What are Alert Zones, and how do I use them to manage alerts?
Alert Zones can be used to eliminate many popups, tones, and even Focused entries at once with a single click. Examples of when Alert Zones are helpful are for use with multiple practice locations that wish to share Conversations but not their Lights, workgroups within a single practice that need a quick way to block out unnecessary interruptions, and even management of individual user Alert profiles. In the example below, each of the doctors' teams work separately from another, so each computer associated with a specific doctor group can be isolated from one another by choosing an Alert Zone.
Using an Alert Zone
To enable Notification Zones within a BlueNote client, open BlueNote and choose Menu > Notifications. If no Alert Zones have been programmed, the only option within Notifications is a button labeled "Open Alert Manager."
When Alert Zones are available, the user has control of individual settings by using the Local Alert Manager, or by selecting one of the programmed Alert Zones. In this example there are four custom Alert Zones. By using one of the Alert Zones instead of the Local Alert Manager, the user excludes the other Light Panels on this BlueNote client.
Each BlueNote client is responsible for selecting either an Alert Zone or its default Local Alert Manager. Users cannot remotely change the Alert Zone selections of other computers. Continue reading to learn how to create one or more Alert Zones.
Programming Alert Zones
If you are not familiar with System Wide Changes, be sure to read that information first and then come back to this guide. Within System Wide Changes, click on the Alert Zones tab and click the Add button to add a new Zone.
Label this Alert Zone and add a short description if appropriate. Then edit the Alert Zone according to its needs. Save each Zone when finished.
Continue to add as many Alert Zones as needed by the users on this network. To finalize the changes made, Publish the changes by clicking the Publish tab and following the prompts to enable the new Alert Zones.
Alert Zones for multiple locations connected together
While BlueNote Communicator is generally used for internal communications for a single office, there are organizations that need secure communications between locations as well. Those organizations are able to keep their real-time notifications separated on individual Light Panels such as seen in the example above, but instead of creating "Dr A Panel" etc. each panel would be the name of the full location within the organization.
Once all of the panels have been created and labeled, along with their corresponding Alert Zones, a BlueNote Administrator will Publish this configuration, which makes the layout available to all users in up to four connected locations. The users from other locations will connect to the primary location by switching their network settings in BlueNote from the normal Serverless mode once a Lights Gateway Host has been set up in the primary location. This Gateway Host's IP address will be typed in manually at each BlueNote client that is not physically in the main office to allow BlueNote to function as an interoffice communication system. Note that a site-to-site VPN setup or equivalent is required in order for BlueNote Communicator to connect multiple offices together.
What is the BlueNote Lights Gateway, and how do I use it?
Alert Zones effectively create a "soft separation" within BlueNote Communicator. The user may not be able to view the Light panels (and their interruptions) of the other locations; however they would still be able to quickly send a Conversation to any User in the Conversations list, regardless of location.