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PI System alarm notification SMS from your historian rules

PI System alarm notification by SMS starts with the rules you already have: subscribe your Welco address, and each event becomes a text. When Boiler 2 stack O2 drifts below 2% at 4 a.m., the engineer on call sees the element, the reading and the time. Your historian, rules and dashboards stay as they are.

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  • Nothing installed on the PI server
  • One email subscriber per rule
  • No per-user fees

Works by email with

  • PI System & historians

Published:

A historian trend for \\PIAF01\Plant\Utilities\Boiler 2: Stack O2 falls below its 2 % trigger to 1.6 % and an event frame opens. The email reaches Welco and the phone shows: “Welco: [Boiler 2] Stack O2 LOW, 1.6% at 4:02 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Animation: a long PI System alert email is trimmed into one short text: "Welco: [Boiler 2] Stack O2 LOW, 1.6% at 4:02 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

What engineers get from historian texts

  • Slow trouble, caught early

    Historian rules spot a bearing warming or a reading drifting. The text reaches someone while there is still time to act.

  • The machine and the value

    The text keeps the element, the reading and the time. The AF path and the PI Vision link stay in the email.

  • Critical at night, minor by email

    The severity in each email decides who gets a text and at what hour.

  • The historian stays inside

    Welco never connects to the PI server. It receives the notification email after your mail server sends it out.

Historian alerts, explained in one minute

A historian is the database that stores every plant reading over time. The best known is PI System (formerly OSIsoft PI). Others include Gensym G2 and the historians built into many SCADA packages.

You'll find historians in pulp mills, district energy plants, refineries and processing plants across Canada. When a historian emails an event, Welco makes it a text, the same as any SCADA alarm SMS. Check these before you change any rule.

  • Notification rules that email someone today, with the PI Notifications service set up to send through your mail server.
  • A Welco account with your company verified. Start free to set one up.
  • The engineers or operators on call, each joined from a Welco invite on their own cellphone with a YES reply.

Set up PI System notification texts in 5 steps

Most of the work happens in PI System Explorer, where your notification rules live. A PI administrator can finish in about 20 minutes.

  1. Approve the PI Notifications sender

    Copy the From address from a recent PI notification email. Add it to Welco's approved senders, so only your historian can text your team.

  2. Open the rule you want as a text

    In PI System Explorer, find the notification rule on the element you care about, such as a boiler or a compressor.

  3. Add your Welco address as an email subscriber

    In the rule's subscriptions, add an email subscriber with your Welco address. Keep the engineers' own email subscriptions if they want the full message too.

  4. Keep the subject short and specific

    If you edit the email format, put the element name and the event in the subject. That's the part an engineer reads first on a lock screen.

  5. Trigger a test event

    Lower a limit on a test rule, or wait for a known event. Check the text and the Welco feed. Test mode lets you try it without sending a text.

Get historian alerts on your phone, not just in your inbox

Subscribe your Welco address to the PI rules that matter and verify your business.

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

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A compressor vibration event as a text

Picture a processing plant outside Edmonton. PI notification emails include the full element path and a link back to PI Vision. On a phone, the machine and the value are what count.

Alert email from pi-notifications@plant.example.com, subject “PI Notification: Air Compressor 3 Vibration High”. Welco trims it to one text of 92 characters: “Welco: [Compressor 3] Bearing vibration HIGH, 8.4 mm/s at 11:18 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Text received: Welco: [Compressor 3] Bearing vibration HIGH, 8.4 mm/s at 11:18 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.

Characters249921 credit

Animation: the alert email "PI Notification: Air Compressor 3 Vibration High" is trimmed into one text: "Welco: [Compressor 3] Bearing vibration HIGH, 8.4 mm/s at 11:18 PM. Reply STOP to opt out."

Learn what a process historian stores, and why its alerts tend to come early. Plants using PI this way are covered in manufacturing alarm texts.

Which historian events deserve a text

Historian rules often watch dozens of slow trends. Text only the events where an hour's delay costs equipment, product or a limit in your operating approval.

  • Equipment health: bearing vibration, motor winding temperature, compressor discharge temperature.
  • Combustion and utilities: stack O2, boiler drum level, steam header pressure.
  • Process limits: a reactor or kiln temperature leaving its band, or a flow that stops.
  • Winter freeze protection: a heat trace circuit that fails, or a line temperature falling toward 0 C on a -30 C night.
  • Lost data: a PI interface or buffer that stops sending, so the historian goes blind.
  • Keep in email: daily reports, shift summaries and soft quality limits.

Tips for historian texts

Historian rules can fire often. Text the few that need a person tonight.

  • Only critical severity after hours

    Use a rule by event severity to text Critical events at night and leave Minor ones in email. On-call routing picks the phone by time of day.

  • Skip the end-of-event email

    If PI also emails when an event ends, drop those in Welco. The engineer already knows, and the text count stays down.

  • Process and equipment split

    Send process drifts to the engineer on call and equipment trips to the shift operator, by the rule name in the email.

When a PI event doesn't become a text

Look at each hop, starting with PI.

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Frequently asked questions

Can Gensym G2 or another historian send texts this way?

Yes, if it can send an email. G2 and many SCADA historians can email when a rule or limit trips. Point that email at your Welco address and approve the sender. The text will show whatever the email leads with, so put the equipment name and the event first.

Does Welco need access to our PI server or network?

No. Welco never connects to PI. It only receives the notification emails PI already sends out through your mail server. Nothing is installed in your plant network, and no firewall rule changes are needed for Welco itself.

Can the text include the PI Vision link?

It can, but it is usually better left out. A long link makes the text use more credits, and the engineer can open PI Vision from a laptop anyway. A trim rule can cut everything after the value line, which removes the link along with the footer.

What if a value hovering at the limit fires the rule over and over?

Fix the deadband or the trigger in PI first, since that is the real cause. While you do, Welco flood control caps how many texts each phone gets in a burst. Treat it as a safety net, not the fix.

Can process engineers and operators get different PI alerts?

Yes. A Welco rule can read the rule name, the element path or the severity in the email. One email can also go to several phones, each once.

If the engineer replies to the text, does PI see it?

No. Welco emails the reply to the notification's sender address, so a person reads it. PI events open and close on their own rules, and replies don't change them.

What does texting PI alerts cost?

Welco plans skip per-user, hardware and setup fees. Each short alert uses one message credit. Long PI emails use more credits unless you trim them, which is another reason to cut the link. Plans are on the pricing page.

Turn your next PI notification into a text

Subscribe your Welco address to one rule and see the result tonight.

Text me my PI alertsBook a demo

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