Skip to content
WelcoYour alerts, by text.

How to send SCADA alarms to your phone as texts in Canada

To send SCADA alarms to your phone, have your SCADA email each alarm to your Welco address, and Welco turns it into one short text. By the end of this guide, a real alarm reaches the standby phone, tested and routed by time of day. Welco's SCADA alarm notification handles the texting, so most of your hour goes into testing.

Text me my SCADA alarmsBook a demo

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

  • About an hour, mostly testing
  • Done by whoever runs your SCADA
  • Nothing installed on the SCADA

Works by email with

  • Ignition
  • GE iFIX
  • WIN-911

Setup guide for

  • VTScada

A pump station schematic: East Booste… level falls below its 3 ft low alarm setpoint to 2.1 ft and the alarm turns on. The email reaches Welco and the phone shows: “Welco: [East Booster Station] Discharge valve FAIL TO OPEN at 12:47 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Animation: a long SCADA alarm server alert email is trimmed into one short text: "Welco: [East Booster Station] Discharge valve FAIL TO OPEN at 12:47 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."
  • Make sure your SCADA can send email before you touch Welco.
  • Choose a short list of alarms that need a person after hours.
  • Approve the sender, invite your operators, and send the alarm email to your Welco address.
  • Test in test mode first, then with one real alarm.

What you'll have at the end

  • A tested alarm on a real phone

    One real alarm, read on the standby cellphone, showing the site, the alarm and the time.

  • Nights going to the right person

    Night, weekend and statutory holiday alarms reach the standby operator. Daytime alarms reach the crew.

  • One text per alarm

    A trim rule strips headers and footers, so each alarm fits a lock screen and one credit.

  • A SCADA network that stays closed

    Alarm mail leaves through your relay. Nothing reaches back into the control system.

Send SCADA alarms to a phone in 8 steps

Go through these in order. Each step builds on the one before.

  1. Confirm your SCADA can send email

    Find the email or SMTP settings in your SCADA, HMI or alarm notifier, such as VTScada's email notification or an Ignition email profile. SMTP is just how systems send email. Send a test alarm email to your own inbox and make sure it lands.

  2. Pick the alarms worth a text

    List the alarms that need someone to act within the hour. Think wet well HIGH HIGH, pump fail, hydro power fail, chlorine feed loss and low building temperature in winter. Leave warnings and status changes in email.

  3. Sign up and verify your business

    Sign up with your work email on your organization's own domain, book the short intro call, and finish business verification with your business number. No texts go out until it's approved, which keeps alarm numbers for real alarms only.

  4. Approve the SCADA sending address

    Copy the From address from your test email and add it to your approved sender list. Welco ignores alarm email from any address you haven't approved.

  5. Have each operator join

    Email every operator an invite. Each one joins with their own cellphone, then gets one text asking for a YES. No alarm reaches a phone until its owner says yes.

  6. Send the alarm email to your Welco address

    Add your Welco address to the alarm recipients in your SCADA. If the list still holds carrier addresses like 6135550109@txt.bell.ca, take them out now.

  7. Set routing and trimming

    Choose who gets texts overnight and who gets them during the day with on-call routing. Add a trim rule so each alarm fits one text.

  8. Test without sending, then test for real

    Switch on Welco test mode and trigger an alarm. Check that the feed shows the right text and the right phone. Then switch test mode off and trip one real alarm.

Start the setup with a free account

Sign up, verify your business and see your first test alarm in the feed today.

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

Text me my SCADA alarmsBook a demo

If your SCADA can't send email directly

Some SCADA servers sit on an isolated network with no route to the internet. The plant only needs a path to a mail server.

  • Use an internal mail relay

    Many plants run a mail relay the SCADA servers are allowed to reach. The relay passes alarm email out, and the SCADA network stays closed.

  • Forward from a mailbox you already watch

    If alarms already land in an Outlook or Gmail mailbox, a forwarding rule can pass them on. See forward Outlook email to text.

  • Put the alarm in the body, not only the subject

    Some systems put the alarm in the subject line and leave the body empty. Turn on subject lines in Welco settings, or the text may come out blank and get dropped.

Mistakes that make SCADA alarm texts fail

Most failed setups come down to a few choices. Avoid these and operators keep trusting the texts.

  • Texting every alarm. Operators silence a phone that buzzes for warnings. Start with the alarms worth a drive.
  • Leaving carrier addresses behind. Bell's txt.bell.ca closed at the end of 2025, and Rogers users reported pcs.rogers.com stopping in 2023. Remove them, Telus ones included, using the carrier migration checklist.
  • Sending from a person's mailbox. If alarms leave through someone's own inbox, they stop when that password changes. Use a service account.
  • Skipping the real test. Test mode proves the rules. Only a real alarm proves the phone gets it.
  • Forgetting the handover. If nobody changes the standby phone at handover, the wrong person gets the 3 a.m. text.

Go-live checklist

Check these off before you rely on texts for night alarms. A good alarm text answers where, what and when, and our alert message templates have more examples.

0 of 9 done

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to set up SCADA alarm texts?

Most of the time goes into choosing alarms and testing, not into Welco. If your SCADA already sends email, the Welco side is one approved sender, a few invites and one pasted address. Business verification has to be approved before texts go out, so start that first.

Can SCADA send text messages without email?

Some SCADA packages offer an SMS option, but it usually needs a modem, a cellular plan or a paid SMS account. Welco works differently. The SCADA sends email, which it can usually do already, and Welco does the texting with no hardware at the server.

Do I need IT to help with the SCADA email settings?

Sometimes. If the SCADA server already emails alarms, you can usually add a recipient yourself. If it has never sent email, IT may need to open a path to a mail relay or set up a sending account. Welco needs no firewall changes inside the plant.

What happens to the alarm emails we already get?

They keep coming. Welco is one more recipient on the same email, so your shared mailbox and any engineers on the list still get the full message.

Why didn't a test alarm show up as a text?

First check that the SCADA sent the email and that its From address is approved. Then check that the phone replied YES and test mode is off. The Welco feed lists each email it received and why it did or didn't become a text.

After go-live, can operators acknowledge alarms from the text?

No. A reply to the text is emailed back to the alarm's sender, so it works as a note to the crew. Alarms are still acknowledged at the HMI or in your notifier.

Can I keep my old dialer running while I test Welco?

Yes, and it's a sensible way to switch. Run both for a week or two and compare which alarms reached people. Once you trust the texts, keep the dialer as a voice backup or retire it. The SCADA alarm cost page shows what each option costs.

See your first SCADA alarm text in the feed today

Sign up, approve your SCADA sender and work through to step 8.

Text me my SCADA alarmsBook a demo

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