Using Wildcards with Emergency Messages
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We recommend you build multiple projects for emergency alerts. These can be published and stored on your Informa, BugCrawler or FireBird and activated when needed by inserting new text and launching the project. Emergency Alerts can be launched using InformaGen or the new InformaWeb software. The InformaWeb software can be used by anyone on your network that you provide a username and password. An example might be Emergency Services or 911 Dispatcher for a city or the
Superintendent's office of a school district. InformaGen should only be used by personnel familiar with Informa and part of your team.
To begin you should create several "general use" emergency templates for traffic, utility issues, closings, weather, etc. Give them names that are descriptive These templates can be crawls or full page projects. If you build a crawl, include an image or graphic that relates to the emergency and add a crawl to the project. The only text you add is <%1> which serves as the Wildcard or placeholder for the text update that is provided at runtime. Be sure and format the font size and color for the wildcard and adjust the crawl speed before publishing.
A full page emergency project might include a background, multiple images and multiple text placeholders or wildcards. A Project can have a maximum of eight (8) Wildcards. Each wildcard must have a different number up to 8 as each will represent a different text field. As an example: <%1>; <%2>; <%3>...<%8>. Wildcards can be repeated within a Project if the same text needs to be repeated. A full page project can have several different types of text fields in that you can have single word text wildcards and crawls in the same project.
To launch an emergency alert using InformaWeb open the web page by clicking the link assigned to this page. Log in and select the project template and device. The next page will display the template or project name and list the fields that can be updated. Enter the new text into the appropriate fields and when the project is published it will go to air and stay active until it is stopped.
To launch an emergency project using InformaGen...start or open the InformaGen program. Under the Menu Actions, select Schedule Project. Select the project from the drop down list in the middle of the window. The click on Insert Text and a window with the text fields will open. Enter the text updates and continue to schedule the project. Select "loop" if you want the project to repeat over and over. Use InformaGen to schedule a stop command to end the project.
Please note that these steps do not require interaction with VLM. These are independent actions that can be taken using either the InformaWeb software or InformaGen so do not check the Emergency Message box in VLM as part of this process. As always if you need additional assistance with this topic or others we have published previously please call or email.
