profile.
Scroll down till you see the Browser Notification section. Toggle the checkbox.
With this, you will no longer receive browser push notifications from that browser.
II. Configure push notifications for multiple alarm categories for a single role
Here's how an administrator can select the alarm events for which users belonging to a specific role should receive push notifications:
Navigate to Custom Roles and select the role whose alarm notifications you want to configure.
Click on Alarm Settings.
In the sidebar that emerges, select the events for which you'd like the users belonging to this role to be notified. When done, hit Save and Close.
Now, all users belong to that role who have browser push notifications enabled will start receiving the alarm notifications for the selected events.
III. Configure push notifications for a single alarm category for multiple roles
Here's how an administrator can select the different roles all the users of whom should receive push notifications for events from specific alarm category:
Navigate to the Settings section under Alarm Management.
Select an alarm category.
In the sidebar that emerges, you'll notice a Desktop Notification column. Administrators can select roles in that column. When done, hit Save.
With that, users belonging to the selected roles who have enabled browser push notifications will start getting alarm notifications for the selected events.
Notes
If you change your browser, you'll have to enable notifications for the new one.
The following are scenarios where notifications will fail to arrive:
When a logged in person has only HID locations.
When a logged in person has only User (default one) roles in all the locations.
When a logged in person uses incognito mode.
When an outdated browser or a browser where push notification utility is absent is being used. Below is a list from Mozilla containing the earliest browser versions with notification capabilities:
When a logged in person has denied permission to our application for browser notifications.
When a person has set “blocked” permission as default for notifications from all websites. It is a browser level setting which can be found in the settings menu of a browser.
When a person has put our web application into blacklist for notification permission. This option can also be found from the settings menu of a browser.
When a logged in person has disabled notification from My Profile. Currently it is implemented as per browser, so in a new browser or in incognito mode the setting is not reflected.
Some browsers, like Chrome and Firefox, do not show notifications if they are closed. They will start showing all the notifications once they are reopened. It is recommended to keep at least one browser tab / window open to continue receiving notifications.
If a person has enabled “do not disturb”, “focus” or similar modes, notifications can only be seen via action centers or from a place in the system where all the notifications are collected.
While screen sharing, some operation systems automatically enable “do not disturb”, “focus” or similar modes. In those cases, notifications can only be seen via action centers or from a place in the system where all the notifications are collected.