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How to send SCADA alarms to your phone as text messages

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 on-call phone, tested and routed by the clock. Welco's SCADA alarm notification does the rest, and most of your hour goes into testing.

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  • 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: South Reser… 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: [South Reservoir] Inlet valve FAIL TO OPEN at 12:31 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Animation: a long SCADA alarm server alert email is trimmed into one short text: "Welco: [South Reservoir] Inlet valve FAIL TO OPEN at 12:31 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."
  • Prove your SCADA can send email before you touch Welco.
  • Pick a short list of alarms that need a person after hours.
  • Approve the sender, invite your operators, and point the alarm email at your Welco address.
  • Test with test mode first, then with one real alarm.

What you'll have when you finish

  • A tested alarm on a real phone

    One real alarm, read on the standby phone, with the site, the alarm and the time.

  • Nights going to the right person

    Night and weekend alarms reach the on-call operator. Daytime alarms reach the crew.

  • One text per alarm

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

  • A SCADA network that stays closed

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

Send SCADA alarms to a phone in 8 steps

Work through these in order. Each step depends on the one before it.

  1. Check that 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 simply the way systems send email. Send a test alarm email to your own inbox and confirm it arrives.

  2. Choose the alarms worth a text

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

  3. Sign up and verify your business

    Sign up with your work email on your company domain, book the short intro call, and complete business verification. Texts can't go out until it's approved, which keeps alarm numbers for real alarms only.

  4. Approve the SCADA sending address

    Copy the From address on 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

    Send every operator an invite by email. Each joins with their own mobile, then gets one text asking for a YES. No alarms reach a phone until its owner says yes.

  6. Point the alarm email at your Welco address

    Add your Welco address to the alarm recipients in your SCADA. If the list holds carrier addresses like 5551234567@vtext.com, remove them now.

  7. Set routing and trimming

    Decide who gets texts at night and who gets them by day with on-call routing. Add a trim rule so each alarm fits one text.

  8. Test without sending, then test for real

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

Start the setup with a free account

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

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If your SCADA can't send email directly

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

  • Use an internal mail relay

    Many plants run a mail relay that 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 Google mailbox, a forwarding rule can send them on. See forward Outlook email to text.

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

    Some systems send the alarm in the subject line with an empty body. Turn on subject lines in Welco settings, or the text may come out blank and be dropped.

Mistakes that make SCADA alarm texts fail

Most failed setups trace back to a handful of choices. Avoid these and operators keep trusting the texts.

  • Texting every alarm. Operators mute a phone that buzzes for warnings. Start with the alarms that need a drive.
  • Leaving carrier addresses in place. Recipients at vtext.com or txt.att.net fail quietly. Remove them when you add Welco, 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 on-call phone at shift change, the wrong person gets the 3 AM text.

Go-live checklist

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

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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 approving one sender, inviting operators and pasting one address. Business verification must be approved before texts go out, so start that first.

Can SCADA send text messages without email?

Some SCADA packages have an SMS option, but it usually needs a modem, a cellular plan or a paid SMS account. Welco takes a different path. The SCADA sends email, which it can usually do already, and Welco handles 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 add a sending account. Welco needs no firewall changes inside the plant.

What happens to the alarm emails we already get?

Nothing changes for them. Welco is one more recipient on the same email, so your shared mailbox and any engineers on the list keep getting the full message.

Why did a test alarm not show up as a text?

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

Once we go live, can operators acknowledge from the text?

No. A text reply 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 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, decide whether to keep the dialer as a backup for voice callouts or retire it. See the SCADA alarm cost page for what each option costs.

Have your first SCADA alarm text in the feed today

Sign up, approve your SCADA sender and run 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