To create a new climate rule, click New climate rule + in the top right of the Rules page. The same wizard opens on an existing rule: click the three-dot menu on its card and choose Edit. On an existing rule it opens at the Summary step with every step already ticked, and the pencil beside each row takes you back to that step.
The setup has four steps.
Step 1: Name
Enter a name for your rule. Choose something that makes it easy to identify at a glance, for example the name of the object, room, or building standard it is based on.
Click Next to continue once done.
Step 2: Thresholds
Enable the measurement types you want to monitor by toggling them on. The available options are Relative Humidity, Temperature, Lux, UV and Cumulative Light Exposure.
The first four set upper and lower bounds on individual readings. Cumulative Light Exposure works differently: instead of bounds, it sets a budget for total exposure over time. See Light budgets below.
For each enabled measurement, set four values:
- Critical lower bound: the lowest acceptable reading before an alert is triggered
- Optimal lower bound: the start of the ideal range
- Optimal upper bound: the end of the ideal range
- Critical upper bound: the highest acceptable reading before an alert is triggered
How it works
Click How it works at the top of this step to see how the thresholds work.
The four values create three colour-coded zones: the optimal zone (green) between the optimal bounds, the warning zone (yellow) between the optimal and critical bounds (logged, but no notifications), and the critical zone (red) beyond the critical bounds (logged, and where notifications fire if set up).
Light budgets
Toggle on Cumulative Light Exposure to set a light budget. It has four fields:
- Max budget: the total exposure allowed before the budget is reached. Light budgets are set in klx-h, where 1 klx-h is 1,000 lux hours
- Warning when exceeding: the percentage of the budget at which you want your first alert. Set it to 80 for plenty of warning, or higher if you would rather hear about it closer to the limit
- Start Date: the date Custodian begins counting from
- Cycle: tick Reset budget and choose a period, such as Yearly, to start the count again at each interval. This suits annual exposure allowances
Custodian alerts you twice against a budget: once when your warning percentage is passed, and again when the budget is reached. Both alerts need a notification rule covering that threshold, otherwise the events are recorded in Custodian but nobody is contacted. See Rule notifications.
The budget applies to every sensor you add at Step 3, and each sensor accumulates its own total. Once the rule is saved, its budget and warning percentage appear as a badge on the rule, and the Threshold Events tab shows how far each sensor has got.
Step 3: Units
Select the sensors you want to attach to this rule. Sensors are grouped by site. Use + Add all to add every sensor in a site at once, or expand a site to add individual sensors. Use the search field to find a sensor by name.
Step 4: Summary
Review the rule name, number of thresholds set, and number of sensors added. If everything looks correct, click Save Climate Profile. Any notification rules already attached are listed here too, with Edit notification rule beside each and + Create notification rule below them.
Once saved, you will see Climate rule created! and be asked whether you want to set up a notification rule. Click Set up notification rule to continue to the notification setup, or Done to finish without adding one.