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Alarm flood control with an hourly cap on texts

Alarm flood control puts an hourly cap on alert emails that become texts and keeps all-clear noise off the phone. An ice storm can knock out hydro to every station on a feeder. The on-call operator then gets a few texts, not forty buzzes in ten minutes. The real alarm stays in view.

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7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

  • All-clears stay in email
  • Hourly cap, 60 by default
  • Monthly cap stops runaway loops

Works by email with

  • Pump & lift stations
  • PRTG
  • Nagios
  • APC UPS

Alarm flood control

Try it: turn it off and on.

6

Off: every alarm and every all-clear

3

On: all-clears dropped, only the three alarms remain

On. The phone gets 3 texts.

With Alarm flood control off, the phone gets 6 texts: Welco: [Lift Station 3] Power fail alarm at 8:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out. Welco: [Lift Station 7] Power fail alarm at 8:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out. Welco: [Lift Station 3] Power fail returned to normal at 8:42 PM. Reply STOP to opt out. Welco: [Lift Station 7] Power fail returned to normal at 8:42 PM. Reply STOP to opt out. Welco: [Lift Station 3] Pump 2 fail alarm at 8:43 PM. Reply STOP to opt out. Welco: [Lift Station 3] Pump 2 fail returned to normal at 8:44 PM. Reply STOP to opt out. With it on, it gets 3: Welco: [Lift Station 3] Power fail alarm at 8:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out. Welco: [Lift Station 7] Power fail alarm at 8:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out. Welco: [Lift Station 3] Pump 2 fail alarm at 8:43 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.
Animation: Alarm flood control switched off and on. Off: every alarm and every all-clear. On: all-clears dropped, only the three alarms remain.

What flood control changes on a rough night

  • A storm stays readable

    The on-call phone shows a handful of alarms, not a wall of texts nobody can scroll through.

  • The alarm that needs a truck stands out

    With the all-clears gone, the pump that really failed isn't buried between two returns to normal.

  • Good news stays in email

    Words like Normal, Cleared or RTN keep a message out of texts, with the full record still in the log.

  • A stuck system can't run up the bill

    An hourly cap and a monthly cap stop a looping alarm from spending your credits.

A hydro blip, with and without flood control

Without flood control

  • Forty texts land in ten minutes, alarms and all-clears mixed together.
  • The operator mutes the phone just to make it stop.
  • The one alarm that needed a truck scrolls past unread.
  • Every all-clear text spends a credit on good news.

With flood control

  • Only alarms become texts, and the all-clears wait in email.
  • The phone stays quiet enough to trust.
  • The pump failure sits near the top, where the operator sees it.
  • Credits go to alarms, not to all-clears.

How alarm flood control works, step by step

Flood control has two parts. One removes the noise, and the other sets a ceiling. Like all of Welco's SMS alert features, it acts on the email before any text goes out.

  1. Drop the all-clear messages

    Many systems send a second email when an alarm clears, with words like Normal, Cleared or RTN. A drop rule keeps those in email, so only the alarms reach the phone.

  2. Cap the emails per hour

    Each account has an hourly limit on alert emails that can become texts. The default is 60 an hour. Mail over the limit is bounced back to the sender instead of being texted.

  3. Let the monthly cap catch runaway loops

    Your plan also has a monthly cap and a safety ceiling. If a system gets stuck sending the same email, costs stop climbing.

A worked example: an ice storm hits two lift stations

Freezing rain brings down a line and hydro drops on one feeder. Two lift stations alarm, a pump trips, and each point clears a minute later.

Alert email from scada@public-works.example.ca, subject “--- ALARM --- HIGH --- LS3 POWER FAIL”. Welco trims it to one text of 77 characters: “Welco: [Lift Station 3] Power fail alarm at 8:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Text received: Welco: [Lift Station 3] Power fail alarm at 8:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.

Characters222771 credit

Animation: the alert email "--- ALARM --- HIGH --- LS3 POWER FAIL" is trimmed into one text: "Welco: [Lift Station 3] Power fail alarm at 8:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out."

In four minutes the system sent six emails for two sites. With the drop rule on, the on-call operator got three texts, all of them alarms. The all-clears stayed in the email log.

Keep the next storm readable on the phone

Sign up, add a drop rule for all-clears and keep the hourly cap as your safety net.

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

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How do I keep real alarms under the hourly limit?

A cap protects the phone, but it doesn't choose which emails matter. Once the limit is reached, the next email is bounced, even if it's important.

So drop the noise first with alert rules. Then the cap only kicks in during a true storm. Talk to us if 60 an hour doesn't suit your site.

For causes and fixes on the system side, read how to prevent alarm floods.

Where alarm floods usually start

Floods follow a few familiar patterns. These are the systems where a drop rule and the cap pay off first.

Frequently asked questions

What happens to an alarm email that comes in after the hourly limit?

It's bounced back to the address that sent it, so the sending system or its mail server sees it wasn't accepted. It doesn't become a text later. Use drop rules so routine noise doesn't use up the limit.

Can flood control tell a real alarm from a repeat one?

Not on its own. It counts emails, not alarms. Use alert rules to drop messages you never want as texts, such as return-to-normal, so the hourly limit goes to real alarms.

Is flood control the same thing as duplicate protection?

No. Flood control limits how many different emails become texts in an hour. Duplicate protection makes sure each phone gets one text per email, even if a mail server delivers that email twice.

Could one bad storm use up my monthly plan?

It can use a good share of it, which is why the hourly cap exists. The account admin gets low-balance emails at 80%, 90%, 95% and 100% of the month's credits. There's never an overage charge: at 100%, alerts pause unless the account holds a credit pack, which takes over by itself. You can move to a bigger plan yourself at any time.

What if 60 alarm emails an hour is too low for our site?

Tell us about the site and how many alarms a typical bad night sends. Contact us and we'll review the limit with you. Dropping all-clears first can cut a storm's count by about half, since many points send one email to alarm and one to clear.

Keep your next alarm storm readable

Drop the all-clears, keep the cap, and let the on-call phone show only what matters.

Set up flood controlBook a demo

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing