Rave Integration
This page explains how to setup Rave Wireless' Rave Alert to communicate with your Alertus server. This allows a dispatcher to use a unified interface to send alerts and reduces the number of steps required in the event of an emergency.
Alertus and Rave have a bi-directional integration. This allows your organization to either launch alerts from Rave to Alertus and/or from Alertus to Rave.
Network/Firewall Changes
In order to allow the Rave Wireless Application to communicate with the Alertus Server, port 8280 must be WAN accessible from the following Rave Alert server IP Addresses:
QA Environment: 205.237.106.3 BOS : 69.25.199.33 SCL: 75.98.95.161 ** Effective on 1/30/11 ** ABQ : 207.66.21.3 ** Retired in 3/31/11 ** NY : 66.111.5.152 ** Retired in 2010 ** Make the above changes to your Windows and/or Network firewalls.
Firewall rules must still be in place to restrict access on port 8280 from IP addresses other than the ones listed above! Otherwise, the system will be vulnerable to malicious activity, such as activating the system with false/unauthorized emergency messages. You should either block access using your campus
inbound firewalls or use the firewall built into Windows to restrict access to port 8280 to the above IPs
Alertus Server Configuration
A configuration change to the Alertus Server is also required. As an extra precaution, the Alertus system validates all incoming SOAP requests to make sure they are whitelisted in the server configuration. The following line must be added/edited in the c:\alertus\conf\AlertusMiddleware.impl.properties file. Afterwards restart the Alertus Server application. soap.alertusMiddlewareBasic.allowableIPs = 127.0.0.1;205.237.106.3;69.25.199.33;75.98.95.161;
If the Alertus Activation Software displays error messages such as "Unauthorized Access errors" or "Received an unauthorized web service request from the following IP . . ." the system is letting you know that the network firewall rules are configured properly but the Alertus Server has NOT been configured.
Note: Rave Alert has problems connecting with Alertus if there are no groups defined in the Alertus system. Therefore, we recommend that you create at least one group (such as "Test Group") before attempting to tie in the two systems. Rave Alert Configuration
First contact Rave and let them know you would like to activate the Alertus system from Rave Alert. They will enable this capability for your Rave Alert account and setup connection to your Alertus server. You will need to provide Rave with your Alertus Hostname where your Alertus Server software is installed. You may need to provide your webservice url which is: http://
Usage
Sign into https://www.getrave.com as an admin with your Rave supplied credentials.
Click on the Alerts tab if it is not already selected.
Click on Create Alert button next to Alert Templates.
Creating an Alert in Rave has 3 major sections; the Alert Name, Alert Methods, and Delivery Targets. Enter your name.
An Example of Delivery Targets. You may have to click on the device tab to see these options.
Alert Methods allow an Alert Profile, a Custom Message, and a duration to be specified. Click on the Alertus box so that it is highlighted green or yellow. Fill in the Message Text, and Furation fields. Click on Refresh Profile to load your Alertus Profiles. Notice in the Profile Description all the settings are loaded. Note: If you are having trouble refreshing or loading profiles you may either have no profiles set up in your Alertus Server or you may have not configured your Rave account correctly. Other Alert Methods can be set up such as text messaging, mail, and IPAWS. Delivery Targets allow either all targets to be alerted or just a few (or one) select group(s) to be targeted. Click edit to choose your options. If you have a Alert Method other then Alertus you might meed to click on the Devices tab before selecting your Alertus Group.
Last you can click Continue, Schedule, or Save. Important: In order to send the alert all of the Alert Methods must be highlighted green. If a field is yellow then the data is incorrect or not complete. For Alertus Alert Method the duration should be in the format (hh:mm) and make sure an Alert Profile is selected. ":02" is not an acceptable duration. Continue will show you a prompt first with your title, Alertus message, Alertus Profile, Duration, and other information before you can send the alert. Schedule will schedule your alert to be sent at a later time. For more information please review the Rave Documentation available by clicking the Admin Documentation link in the upper right hand corner of Rave Alert.
An Alert Summary that shows the progress on email, text, and an example alert
An Alert Summary that shows the progress on email, text, and an example alert Rave Reports
Rave has a useful Reports page that allows you to see additional details and the current progress of the alert. You can also view the status of any Alertus alerts by logging into the Alertus Console.
Alert Progress
One helpful feature of the Rave integration is the ability to see an Alert Summary directly from the Rave Alert application. An Alert Summary "summarizes each selected delivery mode, displaying progress and status information for each alert mode used in your alert" with "progress bars display a running meter of Attempts and Success statistics, responses, and an Action Bar highlighting available actions (view details, download extended data, cancel actions where applicable)".
To view the progress of your alert perform the following:
Click on the Reports tab. Click on the Alert tab to see a list of available alerts. The list contains data on each alert such as time sent, name of the alert sent, methods, and status. Clicking on an element's name will show you an Alert Summary. Alert Summary will show the status, number of groups targeted, and a click-able list of individual users. Clicking on details will show additional info like the message content, and the Alertus Profile Attributes.
Alertus to Rave Integration
Sending an alert through your Alertus Console can activate both the Alertus system and the Rave system. When you send an alert for Rave we send a modified CAP alert. From Rave you can specify how you would like to filter the CAP Alert, and what resulting action you would like to take.
