There are many different ways to integrate PageGate
with other programs and hardware and these forms of
integration are invaluable to Public Safety and Emergency
Management Systems because it allows you to send pages
to pagers, SMS to cell phones, Email to email addresses
or any combination of the three. It's a fairly easy
process but knowing how to integrate with our software
is a key step in understanding what's going to be best
for your environment.
If you're using a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system
like Tritech's VisionAir or Sungard's OSSI, PageGate
can easily and seamlessly integrate with your CAD system
by using our GetAscii module. The GetAscii module for
PageGate allows the software to monitor a directory
or series of directories either on the local hard drive
or across the network for text file output. Most CAD
systems can be configured to output a file to a directory
when an alert needs to be sent out. These alerts are
then read in by PageGate and sent to whoever was specified
to receive the alert by the CAD system. Alternatively,
if your CAD system can't output a file, the GetAscii
module also provides a Command Line Executable that
nearly any program can use to pass command line variables
for sending alerts.
If you're using an Alarm Panel, like a nurse call station,
you can use our GetTAP or GetSerial modules to read
in the input from the Alarm Panel and turn that in to
a message. Different alarm panels use different methods
for delivering alerts but almost all of them have the
ability to transmit information over a serial line.
If you can connect the alarm panel to the PC running
PageGate with a serial cable, all that remains is finding
out if your alarm panel requires the TAP protocol or
if the alarm panel does a raw serial data dump over
the serial line. That will let you know if you need
GetTAP or GetSerial.
If you're using a Zetron or a Glenayre paging terminal
and want to move away from sending pages to pagers but
have to use the Zetron or Glenayre paging terminal,
PageGate has a solution for you. PageGate's GetTAP module
can read in the TAP input from your paging terminal,
then reformat it as an SMS or an Email instead of a
page to a pager. It's that simple!
While this next one may not be directly related to
sending alerts to your emergency responders or personnel,
it's worth mentioning that PageGate can also be integrated
with server and network monitoring utilities such as
SolarWinds' Orion, Paessler's PRTG or Servers Alive.
This allows you to configure your server or network
monitoring utility to notify PageGate when an issue
occurs and your techs need to be alerted to the problem.
This can save you a lot of time and headache because
the sooner your Technicians know about a problem, the
sooner it can be resolved.
The great thing is that we've only scratched the tip
of what PageGate can do in your environment. You can
integrate the program with a web server to host a paging
website, install our GUI Client on your dispatchers'
workstations or even integrate PageGate with your mail
server so our software can receive email in and send
it back out as an SMS or Page. Chances are, if you're
in the EMS or Public Safety world, there are a great
number of ways that our software can make your life
a lot easier.
About the Author -
Sharon Housley is the VP of Marketing for NotePage,
Inc. a software company for communication software solutions.
http://www.notepage.net
System Requirements |
|
Processor |
Pentium 500 mhz
or better |
Memory |
128 Mb of RAM
(typically 256 Mb total memory for Win 2000, XP,
2003, or 1 Gig for Vista) |
Hard
Drive |
50 Mb Hard
Drive Free (for application & database)
|
Connectivity |
300 baud or faster modem
for dialup connections
serial cable for direct connections or a
dedicated Internet connection |
Operating
System |
Windows
2000, XP, 2003, Vista (32 bit) |
|