*Plugin – Notifications

Owned by Tom Polman
Last updated: Sept 21, 2022
3 min read

Configuration Article | CA-20200930-TP-25

VDG Sense | Setup | Plugins | Notifications

VDG Sense has the ability to send an e-mail when there is an event. For instance send an e-mail if a camera connection is lost. This article explains the necessary steps to configure this function.

Configuration

  1. Enable the ‘Notifications’ plugin in the ‘Plugins’ tab

2. Use the VDG Portal or configure a custom mail server in the ‘SMTP settings’ menu of the plugin. This needs to be an active SMTP server. (NOTE: Gmail might block e-mails as it is sometimes seen as spam)

 

3. To send an e-mail if a camera connection is lost create a ‘Server macro’:

Signal: Device -> All locations -> Any Device -> Connection Lost
Action: Plugin -> Notifications-> Send Email

The macro should look like this:

4. Configure the plugin action

 

  • Type:
    Choose ‘E-mail’

  • Recipient:
    Select the user with the e-mail address where the mail has to be send to

  • Subject:
    The subject line of the e-mail

  • Message:
    The contents of the e-mail

  • Image
    Attach an image of the device in the email (more information below)

In the ‘Subject’ and ‘Body’ fields specific tags can be used to automatically fill information based on the event which has triggered the macro. These variables will be replaced with actual values from the signal that triggered the macro.The following tags can be used:

  • %EventId%
    The ID of the event which triggered the macro

  • %EventName%
    The name of the event (Connection Lost, Motion e.a.)

  • %EventValue%
    The value of the given event

  • %DeviceId%
    The unique ID of the device

  • %ServerId%
    The unique ID of the server on which the device resides

  • %DeviceName%
    The name of the device/camera

  • %ServerName%
    The name of the server on which the device resided

Attach a device image

In version 2.4.15 or higher, it’s possible to attach an image of the device defined in the signal. To use this, emails need to be send through the VDG portal. Attached images have a maximum width of 540 px and have the event timestamp. If a device is unavailable or not recording, no image will be attached. If a device is set to motion recording, a pre-event time needs to be set to receive an image of the event.

Note that it’s not possible to attach images if a custom SMTP server has been configured.

Email example