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Setting up Custom Warning System Triggers

Activate your sirens, strobes, and connected equipment on demand without tying activation to a weather policy.

Custom Warning System Triggers let you fire your Perry Weather hardware manually, on a schedule, or on a recurring basis. They’re useful for drills, scheduled announcements, end-of-day alerts, or any time you need your hardware to do something that isn’t connected to a weather event.

This article and the video below walks through the full setup process and explains what each option does.

Before You Begin

  • Custom Trigger functionality is only offered for our Plus and Advanced tiers of Perry Weather. If you wish to upgrade, please reach out to your designated account manager.
  • You’ll need at least one Perry Weather hardware unit connected to your account.
  • You’ll need permission to manage hardware in your account. If you’re not sure whether you have it, check with your account admin.

Setting Up a Custom Trigger

  1. Open the custom trigger setup
    1. Navigate to the Hardware tab.
    2. Click into the Triggers tab.
    3. Click Add Trigger, then select Custom Trigger.
  2. Name your trigger
    1. Give your trigger a clear, descriptive name. If you plan to set up multiple triggers, a name like “End of Day Siren - North Field” is easier to identify later than “Trigger 1.”
  3. Choose how the trigger activates
    1. Manual - The trigger only runs when you start it. Use this when you want full control over timing (drills, ad-hoc announcements etc.)
    2. Scheduled - The trigger runs automatically at a specific date and time you set. Use this for one-time future events, like a planned tournament or scheduled drill.
    3. Recurring - The trigger runs automatically on a repeating schedule at the frequency you choose. Use this for routine announcements (daily closing alerts, weekly tests etc.)

Note: The timezone for scheduled and recurring triggers is determined by the physical location of the hardware unit, not by your account settings or your browser. If you have units in different time zones, each will fire based on its own local time.

  1. Select the hardware units
    1. Choose which hardware units will activate when this trigger runs. You can select as many units as you need.
    2. If you select multiple units that are configured differently, a dialogue box will appear summarizing how the trigger will be sent across them. For example “2 units with Siren & PA Message, 1 unit with Strobe.” Review this summary to make sure the trigger will behave the way you expect.
  2. Configure the siren
    1. If you want the trigger to play a siren, enable the siren option, then set the following:
      1. Sound - Choose from the dropdown menu of available sounds.
      2. Duration - Set how long the siren plays, between 1 and 60 seconds.
      3. Repeat Count - Choose how many times the sound plays, between 1 and 5.
  3. Configure the strobe(s)
    1. If a selected unit has strobe capability, enable the strobe option to have it fire when the trigger runs.
    2. On a Multi-Strobe unit, each of the four strobes — Clear, Red, Amber, and Blue — appears as its own Connection. Select which color(s) you want to activate. You can choose one, multiple, or all four.
    3. Because custom triggers aren't tied to a weather policy, you're free to pick any color(s) for the occasion — for example, all four for a full-system test, or a single color for a routine end-of-day signal.
  4. Review and save
    1. Before saving, you’ll see a review screen with the full configuration. Confirm that the activation type, selected units, siren settings, PA message, and connections all look correct, then save.

Your trigger is now live. Manual triggers can be run any time from the Triggers tab. Scheduled and recurring triggers will fire automatically based on the settings you chose.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a custom trigger run alongside a weather-based alert?

Yes. Custom triggers operate independently of your weather policies. They won’t interfere with weather-based alerts, and weather-based alerts won’t interfere with them.

What happens if the hardware unit is offline when a scheduled trigger fires?

If a unit is offline at the scheduled time, the trigger won’t activate on that unit. The other units in the trigger will still fire as configured. Check the Event Logs tab on the Hardware Page for a record of which units activated successfully.

Need Help?

If you run into trouble setting up a custom trigger, reach out to your dedicated Perry Weather account manager and we’ll walk it through with you.

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