For example a University could create filters for the event "Weather Warnings" and include a status filter for an "Actual Emergency". When the Alertus system sends the Modified CAP alert Rave will only take action for those events and in this case we might want to inform all the students via text messaging and email. We can also create another set of rules as well that might take a different action. We could create a different set of rules for security to practice with. A possible rule could have a status filter for "Exercises" and an event filter for "Civil Danger". We could then inform all of the security team that there is an exercise for civil danger. Example CAP Notification
CAP Notification Rules allow the filtering of CAP alerts and launch corresponding
This is an example Common Alert Protocol message generated by Alertus and sent to Rave. The identifier, sender, sent, effective, onset and expires fields are automatically generated by Alertus when the alert is sent. The description, headline and event fields can be specified when creating the Alertus Alert Service (see Alertus setup below).
IPAWSv1.0
real emergency, this message will contain important alert
information. THIS IS ONLY A TEST. Thank you! THIS IS ONLY A TEST.
Rave Setup
A Cap Notification Templete
This section details how to setup Rave Alert to receive and process CAP alerts sent from Alertus.
To setup and use the integration perform the following:
Login to Rave. Click on the Alerts tab if it is not already selected. Next to CAP Notification Template click on Create. You can now edit the Template Name, Alert Methods, and Delivery Targets. Initially we recommend limiting your new CAP Notification template to target only a group of test users. In Rave go to System -> CAP Inbound and create a new CAP Listener (version 1.2). Select 1.2 as your version. Under "Receive CAP message From" select "REST". Create a unique login and password for the CAP Listener (you will reference this later in your Rave Alert Service).
Create a new CAP Rule. Read the section below on creating a CAP Notification Rule. Note: You do not need to set any Event Filters, Geocode Filters or Sys. Int. Filters. If you are receiving CAP alerts from other sources and just want to filter Alertus alerts you can create a new Event Filter that includes the event type "Local Area Emergency" but this is optional.
CAP Notification Rule
Rave uses CAP Notification Rules to filter incoming CAP alerts. If all criteria in the CAP Notification Rule are met, Rave will launch the selected Notification Template.
To create a CAP Notification Rule start by entering a name and selecting the previously created Alertus CAP listener.
Notification Trigger
Under Message Filters select every item in the available dropdowns. This will ensure this rule will always be processed for all alerts sent by Alertus. Forgetting to select an item in a Message Filter dropdown will display an error message. If your Rave system currently has multiple CAP Notification Rules (for integrations with other 3rd party systems) and you only want this rule to be activated by Alertus then click on the Event Filters tab and select Local Area Emergency.
Notification Content
The Notification Content defines the message text that will be used when sending Email and Text messages.
When populating the Notification Content you should not specify anything in the "Alertus" tab. It is better to activate Alertus devices directly from Alertus then having Rave relay your message.
Text Content
Text Content with headline excluded
By default the Event will be Local Area Emergency By default the Headline will be your Alertus Message You can override these fields when configuring your Alertus Alert Service You must include either Event or Headline If you only want to display the introductory text then a workaround is to override your headline with a blank value in the Alertus Alert Service. Then check the Headline field in the Notification Content. The combined length of the introductory text and your included fields must be under 160 characters. Otherwise the message will be truncated.
If you have include headline and include event ticked, and do not override those values in your Alertus Alert Services. With a Alertus Message of "This is sentence 1 ... This is sentence 12" and a Rave introductory of "Rave1 ... Rave15". Then the text message sent out will be:
Rave1 Rave2 Rave3 Rave4 Rave5 Rave6 Rave7 Rave8 Rave9 Rave10 Rave11 Rave12 Rave13 Rave14 Rave15 Rave Local Area Emergency This is sentence 1
This is sentence 2
Mail Content
To include a field in your message check the adjacent checkbox. Once selected, any text you add in the corresponding textbox will be pre-pended to the field value and used as a label. The two fields that are the most useful are the Headline and Description. The Description field contains the text from your Alertus message. Selecting description will ensure your Rave and Alertus devices display the same message. You should only use the "Headline Field" if you have your Alertus Alert Service's Headline Field overridden. Otherwise Alertus defaults to using the message text (same as description).
The following is the resulting messag text for an Alert Service without Headline and Event overridden, and the following CAP Notification Rule:
If you send an Alertus alert with the message text "EMERGENCY: EVACUATE THE AREA!", the email content will contain: Subject: Local Area Emergency Mail Content: Introductory Text from Rave; Description; EMERGENCY: EVACUATE THE AREA!
If you add the text "Alertus Headline Override" in your Alert Service's Headline field and then include Headline with the text "Headline:" the email content will contain: Subject: Local Area Emergency Mail Content: Introductory Text from Rave; Headline; Alertus Headline Override Description; EMERGENCY: EVACUATE THE AREA! If you would like to have your Rave devices display a different message then the Alertus text then perform the following:
Check include Incidents. Note: The Mail Delivery method requires that at least one box is checked. So this is just a workaround since Alertus does not populate this field and the value is blank. Enter your message text in the Introductory Text field
Alertus Setup
An Alert Service set for Rave Integration
Login to Alertus and create a new Alert Service of the type "Rave (CAP Alert)". Populate it with values from the previously created Rave CAP Listener. For Service Type select Rave (CAP Alert). Copy the URL from the Rave CAP Listener under "Receive CAP message from:" over to the CAP Listener URL in your Alert Service. Use the same uniquely generated login and password from the CAP Listener to the Alert Service (Note: these are NOT the credentials used to login to Rave Alert). In production environments check "No" for debug. Otherwise you may want to select "Yes" if you are troubleshooting an issue. "Event Override" and "Headline Override" are optional. Specifying a value in the "Event Override" field will supersede the default "Local Area Emergency" value populated by Alertus in the CAP Event field. "Headline Override" will override the value of the CAP Headline field. If not specified Alertus will use the Alertus message text. To send an Alert simply create a Custom or Preset Alert and select the Alert Service added in the previous step above.