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Our university already had Informacast working with our Cisco phones when we decided to go with AxisTV.  So now we need to get something working between our content server and Informacast to get our emergancy messages out.  We have a few options and I think we can do it without too much trouble but I wondered if anyone else out there had already done this or come up with a really great way to put out their emergency messages as automated as possible?

Thanks-cp

The AxisTV solution runs a number of asynchronous services.  So, in a given display you may have a wallpaper, a content block playing still images, a block playing Flash, a content block with auto-updating RSS, a ticker and floating date/time.  Each of the processes run independently.  Changing to "Alert" mode is actually quite disruptive programmatically.  We shut down all of the relevant services and then start a new service running the "Alert" message.

 The 7.0.x series of builds are capable of sending text messages, created in the "text messenger" tool, to Omnilert (e2campus) distribution lists.  AxisTV is not, however, capable of being "triggered" by another application to change modes.  We are in internal discussions to produce a two pronged plan that enables AxisTV to first be triggered by a third-party application via email (uniquely identified accounts, i.e. fire@visixtv.com) and launch a predefined playlist into "Alert" mode.  Through this approach, you may be able to launch AxisTV into a predefined "Alert" mode through the InformaCast console.  I am not familiar with how their product works or the scope of their features.

The second prong is more complex and would create a unique "critical announcement" interface capable of not only switching AxisTV into a specific mode but also sending the appropriate commands to a number of dispariate communications platforms - e2campus, Alertus, Exchange, etc...).

 I will keep you posted on our progress and may reach out for your input in the process.

 Sean Matthews

That is great to hear.  I'm sure others will face this as time goes on.

Any progress on this? Our campus has a variety of technologies in place to send out emergency alerts, including SMS messages, audio announcements, and of course, our AxisTV system. The bad thing is that all of these have to be triggered independently. I figure I can build a really simple playlist for emergency alerts: a static slide that indicates that an alert condition exists, and a blank slide that dynamically downloads an alert message from our upcoming third-party alert system. That's the easy part. The hard part is throwing the channel player into alert mode. I need some way to trigger that, and it can be via email, via SNMP, via CLI command, via hardware interrupt...really, ANYTHING that doesn't require someone to log into the box and change the player mode and that doesn't require that we program the mode change. The email idea is perfectly workable, but any means of causing an external system to trigger alert mode will work for me!

On March 31, 2009 we will release a remote control API (licensed) with an accompanying SDK (free) that will enable third parties to remotely trigger the AxisTV application to behave in both pre-defined and "on the fly" modes of operation.  The driving force behind the API was alert communications, but it can be used for a variety of known and unknown purposes.

We considered building our own application, but the scope of the project began to grow at an exponential rate.  Specifically, how many SMS, email, fire alarm and siren systems do we need to consult with, trigger, etc...  So, we took a more open source approach.  In the short term you can build your own application, but we suspect there are a few people out there that will wrap the functionality into thier own applications.  Omnilert (e2campus) will be the first to receive the SDK on March 31st.

 Two universities in Virginia and one in South Carolina will receive the SDK on the 31st as well.