Rules Engine Set Up

Topics included in this article:

• What is Rules Engine?
  • Example use case
• Rules Engine Walkthrough
• Helpful Links
• Contact Support or Sales

What is Rules Engine?

Rules Engine is a feature that runs off "If... Then..." statements with the ability to customize the locations/devices where the rule is triggered and when the rule is active. Below is a breakdown of each individual segment. 

• The "If" section is comprised of triggers from camera events (e.g. human movement, license plate alert), door events (e.g. door open), environmental events (e.g. high temp, low temp), and other sensor events. 
• The "At/On" section refers to locations or devices that need to be tied to the "If" section triggers. 
• The "During" section is the time schedule for when the rule should be active. 
• The "Then" section specifies the action that will occur when the trigger occurs for the specific device/location in the selected time frame. 

Example Use Case

A good use case for the rules engine is to set up a rule that warns people who trespass onto the business premises when the place of business is closed. Below is a link to one of our LinkedIn posts showing how the rules engine works for this use case. 

• Rhombus Rules Engine Example

From the rules engine example, you can see a person walking up the building, which triggers a voice recording to be played, and the person leaves the property. This was achieved by setting a rule to be triggered by human movement on the devices outside our facility outside of business hours which then prompted a text-to-speech message to play on the nearby audio gateway device. 

Rules Engine Walkthrough

In order to enable Rules Engine in the Rhombus Console, you need to have an A100 device with an Enterprise license registered to your account and/or have our Access Control installed. This is required because the "Then" section of the rules engine currently only allows you to use audio clips from the A100 or to trigger AUX relays with Rhombus Access Control. Below is a walkthrough of the feature. 

1. In order to find Rules Engine, you must follow the pathway below:

Rhombus Console > Settings > Rules Engine

2. Once you have clicked on the feature, you will see a list of your existing rules as well as an "Add Rule" button in the upper left corner

3. When clicking the "Add Rule" button, a new blank rule will appear with the layout below. 

4. The first thing to do is to name the rule in the "Enter rule name" section at the top. Once named, you can click the "Add Trigger" button in the "If" section of the rule, and a list of triggers will appear for you to select from.

5. Once a trigger is selected, move to the next section, "At/On," and select the devices or locations to which you want the trigger applied.

6. Once you pick the desired locations or devices, move on to the "During" section and select a schedule you want Rules Engine to follow. 

7. Next, move on to the "Then" section and choose to either have an audio clip played on an A100 or to have a door relay triggered. 

7a. When selecting the "Play Audio" button, you will be prompted to select the audio clip you want to play when the trigger is activated from the "Play clip" drop-down as well as which A100 you would like it played on from the "on audio gateways" drop-down. 

7b. When selecting the "Trigger Relay" button, you will be prompted to select the access control device you would like to change the state of from the "AUX Relay" drop-down.

Once the door is selected you can choose how long the relay should last as well as if the relay should change to "Active" or "Inactive."

8. Finally, press the "Save" button in the upper right-hand corner. After this, your new rule will appear in the main list on the Rules Engine page and be available to pause, edit, or delete. 

Helpful Links

• Audio Gateway Walkthrough
• Features
• A100 Audio Gateway Setup
• Audio File Management
• Broadcast with A100

Contact Support or Sales

Have more questions? Contact Rhombus Support at +1 (877) 746-6797 option 2 or support@rhombus.com.

Interested in learning more? Contact Rhombus Sales at +1 (877) 746-6797 option 1 or sales@rhombus.com.