Global Events are notifications or alerts that are easily configured across 100's of devices utilizing a common Variable Label shared by many devices.
Imagine deploying 10,000 sensors and wanting to have an alert covering all of these devices. Instead of creating 10,000 events, you can simply create one Global Event and monitor common variables across a host of devices within a particular Device Group.
Note: This guide assumes you already have one or more Device Groups. If you do not have any groups created, learn how to quickly create it with this Device Groups user guide.
Requirements
An active Ubidots account (Industrial license and above).
1. Creating a Global Event
To begin, head to the “data” tab →"Events", then hover over the “+” button, located at the upper right corner of the screen, and click on the “create global event” button.
Once the event modal pops up, you’ll find yourself in the first stage of configuration, where you’ll set up the logic of the triggers.
Step 1: Click on "select a device group".
Step 2: Select the Device Group that will be the focus of the event.
Step 3: Add the triggers of the event by using the “+ add trigger” and “+ add OR group” buttons. These buttons allow you to set up an AND/OR logic.
Step 4: Configure the trigger you selected following the instructions for the corresponding type of trigger:
Value based (e.g., if the value is greater than X).
Inactivity (e.g., if the variable has not been updated in X amount of time).
Geofence (if the device enters/exits a defined area in a map).
The trigger can be deleted (to create a different one) by clicking on the corresponding button located at the upper right corner of the trigger.
Notes:
For a global event you'll need to use a variable label, rather than a single variable. This variable label must be common among the devices in the device group for the event to work optimally.
Global events only support one trigger per event.
2. Global Event Configuration Example
As an example, we'll create a global event to send an email alert if any variable with label=temperature is greater than 10. We'll add an action to send an email with a custom subject containing the device name. This way, the email's subject will let us know which device triggered the event.
By using the tag icon at the upper right corners of the “subject” and “message” fields you can easily add information such as device ID, timestamp, variable name, etc., instead of manually typing the entities and properties (e.g., {{device.name}}).
You can create other types of actions beyond email. These are the options you can choose from:
For a detailed explanation on how each of the actions work and how to configure them, visit their respective article (linked above).
After completing the action configuration and clicking on “next”, you’ll proceed to the final step, the “settings” tab. There, you’ll identify your event.
Start this stage by naming your event and, optionally, giving it a description so that it’s easy to distinguish from other events later on.
Another optional step is to use a tag on the event. This is a great tool to control what your end users see in your app. In this case, for instance, you could decide that your end user sees one event, but not another, using tags. Learn more about tags here.
Click on the “save” button to finish creating the event.
3. Results
The newly created global event will watch out for any changes in the variables with the label “temperature” within the devices in the device group "LoRaWAN Devices".
In our case, the group "LoRaWAN Devices" contains 5 devices:
For demonstration purposes, when a Temperature value is greater than "10" an email alert will be sent.
Note that each email is coming from a different device.
Important note: If you remove a device from the device group related to the event, you will no longer receive notification alerts from that device.
4. Useful applications
Global Events can help solve a myriad of challenges during IoT application development and deployments. Here a few use cases to help see you succeed:
Create an inactivity event to inform you if any device has stopped sending data.
For GPS tracking applications, create a geofence event to see if any device enters or exits a designated area.
Create an alert based on the signal strength or the battery strength of a device.
Create an event to inform customers if machines experience unexpected breakdowns or delays.