This article explains how Virtual Facility supports alarm triage: the Intake lens, triage actions and alarm statuses, team setup, and how managers track triage performance.
Background
Although the goal is for alarms to be actionable, that isn't always the case. Facility management best practices require that someone monitors alarms and performs triage to distinguish what is actionable from what is noise. Often, but not always, that someone is a dispatcher. Regardless of who is doing the work, four 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 is expected to occur?
- How does monitoring change based on time of 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 it from Intake. The actions available for triage are:
- Create Work
- Snooze
- Decline
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. Neither is acceptable for critical alarms.
Exactly what gets reviewed to perform triage varies by organization and the alarm, but triage ends when the dispatcher creates work or declines the alarm. Snoozing removes the alarm from Intake temporarily; if it is still active when the snooze expires, it returns to Intake.
Virtual Facility captures the action taken for the alarm on the Alarm Status field as shown in the table below.
| Alarm Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Intake | The alarm is active and has not been triaged since the last activation; OR the alarm was Dispatched and work was closed while the alarm remained active, moving the alarm back from Dispatched to Intake; OR the alarm was Snoozed and when it expired, the alarm remained active which moved it back to Intake. |
| Snoozed | The user took the Snooze action on the alarm, so that new instances of the alarm will not enter Intake for the specified duration. A snoozed alarm may be Unsnoozed. |
| Dispatched | The alarm is active and a user took the Create Work action on the alarm after the most recent activation. |
| Declined | The alarm is active and a user took the Decline action on the alarm after the most recent activation. |
| Inactive | The alarm is inactive. |
Virtual Facility 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" Lens
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.
- Create a team and add members that will perform triage.
- Create an "Intake" Team lens, filtered on Alarm Status = Intake, that looks at the appropriate locations, categories, etc.
- 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 slideout 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 slideout 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 Slideout - 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 three triage actions for alarms. Only Create Work and Decline complete the work of triage.
| Action | Type | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
| Create Work | Ends Triage | Alarm represents an issue that must be investigated and resolved. See the KB article on Managing Work Tickets for more details. |
| Decline | Ends Triage | Alarm represents a known false alarm or known issue not worth taking action. An example could be an alarm that activates, engineering confirms they are doing maintenance, and it should be disregarded. |
| Snooze | Delays Triage |
A short duration snooze is used to delay triage on a potential issue. Maybe the alarm is known to self resolve or someone is going to get back to dispatch with more information. A longer duration snooze is used to pull an alarm out of service. Examples are extended maintenance, construction or repair. |
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 or at the top of the alarm slideout. For more information on utilizing Snooze and Decline, please visit the Snooze and Decline Triage Actions article.
Furthermore, Alarm Notes is a helpful way to provide background information that could be useful to the next dispatcher triaging an occurrence of the alarm.
Additional Alarm Actions
Alarms do have additional actions that are best used by an Administrator: Clear Alarm and Delete Alarm.
Clear Alarm should only be used when the BAS alarm state is inactive and the Virtual Facility alarm status 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 configured to send).
Delete is for alarms that are no longer useful. After an alarm is deleted, new occurrences will not move it into Intake, and it will not appear in standard lenses such as All Alarms. An administrator can restore a deleted alarm.
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
More guidance on how to manage and clarify accountability and alarm response can be found in the article Using Alarm Attributes to Clarify Response.
Create Notifications On SLA Exceptions
How does a manager know an alarm is stuck? 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 the 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.
Reviewing the Triage Reasons can also generate insight into past performance. Applying the Last Triage Reason column to an alarm lens shows managers how their teams are triaging alarms..