{"id":551,"date":"2026-06-06T02:11:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T02:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/?p=551"},"modified":"2026-06-06T02:11:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T02:11:45","slug":"pi-vision-sms-alerts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/pi-vision-sms-alerts\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Critical SMS Alerts from PI Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>PI Vision (and the PI Notifications Service powering it) does a great job with <em>some<\/em> alerts. Whether it&#8217;s running under a refinery, power plant, water district, or anywhere else, it&#8217;s got you covered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The severity colors do their job on the wall display. The email notifications land in your inbox. All good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But somewhere in your head you&#8217;ve decided that the most critical alerts should hit your phone as a text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>PI Notifications ships exactly two delivery channels, Email and Web Service<\/strong>. There&#8217;s no SMS channel to switch on. AVEVA was even asked to add one and declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The good news is&#8230; you don&#8217;t need one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a pretty popular workaround you can use, which is using an email to SMS service to turn those notifications into texts instantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s how to set them up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"table-of-contents\">PI Vision Text Alarms: Table of Contents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"#send-a-text-alarm-from-pi-notifications-no-sms-channel-required\">How to Set Up Text Alarms from PI Vision \/ PI Notifications<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#is-this-really-the-best-way-to-text-from-pi-vision\">Other Ways to Get Critical Alerts from PI Vision<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#set-this-up-in-the-next-10-minutes\">Get Your PI Vision SMS Alerts Going in the Next 10 Minutes<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#which-pi-vision-alerts-deserve-a-text\">How to Choose Which PI Vision Alerts Deserve a Text<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#get-your-pi-system-texting-you\">Time to Get Your PI System Texting You<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"send-a-text-alarm-from-pi-notifications-no-sms-channel-required\">How to Set Up Text Alarms from PI Vision \/ PI Notifications<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If email notifications already work at your site, most of this is already done and you&#8217;re really only changing one address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Step 1: Get your email-to-text address<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Head over to <a href=\"https:\/\/text.email\">text.email<\/a>. It&#8217;s <strong>the easiest way to get email to SMS alerts<\/strong> (signup is super fast, and it handles all the regulatory work for you).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;ll get a special email address (<code>your-number@your-subdomain.text.email<\/code>) and anything emailed to that address arrives on your phone as an SMS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Copy down that address. It&#8217;s what you&#8217;ll drop into the <strong>To Email<\/strong> field a few steps down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Step 2: Confirm PI&#8217;s email delivery channel is set up<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If your PI Notifications already send email, skip this: SMTP is configured and nothing here needs to change for SMS. The gateway just receives mail the same way any other recipient does. Jump to Step 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If this is the first time email is going out of PI Notifications, this is the one-time piece, and it&#8217;s the one part that may pull in IT (an SMTP relay, the Windows service install, a firewall rule for outbound mail).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In PI System Explorer (PSE), select <strong>Contacts<\/strong> in the Navigator, then go to <strong>Tools > Delivery Channel Plugins<\/strong>, right-click the <strong>Email<\/strong> entry, and choose <strong>Settings<\/strong>. That opens the <strong>Email Delivery Channel Configuration<\/strong> dialog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The PI Notification Scheduler Service has to be restarted before SMTP changes take effect.<\/strong> So save and then restart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Step 3: Add the contact that gets the text<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the PI System Explorer Navigator, go to <strong>Contacts<\/strong>, then <strong>New > New Contact<\/strong> (or pick a contact that already exists).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right-click the contact and choose <strong>New Delivery Endpoint<\/strong>. Set the <strong>Delivery Channel<\/strong> dropdown to <strong>Email<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, under <strong>Email Configuration > Addresses<\/strong>, leave <strong>To Email Type<\/strong> as Email Address, and in <strong>To Email<\/strong>, paste in your text.email address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Set <strong>From Email<\/strong> to Global or Custom, then check in your changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Remember: <strong>A text contact is just a normal email contact whose To Email is a gateway address.