What is alarm receiving software?

Alarm receiving software alerts a control room operator to an alarm that has been triggered, so that they can respond appropriately.  Some examples of alarms that can come into control rooms are:

• access control
• contact closure (I/O unit)
• fire
• intruder
• motion detector
• panic alarm
• SNTP (Simple Network Transport Protocol)

Why integrate alarm receiving into your control room?

Integrating alarm receiving software into your central interface, or ‘front end’ benefits your control room by streamlining the alarm receiving process. Operators are free to carry on daily duties without taking time out to check other screens for alarms.  With an integrated alarm receiving system, alarms come in to the very same interface that operators are already using.

Integrating alarm receiving into your control room means that supporting information about the alarm can be brought up automatically, for example CCTV images of the nearby locality, the location of alarm on an interactive map, or even the location of a person or vehicle on the move using GPS tracking.

Bringing alarm receiving in-house can substantially reduce control room costs, as it is no longer an expensive expenditure.  Alarm receiving can even become a revenue generator for your control room, by taking on alarms from other departments or companies that are looking to outsource.

Why choose icomply’s integrated alarm receiving software?

With icomply’s alarm receiving software, you really can control all alarms from one place, and in exactly the same way.  The central interface of the open platform integration software, V-TAS Pro, enables operators to define the priority of each alarm, which arrive in a descending stack formation in order of priority.  Alarms can also be colour coded for easy identification.  icomply offers dual path signalling, so that if a network were to go down, the alarm would still be received via text message.

V-TAS Pro screenshot of alarm receiving. Click to enlarge image.

V-TAS Pro integration software is truly cost-effective.  icomply integrate with a wide range of manufacturers, so that we can meet your control room’s specific requirements for each project.  V-TAS Pro was recently awarded a nomination for a Security Excellence Award for Integrated Solution of the Year, after creating an Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) for Ediburgh City Council.  Find out how our alarm receiving software transformed the level of security provided for over 200 occupied and vacant properties on our blog.

What do control room managers say about icomply’s alarm receiving software?

Frank Macfadden, Edinburgh City Council’s General Manager of Security:

“If an event is detected [from an alarm], our control room operators are alerted and surveillance coverage from the nearest associated camera is automatically displayed on the media wall in the control room. Our operators can than make an informed assessment for the reaction to the alert, assured in the knowledge that all their responsive actions are archived via the V-TAS system.

First off, we have the facility to address any intruders at the site via public address horn speakers adjacent to the cameras, with all speech also being recorded for reference. After this, we can alert our response team, dispatching them to the site if necessary. If the situation is more serious however, we have the option to directly contact the Police to request their attendance too.”

Read our case study on Edinburgh City Council for more information.

Richard Ayrton, Estates & Support Services – CCTV Manager, Incommunities Housing Assocation:

“As a company, we’re going to be moving down the route of bringing new business in.  We want to become an alarm receiving centre for communal fire alarms, particularly for our high rise and sheltered units.  At the moment we’re looking at monitoring Incommunities internally.  Intruder alarms for Incommunities offices, panic alarms within our own buildings and fire alarms within our own assets – we want to bring this into our own control room instead of using expensive third parties.  V-TAS Pro will enable us to do this, using icomply’s links with the large number of different manufacturers that they work with.”

Read our interview with Richard Ayrton.