Automatic Triggers
Automatic Triggers are similar to Manual Triggers (buttons) in that they provide a way to launch one or more Action Sequences. There is one very important difference however, Automatic Triggers do not require a user to become involved, there is no button to click, instead certain conditions have to be met.
The conditions which have to be met are defined beforehand when you build the template itself. There are two Automatic Triggers which are built into all events, you can optionally assign Actions to launch to these if appropriate but you cannot otherwise modify them.
When the event starts the first Automatic Trigger is fired. If there are any Actions you would like done immediately at the start of an event this is the hook you should tie into.
The second Automatic Trigger is called right after the event is stopped. If there are any post-event Actions you would like to execute this is the hook you should tie into.
The "When Event STOPS" Automatic Trigger is initiated after the Stop Event action is executed inside an Action Sequence. It does NOT STOP the event itself, it is only a hook into a cleanup routine which runs post-event.
In addition to the two provided by the system you can create as many user defined Automatic Triggers as you need.
The Automatic Triggers Property Pane has a section dedicated to building out a ruleset to define the conditions you want met prior to the trigger firing off it's associated Action Sequences.
These rules utilize boolean logic (AND | OR operators) to allow you to create combinations of conditions which when evaluated with their logical operators must result in true
Conditions can be combined into rule groups if you want to apply different logic for sets of conditions. To add a rule group click the Add New Rule Group button.
To add a condition first click the rule group you want to add to and then click the appropriate toolbar button (eg the Sensor Range button). This will bring up an interface allowing you to define the condition.
As with Manual Triggers, one or more Action Sequences must be checked. These will be what are fired off when the Auto Trigger evaluates to true.
Geospatial rules will be added in a future release of SCS, for now the conditions are constrained to sensor and/or Meta Item values.
Sensor Rules
Sensor rules allow you to specify a condition based upon real-time sensor data.
The first step is to select the Data Field representing the sensor value you are interested in. The top half of the popup will be the standard sensor data source selection control.
Once you have selected a Data Field you can specify the constraint on its value required for the rule to evaluate to true.
In this example, this Sensor Range Trigger rule will monitor the Furuno-GP170_COG value. It will evaluate to until the sensor's value is less than or equal to 320 for more than 5 seconds.
It's recommended to have a little time buffer to ensure the value has actually transitioned. For instance in the above example when the ship turns and it crosses the 320 boundary chances are it will bounce back and forth (319.5, 320, 321, 319 ....). If you did not specify the time qualification then the trigger would also bounce back and forth between true and false.
Meta Item Rules
Meta Item rules allow you to specify a condition based upon real-time Meta Item values.
The first step is to select the Meta Item you are interested in. The top half of the popup will list all known numeric options.
Once you have selected a Meta Item you can specify the constraint on its value required for the rule to evaluate to true.
In this example, this Meta Item Trigger rule will monitor the Meta Item named 'Button Press Count'. It will evaluate to until the value is equal to 3. As soon as it hits 3 this rule will evaluate to true.
This rule is very useful if you want to automatically kick off Action sequences at certain thresholds. For example, once you have deployed 10 buoys you could trigger a sequence with an audible alarm. Or, if you want to show/hide a special button every time another button has been pressed 5 times. Or if you have completed 8 transects, and so on.
Rule Groups
Each rule you define has to be placed into a Rule Group. When you create a new Auto Trigger a default/root Rule Group comes with it. The Rule Group evaluates each rule and sub-Rule Group it contains and returns true or based upon it's logical operator. In the diagram below you can see there are 2 rule groups (arrow #2). Each group has it's own logical operator (arrow #1) and a set of rules inside it which that operator evaluates against as a whole.
The Logical Operator is an ALL vs ANY selection (AND vs OR in the boolean logic world).
All - Everything in the group must be to true for the group to be true.
Any - If anything in the group evaluates to true then the group evaluates to true.
So in this example there are 2 Rule Groups:
The root one which contains 3 sensor rules and a nested group
A nested one which contains 2 sensor rules
The root Rule Group has it's logical operator set to ALL. This means all 3 sensor rules must evaluate to true AND the sub rule group must also evaluate to true before it evaluates to true.
The nested Rule Group has its logical operator set to ANY, this means that if EITHER of its two rules evaluates to true then the entire group evaluates to true.
The concept is clarified below. The root Rule Group has it's logical operator set to ALL. That means ALL rules and first level nested Rule Groups must be true for the trigger to fire. If the COG is greater than 320 then the result is , even if everything else is true. If the nested Rule Group returns (both it's rules evaluate to ) then the root Rule Group also returns . ALL it's immediate children MUST return true for the root to be true as it's logical operator is set to ALL.
In this example there is a single nested Rule Group. In reality you can have as many nested Rule Groups as you need, and the nested Rule Groups can have nested Rule Groups of their own down to any level you desire.
In practicality nesting to many levels will most likely lead to confusion and is not recommended.
The nested Rule Group above will evaluate to true if the Temp value is less than or equal to 40, it will also evaluate to true if the EK60 depth is greater than or equal to 2500 meters. If ANY of it's rules evaluate to true then the entire [nested] Rule Group evaluates to true. If you want BOTH conditions to be true before the Rule Group evaluates to true then you must change it's logical operator to ALL.