<\/strong> PI Notifications doesn&#8217;t know or care that the message lands on a phone; it sends the same email it always sends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Step 4: Set up a notification rule for critical events<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Next up, select the element or element template on which you want alerts. For a template, use the <strong>Notification Rule Templates<\/strong> tab; for one specific element, use the <strong>Notification Rules<\/strong> tab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Click the blue link to create a new rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Give it a <strong>Name<\/strong> and <strong>Description<\/strong>, set a <strong>Category<\/strong> if you use them, and find the <strong>Trigger<\/strong> section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Click <strong>View\/Edit Trigger<\/strong> to open the criteria dialog. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;ve got two <strong>Criteria Modes<\/strong> to choose from:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Analysis<\/strong> fires when an event frame from a specific analysis is created, good when one analysis owns the condition.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Event Frame Search<\/strong> fires on event frame name, template, or category, good when you want to catch a class of events regardless of which analysis produced them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Later in this article I&#8217;ll share some thoughts on which alerts warrant a text. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Step 5: Subscribe your contact to the rule<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the rule&#8217;s <strong>Subscriptions<\/strong> section, click <strong>View\/Edit Subscriptions<\/strong>, then drag your contact (or the specific delivery endpoint) into the Subscriptions list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;ll see a <strong>Name<\/strong> column, a <strong>Configuration<\/strong> column for which message format it uses, and a <strong>Notify Option<\/strong> column where &#8220;Event start&#8221; is the usual choice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Step 6: Write a message a phone can actually read<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The default email format is built for an inbox: long, HTML, generous. A text wants the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Open the format editor from <strong>Tools &gt; Global Formats<\/strong> for the global default, or from the rule&#8217;s Subscriptions pane via <strong>Manage Formats &gt; Message Formats<\/strong> for one that&#8217;s specific to this rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The editor gives you <strong>Design<\/strong>, <strong>HTML Preview<\/strong>, and <strong>Plain Text Preview<\/strong> tabs, a <strong>Subject<\/strong> field, and a content pane full of drag-and-drop tokens: Event Frame Name, Description, Start Time, End Time, Severity, Trigger Name, Target Path, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For SMS, work in plain text and keep it lean. The tokens that earn their space on a small screen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Event Frame Name<\/strong>: what tripped<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Severity<\/strong>: how much you should care<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Start Time<\/strong>: when it started<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Target path<\/strong>: which asset<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s also an <strong>Event Details Hyperlink<\/strong> token that opens the event straight in PI Vision. It&#8217;s useful when you&#8217;re at a desk; on a phone, a tappable link can make the message bulky and awkward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Add it if your recipients want the jump-back, skip it if they just need the heads-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the format reads cleanly, use <strong>Test Send<\/strong> to push one to yourself and check it on the actual phone before you lean on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A token that renders fine in Plain Text Preview can still look off once a carrier chews on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"is-this-really-the-best-way-to-text-from-pi-vision\">Other Ways to Get Critical Alerts from PI Vision<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The email-to-gateway route is the easiest because it asks the least of your PI System,<\/strong> but it&#8217;s worth seeing what else is on the table. (Partly so you know you&#8217;re not missing a cleaner switch, and partly because a couple of these look promising until you read the fine print.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A purpose-built PI add-on<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, this exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s <strong>Amitec&#8217;s SMS Notification for PI AF<\/strong>, which is the closest thing to a native option. It rides the Web Service channel, installs a Windows Service on your AF server, uses Vonage to actually send SMS messages, and configures inside PSE like the rest of your notifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For an enterprise that wants SMS as a managed, supported piece of the stack, it&#8217;s a legitimate choice. It&#8217;s also <strong>a whole lot more to configure and a licensed, recurring commitment.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words: That&#8217;s <strong>not<\/strong> a 10-minute setup like the email-to-text method \u2014 and not a set-it-and-forget-it solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Paging platforms like SeQent<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SeQent FirstPAGE \/ Alarm Notification Software<\/strong> integrates through PI data access and can send SMS. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re outfitting a control room that pages people across several channels, it&#8217;s built for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For just getting an alarm onto a phone, <strong>it&#8217;s serious overkill.