Dispatch Lock

When an account is in alarm, it will be locked by the first operator who accesses it. When the site is accessed, stages™ can generate an Operator Action to log into history. This will record the operator who has accessed the site. The Dispatch Operator Action is assigned in the stages® Options window (Utilities > stages™ > stages™ Options).

The top left of the Alarm Dispatch window displays the site time and the status of the locking. For the operator dispatching the account, it will show “Locked for Dispatch”. For other operators it will show in bold text “Locked By:” and the name and extension of the dispatching operator or “Not Locked”. “Not Locked” usually means that the dispatching operator has left the account. The Dispatch status refreshes automatically. If the Account becomes unlocked, there is a default time of 20 seconds for an operator to manually lock the account before it is auto-fed to an available operator. The time can be overridden in the stages® Options window from 12 to 60 seconds.

Other operators who access the account will not be able to dispatch. Functions for Autodial, Email, Operator Actions, and Device Test will not appear if the account is locked to another operator. Instead, the Send Message button and LockSite button are available. The message button will send a message to the operator with the account locked. A message can be sent with or without requesting handoff. Messages between operators are logged into site history. The lock button will re-attempt to lock the account. This can be done when the Lock status has changed to Not Locked.

Accounts that have been locked by an operator are not cleared by an Abort signal or a Blanket Alarm Clear.

Dispatch Timeout

There is a Dispatch Timeout that closes and unlocks the Dispatch screen after a period of inactivity. Once unlocked, the account will be placed back in the Dispatch Queue and Auto Feed to another available operator. The timing of the Dispatch Timeout is set in the stages® Options utility.

Status Change

When a new alarm comes in for an account while it is locked, a Status Change Message will appear notifying of the new alarm. The status change message must be acknowledged before proceeding in dispatch. Pressing the ignore button will prevent further messages from appearing. In the stages® Options utility, the status change message can be turned off for incoming signals on a point already in alarm.

Manual Locking

A user role can be setup to support Manual Locking. When the account is accessed by such a user, dispatch functions will not be available until the user manually locks the account. (The link for Enter/Exit Auto Feed is replaced by Lock for Dispatch/Unlock.) A user with manual locking can not enter Auto Feed. Manual locking can be turned off for the current session in the User Preferences utility (Utilities > Operator Preferences). The next time the user logs in, they will be in Manual Lock mode again.