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WelcoYour alerts, by text.

Alarm notification by industry, from pump stations to server rooms

Every industry has its own 3 a.m. alarm. For a water operator it's a lift station, for a credit union a failed batch job, and for a dairy warm milk. Welco puts that alarm on the phone of the person on call, using the alarm email your system already sends.

Text me my alarmsBook a demo

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  • Nothing to install
  • One setup for every industry
  • No per-user fees

Works by email with

  • Ignition
  • Nagios
  • Metasys
  • Cisco Unity

An alert email from scada@town.example.org arrives. The Welco rule “After 5 p.m., lift station alarms go to the on-call phone” trims it, and On-call operator gets one text: “Welco: [Lift Station 9] Wet well HIGH 2.38 m, pump 2 not running at 3:04 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

On-call operator received: Welco: [Lift Station 9] Wet well HIGH 2.38 m, pump 2 not running at 3:04 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

Animation: an alert email, "ALARM: Lift Station 9 High Wet Well", arrives at Welco and becomes one text to the on-call operator: "Welco: [Lift Station 9] Wet well HIGH 2.38 m, pump 2 not running at 3:04 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

What changes on the night shift, whatever you run

The alarm is different in every industry. What people want from it is the same.

  • The person on duty hears first

    Before the overflow, the spoiled stock or the 8 a.m. ticket queue, the phone of whoever is on call shows the alarm.

  • Only alarms worth waking for

    Rules text the words that mean trouble, like HIGH HIGH, DOWN or FORCED OPEN. Warnings and all-clears stay in email.

  • A bad night stays readable

    A power blip or a dead switch can set off dozens of alarms. Burst limits and one text per alarm keep the phone usable.

  • Nothing new to look after

    No dialer, modem, agent or app. The alarm email your system already writes is all Welco needs.

Which industries use alarm texts?

Any team whose systems email an alarm can use Welco, and these four groups cover most of them. Each page uses that industry's own alarms, systems and words. Three US teams describe their switch in the SMS alert case studies.

One night, three industries, three phones

The same Welco account type, set up by three different teams. Here is how their alarms travel on one ordinary weeknight.

  1. Day rules hand over to night rules

    Each team's on-call routing switches from the day crew to the one person on duty.

  2. A water utility's SCADA emails a pressure alarm

    ALARM BOOSTER2 DISCH_PRESS LO 262 kPa UNACK

  3. The standby operator gets the site and the reading

    Welco: [Booster 2] Discharge pressure LOW, 262 kPa at 10:05 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.

  4. A credit union's on-call admin hears about a branch

    Welco: [Branch 3] Router DOWN, 3 of 3 checks failed at 1:22 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

  5. The admin answers from bed

    Seen it, LTE backup is up

  6. The reply reaches the IT alerts mailbox

    Welco emails each reply to the alert's sender, so the morning team knows it was handled.

    Reply from the on-call phone: Seen it, LTE backup is up

  7. A building engineer gets a freeze warning

    Welco: [Tower C] Freeze stat trip, AHU-2 shut down at 4:50 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

Times are an example, and mobile networks set the delivery pace. A reply is an email, not an acknowledgment in the alarm system.

How Welco handles alarms in any industry

The setup is the same whether you run a water plant or a server room. It takes three steps.

  1. Sign up and invite your staff

    Verify your business with its Business Number, then email an invite to each person who handles alarms. Operators, techs and facility staff join with their own phones and reply YES before Welco texts them anything.

  2. Point your system's alarm email at Welco

    In SCADA, your monitoring tool or your building system, add your Welco address where alarm emails go today. Approve that system as an approved alarm sender.

  3. Set who gets what, and when

    Use alert rules to pick which alarms text which person. Add time rules so nights and weekends reach the person on duty.

Turn your next alarm email into a text

Sign up, invite your first operator and point one system at Welco.

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

Text me my alarmsBook a demo

Systems these industries already run

Each industry page covers the systems its crews run most. Any of them that emails an alarm can text the person on duty.

Find the alarm texts for your industry

Each page shows the alarms that industry cares about, the systems it runs and a sample night shift.

Alarm texts from three different industries

Alarm emails look different in every industry. As texts, they follow one pattern: where, what and when. Tag IDs, priority codes and long footers stay in the email, which keeps most alarms to one message credit.