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wait&#8230; doesn&#8217;t my cell phone service offer email-to-text already?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>They used to. Email-to-text addresses like <code>txt.att.net<\/code> and <code>vtext.com<\/code> were a popular PI workaround.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a while they worked. They don&#8217;t anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past few years, every cell phone carrier has discontinued their email to text service. The main reasons are spam and new regulations; either way, those gateways are gone and not coming back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>text.email is the closest drop-in replacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Building your own using an SMS API<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The <strong>Web Service<\/strong> delivery channel can call out to a SOAP web service, and that service can hit an SMS API like <a href=\"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/twilio-alternatives\/\">Twilio<\/a> or Vonage, or drive a GSM\/3G\/4G modem on site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The catches are real, though. The channel speaks <strong>SOAP only, no REST,<\/strong> so you&#8217;re either fronting a modern API with a SOAP shim or living with that constraint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a whole regulatory maze (called A2P 10DLC) that you&#8217;ll have to deal with, so this isn&#8217;t exactly a quick option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And most of all: <strong>it&#8217;s a development project<\/strong>. If you&#8217;ve got the developer and the appetite to maintain it, it&#8217;s solid. If you don&#8217;t, it&#8217;s a standing liability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"set-this-up-in-the-next-10-minutes\">Get Your PI Vision SMS Alerts Going in the Next 10 Minutes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>So there are a handful of steps to get your SMS alerts, yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But&#8230; the one-time SMTP setup is already done if your email notifications work. So <strong>drop in your text.email address, create your alerting rule, and you&#8217;re good to go<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Grab your email-to-SMS address from <a href=\"https:\/\/text.email\">text.email<\/a>. (You can <strong>even try it out free without signing up<\/strong>; send a test to <code>your-number@text.email<\/code> to see it in action.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"which-pi-vision-alerts-deserve-a-text\">How to Choose Which PI Vision Alerts Deserve a Text<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A text is an interrupt; it should mean <em>look now<\/em>. <strong>The goal is to split the action-now events from the for-the-record ones,<\/strong> and PI gives you the labels to do it cleanly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You already see the built-in severity ladder on the display:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Critical<\/strong>: 5, red<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Major<\/strong>: 4, orange<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Minor<\/strong>: 3, yellow<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Warning<\/strong>: 2, blue<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Information<\/strong>: 1, green<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>None<\/strong>: 0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The top of that ladder are the alerts worth a text:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Equipment shutdown or unplanned downtime<\/strong> (an event like <code>'Press Status' = \"No Operator\"<\/code>, tagged Major).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>A process excursion past limits<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Supply material below a critical minimum<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>A runtime or maintenance counter elapsing<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Fine on email is the lower tier, real information, just not interrupt-worthy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Information-severity states<\/strong> like Planned Maintenance or a Press set-up.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Planned-downtime reason codes<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Routine status changes<\/strong> sitting in the Minor and Information band.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"get-your-pi-system-texting-you\">Time to Get Your PI System Texting You<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Your PI System is already good at detecting events, ranking them by severity, and pushing out email notifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The only thing it can&#8217;t do on its own is send you a text:<\/strong> there&#8217;s no SMS channel, and AVEVA isn&#8217;t adding one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you now have the solution. Grab an email-to-text address from <a href=\"https:\/\/text.email\">text.email<\/a> and use that for your alerts. And now, <strong>the next Critical alert will arrive as a text<\/strong> instead of as an email languishing in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PI Vision and the PI Notifications Service don&#8217;t have native SMS alerts. This is a quick way to get them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-system-alerts","category-use-cases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555,"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions\/555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/text.email\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}