A single faulty sensor can trigger thousands of alarm events in just a few minutes. Without protection, those alarms would flood your inbox, and drown out everything else. To prevent this, the Alarm Service automatically mutes overactive alarms in two stages: suppression and quarantine.
Both protections work per individual alarm on a specific site. Other alarms - even on the same site - are never affected.
Stage 1: Suppression
When the same alarm is triggered more than 150 times within 5 minutes, the system temporarily pauses notifications for that alarm.
- You receive one notification that notifications are being suppressed on your subscribed channels (email, SMS, iOS push, Android push) - in English, Dutch, German or French.
- While notifications are actively being suppressed, the alarm in the Notification Center shows a status badge so you can see it is being suppressed.
- As soon as the event rate drops back below the limit, you receive one notification that notification suppression has ended for that alarm. Normal alerting resumes.
When the number of messages falls below the 150-message threshold, alarm suppression will end and notifications will resume as usual.
| First alarm | In the next 5 minutes | In the following 5 minutes | In the following 5 minutes | In the following 5 minutes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # of events | < 150 | ≥150 | ≥150 | < 150 | <150 |
| Suppression | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Notification | Alarm notification | Suppression on | None | Suppression off | Alarm notifications |
Notifications about suppression
Users are notified of the start of notification suppression as well as the end of notification suppression.
The user receives the notification about suppression via email, SMS, iOS push and/or Android push (as set in the user notification preferences). The information also appears in the alarm case details within the Notification Center application.
Stage 2: Quarantine
If notification suppression stays active for three windows in a row (roughly 15 minutes of suppressed alarms), the system places the alarm in quarantine. While quarantined, events for that alarm are blocked entirely - they no longer reach the notification pipeline.
When the quarantine ends, the device's alarm state is automatically refreshed, making the current device situation immediately available.
Escalation
If the same alarm continues to trigger excessive alarms after the quarantine period expires, the next block lasts longer:
| Repeat offence | Quarantine duration |
|---|---|
| 1st | 30 minutes |
| 2nd | 1 hour |
| 3rd | 2 hours |
| 4th and beyond | 24 hours |
The escalation level is tracked per alarm. A sensor that finally calms down for good simply stays quiet - but if it ever flares up again, it resumes at the level it last reached.
Returning to Normal
Normal alerting is restored automatically; no user action is required:
- Suppression lifts automatically as soon as the event rate drops.
- Quarantine ends automatically when its duration expires, and the device's alarm view is refreshed.
If you believe an alarm has been quarantined incorrectly, contact Priva Support.