  • Water treatment: Welco: [Plant 1] Filter 3 turbidity HIGH, 0.9 NTU at 12:58 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • Credit union IT: Welco: [OpCon] Schedule NIGHTLY-GL job FAILED, exit 8 at 2:44 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • Property management: Welco: [Plaza East] Boiler 1 lockout, space temp 14 C at 5:06 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

A phone showing these alert texts: Water treatment, "Welco: [Plant 1] Filter 3 turbidity HIGH, 0.9 NTU at 12:58 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."; Credit union IT, "Welco: [OpCon] Schedule NIGHTLY-GL job FAILED, exit 8 at 2:44 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."; Property management, "Welco: [Plaza East] Boiler 1 lockout, space temp 14 C at 5:06 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

Why alarms still go unseen after hours, and what changes

In most industries, the gap isn't the alarm itself. It's the path from the alarm to a person.

The path today

  • Systems send email well, but nobody reads a shared inbox at 2 a.m.
  • Alarm dialers and phone lines at remote sites fail, and nobody notices until an alarm is missed.
  • Carrier email-to-text is going away in Canada. Bell retired Text via Email on December 31, 2025 (Bell FAQ), and Rogers addresses stopped working around June 2023, users report.
  • Big incident tools price each seat, which hurts when you only need a text.

The path with Welco

  • The alarm email still goes out, and one copy becomes a text for the person on duty.
  • No line, modem or SIM at the site to test and pay for.
  • A verified number that carries nothing but your alarms.
  • No per-user fees, so the relief operator or second tech costs nothing extra by itself.

How to pick which alarms become texts

Texting every alarm is the fastest way to get texts ignored. Spend ten minutes sorting your alarms before you turn anything on.

Text the alarms that need a person tonight

Ask what happens if nobody looks until morning. Spilled water, spoiled product, a dead network, frozen pipes and a site off the air all need a text. A dirty filter or a low disk warning can wait in email.

Send each alarm to the person who fixes it

A breaker alarm belongs with the line crew, and a boiler alarm belongs with the HVAC tech. When one phone gets everything, that person starts sorting at 3 a.m. instead of fixing.

Keep the good news in email

Return-to-normal, back-in-service and recovery messages matter, but rarely at night. A rule can keep them in email after hours and text them by day, if your team wants them.

Features that matter on every night shift

The alarms change from industry to industry. The things that make an alarm text useful don't.

Frequently asked questions

My industry isn't listed. Will Welco still work for us?

Very likely. What matters is whether your system can send an email, not your industry. If it can, Welco can text it. See email to SMS for any system for the general setup.

Can the person on call answer an alarm text?

Yes, by replying to it. The reply comes back as an email to the alarm's sender, so the rest of the team can see who is on it. It does not acknowledge or clear the alarm in your SCADA, monitoring or building system. Do that there as usual.

Can one Welco account handle alarms from several departments?

Yes. Approve each department's system as a sender, then write rules that send each alarm to the right people. A municipality might send pump alarms to public works and server alarms to IT from the same account.

Who can receive alarm texts from Welco?

Only staff who join from your invite, and only after they reply YES to a confirmation text. No app is needed, since alarms arrive as normal texts. Customers, students, patients and residents never get Welco texts. Anyone on the list can reply STOP to stop receiving alarms.

How is Welco priced across different industries?

The same way for everyone: no per-user fees, no hardware, no setup fee. Your plan is sized by the message credits your alarm texts use, and a busy month never adds overage. Every account starts with a 7-day trial and 15 credits, and the verification card isn't charged until you approve a plan. See Welco pricing for the current plans, in US dollars.

How long does it take to set up Welco for our industry?

About 15 minutes for the first system, if it already sends alarm email. Before that, we verify your business and book a short intro call. Most of the 15 minutes goes on invites and the first rule. Each extra system takes a few minutes more, because it only needs your Welco address and an approval.

Do our alarm emails stop once the texts start?

No. Welco is one more recipient on the alarm email, so everyone who gets it today keeps getting it. The text is an extra copy for the person on call. Remove the Welco address and nothing else changes.

Does Welco take the place of a voice dialer or a paging tool?

Only for teams that just need texts. Welco places no voice calls and has no escalation chains or on-call schedules. Keep a dialer if your policy needs voice callouts. The PagerDuty comparison shows when a paging tool fits better.

Whatever you run, your next alarm can be a text

Point one system's alarm email at Welco and invite the person on call.

Text me my alarmsBook a demo

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