An event indicates the occurrence of an activity or incident, such
as access denied to a cardholder or motion detected on a camera. Events are
automatically logged in Security
Center. Every
event has an entity as its main focus, called the event source.
Events can arise from many different sources, such as a user starting a recording on a
camera, a door being left open for too long, or an attempt to use a stolen credential. The
types of events generated by Security
Center vary by
the entity. For example, Access denied events relate to cardholders, Signal lost
events relate to cameras, License plate hit events relate to hotlists, and so on.
Some ways that you can use events include the following:
- View live events in Security
Desk.
- View past events in reporting tasks for analysis and investigation.
- Configure the system to take action automatically by associating actions to various
types of events, such as triggering an alarm or sending a message. This is called an event-to-action. This is the most powerful method for handling
events.
System versus custom events
Security
Center is installed with predefined event types
called system events. You can add new event types
to your system, either by installing plugins or by defining them yourself. These are called
custom events, which you can use in the same way
that you use system events.
Live versus offline events
When the event source is a device or an external application, live event and offline events
must be differentiated.
- A live event is an event that Security
Center receives when the event occurs.
Security
Center processes live events in
real-time. Live events are displayed in the event list in Security
Desk and can be used to trigger
event-to-actions.
- An offline event is an event that occurs while the event
source is offline. Security
Center only receives
the offline events when the event source is back online.
Depending on how old the event is when it is received,
Security
Center can be configured to do one of the following:
- Treat it as a live event, typically within a few minutes of the event occurrence.
- Record the event in the database for reporting without sending notifications to online
users: suitable for when the event is less than a predefined number of days old.
- Discard the event without saving it to the database: suitable for when the event is
more than a predefined number of days old.
