Rules Engine
The Rules Engine gives Intelli-M Access the ability to deliver a sophisticated feature set that can be tailored to each installation's specific needs.
There are three major components to the Rules Engine: Events, Filtering and Actions. When creating a rule, you select the rule type or action, and then define the filtering that takes place to determine if the action should be taken.
Every event that comes through Intelli-M Access is evaluated to see if any rules apply. If they do, then the corresponding action is taken.
Highly Tailored Features
Because of the wide variety of filtering options provided, it is possible to use the rules to build highly tailored features in Intelli-M Access. Some of the available actions are:
- Event and Alarm Management. These two rules provide full control over what events show on the events page and whether they are shown as events or alarms. Since every rule can have a schedule, an event during the day that may be of little importance, can be treated as a significant alarm after hours.
- E-Mail/SMS. Very granular treatment of what events are important enough to actively notify people via e-mail or SMS can be achieved.
- Lock Zone, Lockdown Zone, Unlock Zone, Revert Zone. Build features such as First-in, Panic Button, Toggle Doors by using one or more of these rules in combination.
- Elevator Control. Select which reader is the in-cab reader, the group and which buttons to light to provide secure access to floors based on credential.
Filtering capabilities are specific to each Rule type, but include:
- Schedule. Select from the available schedules which one defines the period during which the rule should be active.
- Zone, Door, Reader. Select the location the event should originate from to be applicable.
- Event. The types of event such as Valid Credential, Schedule Active, Expired Credential, and approximately 40 others that are applicable to this rule.
- Action. The action taken by the controller out at the door such as Granted, Denied, etc.
Open API
The Rules Engine has an open architecture. The events evaluated by the Rules Engine do not have to come from within Intelli-M Access but can be submitted to Intelli-M through a RESTful API. Rules can then be created for those events using any of the available rules. These events can contain new values for any of the categorization fields on an event and the reference data will be built automatically and presented in the Rules Engine interface.
It is also possible to develop custom event actions as well, providing for nearly limitless capabilities and interoperability with other systems as event actions can consist of web calls made to other 3rd party devices and applicaitons.
To learn more about the rules engine, recipe cards and API, check out the the documents in the support->Intelli-M Access area.