Background

Although the goal is for alarms to be actionable, that isn't always the case. Facility management best practices require that someone that monitors alarms, performing triage to determine what is actionable and what is noise. Often times, but not always, that someone is a dispatcher. Regardless of who is doing the work, three process questions must be answered to operationalize triage:

• What alarms must be monitored?
• What actions should be taken to triage the alarm?
• What is the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the timeframe in which triage expected to occur?
• How does monitoring change based on time for day, day of week, or time of year?

In addition to the process questions above, consistent triage requires answering people questions as well:

• Who is responsible for monitoring various alarms?
• Who is accountable for ensuring the triage process created meets organizational goals?

Most organizations have alignment on these questions, but lack technology that simplifies the experience for the dispatcher and provides visibility into the process for management. Virtual Facility fills this gap, providing the insights necessary to improve triage performance.

Alarm Triage Overview

Within Virtual Facility, triage starts with "Intake", a Lens of newly activated alarms that have yet to be triaged. The dispatcher's task is to take an action on the alarm quickly and accurately to remove from Intake. The actions available for triage are:

• Create Work
• Snooze
• Decline

Exactly what gets reviewed to perform triage varies on the organization and alarm, but triage ends when the alarm is no longer in Intake because the dispatcher has taken action on the alarm. Alarms should not be left in Intake! A high number of alarms in Intake points to either a process problem or the dispatch function being overwhelmed. Obviously, neither is acceptable for critical alarms.

Virtual Facility captures the action taken for the alarm on the Alarm Status field as shown in the table below.

Alarm Triage Setup

Clarify Responsibility

Which alarms should be monitored and what is the SLA on those alarms? Rather than viewing these answers as set in stone, we recommend picking a reasonable starting point that provides clarity for the dispatcher on what is important. Truly critical alarms must be moved to the forefront in order to minimize risk for the organization.

Create an "Intake" Lenses

Using output from the above, an Administrator or Manager can set up a team for dispatch that provides an Intake lens that includes alarm attributes, such as Alarm Priority, that clarify the urgency of response.

1. Create a team and add members that will perform triage.
2. Create an "Intake" Team Lens that looks at the appropriate locations, categories, etc.
3. Instruct the dispatch team to set that lens as their default for easy access.

Create Additional Team Lenses

In addition to the "Intake" lens, lenses for other active alarms and all alarms within the dispatcher scope are helpful. They allow the dispatcher to inspect their work or another team member's work or pull up alarms that may no longer be active. An administrator or manager can mimic the Standard Lenses and create Team Lenses for Active Alarms, Snoozed, Dispatched, Declined, and All Alarms.

Performing Alarm Triage

Evaluate the Alarm

Steps for evaluating an alarm can vary widely based on the organization and expectations of the dispatcher. Some of those steps may include reviewing the following in Virtual Facility:

• Alarm's Source Alarm Message- this field often includes guidance for action
• Alarm History - this tab on the alarm slide out provides quick insights into recent occurrences and open work that may have helpful details into the cause of the alarm.
• Alarm Notes - this tab on the alarm slide out is the best place to capture knowledge about the alarm and may have helpful details on the alarm and steps to take during triage
• Asset Slide out - other alarms on the Asset and related assets may provide insight into the root cause issue for the alarm

Using the information available, the dispatcher must then take action on the alarm.

Take Action

Virtual Facility provides 3 triage actions for alarms. Only Create Work and Decline complete the work of triage. 

Each action provides an opportunity for the dispatcher to capture details about the steps they took and what led to their decision. When using Create Work, the details can be captured in the Work Ticket. For Decline and Snooze, the reason is accessible in the Alarm Details > Change History as shown below. 

Additionally, Alarm Notes is a helpful way to provide background information that could be useful to the next dispatcher triaging an occurrence of the alarm.

Note that alarms do have an additional actions that are best used by an Adminstrator: Clear Alarm and Delete Alarm. Clear Alarm should only be used when the BAS alarm state is inactive and the Virtual Facility alarm state is active. This situation can arise if the BAS is not configured to send a return to normal for the alarm, (which it should be doing). The Delete Action is for when an alarm is no longer providing a helpful use. Upon Delete all other alarm occurrences will not move the alarm into Intake and the Alarm will not be visible in a normal Lens filter, such as All Alarms.

Managing Alarm Triage

Clarify Accountability

A dispatch manager must consider how to own accountability for alarm triage. Two important ways are:

• Assist the dispatch team with alarms currently "stuck" in triage
• Review past performance to identify improvement opportunities

Create notifications on SLA exceptions

How does a manager know an alarm is stuck? Obviously, the team can tell them. But SLAs can help too. A manager cannot stay up to speed on every alarm, but should know about alarms that cannot be triaged within the team's SLA. Since that nature of dispatch work is variable, there will be times when SLAs cannot be met. These alarms deserve attention both to ensure health of the facility and to identify opportunities for helping the team.

Notifications can be set up on any Active Alarm Lens with a delay aligned to the SLA. Additionally, managers can set up narrower lenses with shorter delays for increased awareness on a specific focus area.

Review Past Performance

Managers can use a Work Lens to review work generated by the team for the prior day, week, or month. This can help identify where the team is spending its time and if the work being generated is impacting the health of the facility.