Nobix Alert
Introduction

Nobix Alert is desktop pop-up messaging software. With it, messages of many types may be sent directly to desktop users, causing a pop-up display to appear in front of them.  The messages may be plain text or HTML.  The user's response to the message is automatically logged on the Nobix Alert server, or the response may be logged at a web site customized for this purpose, as the HTML display is an active browser window. 

There are four components:

  1. Messaging interface used for authoring, scheduling, sending, and maintaining messages.
  2. Nobix Alert Service, which runs as a Windows service and is the engine behind the actual transmission of all messages.
  3. Nobix Alert desktop pop-up software, which runs on a user's PC and displays messages received from the Nobix Alert Service.  Messages pop-up in a controlled web browser client. 
  4. Command line client programs that can request that the server service initiate alert messages. These are available for Windows, UNIX, Linux, and MPE/iX.

The Messaging interface and the Nobix Alert Service both run on the same Windows PC.  The desktop alert software runs on the user's PCs and displays the messages received from the server service.

The Nobix Alert Service uses a Microsoft SQL Server database to store and manage its messaging data.  This database is included with the the Nobix Alert installation.

The Nobix Alert Service and the Messaging interface are installed together.  The pop-up software may be installed individually, or remotely and silently installed via an included deployment program.

Configuration

The Messaging interface is used to configure all aspects of the alert software. There are four main configuration areas:

  1. Distribution Names
  2. Option Settings
  3. Stored Message Text
  4. Scheduled Messages

Message Distribution Overview

Messages are transmitted through the network by the Nobix Alert Service, which runs in the background.  The Alert service listens for message commands from both the Messaging interface, as well as alert generators that run on Windows, UNIX, Linux and MPE systems.

When a qualifying message is ready to transmit, the Alert service uses multi-threaded logic to distribute the message to the recipients named in the alert request.  The transmission time, reciept status, and acknowledgement are logged.  Messages that fail in their attempt to be received by the desktop software are retransmitted at a configured interval.

When a desktop client receives the message from the Alert service, the message is displayed as the top-most dialog.  The user may accept or dismiss the message, depending upon the options that the message supports.  All responses are logged to the Alert service.

Topics

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