A Control Tower configuration can be created on any PC, this does not have to be the PC that will run the Control Tower. It is not necessary, but if possible advised, that the configuration PC can connect to the different Central Units (this requires that the Central Units are already running and that the PROSOFT files based on the ‘initial PROSOST file’ have already been transmitted to the different Central Units).

Control Tower configurator screen

The Control Tower configurator screen.

1. The list of central units that are already added to the Control Tower configuration. Click the Edit button at the bottom to add/remove central units to/from this list.
2. The list of alarms that are defined for this Control Tower. Click the Edit button at the bottom to add/remove alarms to/from this list.
3. A preview of the overview page from the Control Tower Runtime. Click the Edit button at the bottom to modify general Control Tower settings.

Define Central Units

The first step is to define the Central Units which will be monitored by the Control Tower. To do so, click the ‘Central Units’ item in the edit menu (or the ‘Edit’ button below the list of Central Units on the main Control Tower configurator window).
You will get a new window with an overview of all Central Units that are already defined in the configuration (the first time, this list will be empty).
Click the ‘New’ button to add a new Central Unit. You will see the window below:

A Central Unit is defined by a unique name for the Central Unit (e.g the number of the flat, the address of the house,…), and the Url (or IP address) at which the Control Tower can connect to the Central Unit.
For a central unit there are two optional information fields:

Extra info

can be a (practical) unlimited amount of formatted text. Pictures can also be added to this field, the maximum size for the pictures is 500x500 pixels, larger pictures will be scaled while maintaining aspect ratio. This field can be visualized in ‘Control Tower’ on top of the main screen. Optionally the control tower operator can modify information in this field during normal operation. This information field is saved as a RTF file (Rich Text Formatting). These RTF files can also be created in external programs (like Word). These files are stored at C:\ProgramData\TELETASK\Control Tower\DoipInfo with the previously defined ‘Central unit name’ as filename.

At the bottom there is also information about whether the Control Tower configurator has already downloaded the Control Tower Data for that Central Unit. When defining a new Central Unit this will always be ‘not downloaded’. When finished click ‘OK’ to add a Central Unit with the given data. You will now return to the overview list and the Control Tower configurator will try to download the Control Tower client data for the Central Unit.
After defining all Central Units, the overview may look like this:

For each Central Unit you will see the same information again: the name, the url and the ‘Data state’. In this example the data for ‘House 1’ at url ‘192.168.0.83’ has been downloaded, for the other Central Units the data has not been downloaded.
To retry to download the data for a Central Unit click the ‘Reload’ button. If the data for all Central Units needs to be reloaded, click the ‘Reload All’ button.

Define Alarms

The next step is to define the alarms for which an audio message needs to be used. If you do not want to use the audio messages, you can skip this step.
The recording of the messages itself is not done by the Control Tower configurator. There are many tools available to do so (both free and commercial). The Control Tower supports the audio formats .wav and .mp3.
To define the audio messages click the ‘Alarms’ button in the ‘Edit’ menu, or the ‘Edit’ button below the alarms section.
In the alarms overview window you will see that there is already 1 alarm defined. This alarm is a special alarm indicating that the connection to a Central Unit is lost (this can be caused by network problems, Central Unit (power) failure, …). As this alarm is an alarm generated by the Control Tower instead of coming from a Central Unit, the text for this alarm is defined in the Control Tower configurator (for other alarms the text is defined in the PROSOFT file of the dedicated Central Unit).
Preview of the ‘Define alarm’ window for the ‘No connection to Central Unit alarm:

For this alarm, you cannot change the name, nor can you define an alarm type, but you can set two lines of text for the alarm and browse for a corresponding audio message.
If no audio message is defined for this alarm, the Control Tower will not give any audible feedback about this alarm.
For other alarms (the ones coming from a Central Unit) the ‘Define alarm’ window looks like:

For these alarms you can define:

Alarm name

This name is purely a description of the alarm and is only used in the Control Tower configurator; it will not appear in the Control Tower itself.

Alarm ID

This ID must match the number of beeps defined within the corresponding alarm of the Central Unit where the alarm has been triggered (e.g. in this case the Alarm that is switched on by the Central Unit when fire is detected needs to have 240 beeps assigned to it).

Extra info

can be a (practical) unlimited amount of formatted text. Pictures can also be added to this field, the maximum size for the pictures is 500x500 pixels, larger pictures will be scaled while maintaining aspect ratio. This field can be visualized in the ‘Control Tower’ if an alarm is triggered. This fields can be used for procedures that need to be followed when the alarms occur, useful phone numbers, … Optionally the control tower operator can modify information in this field during normal operation. This information field is saved as a RTF file (Rich Text Formatting). These RTF files can also be created in external programs (like Word). These files are stored at C:\ProgramData\TELETASK\Control Tower\AlarmInfo with the previously defined ‘Alarm ID’ as filename.

Voice Message

Using the ‘Browse’ button you can browse for a Voice Message to play for this alarm. With the ‘Play’ button you can have the Control Tower configurator ‘play’ the selected voice message.

After defining some alarms the Alarms overview window may look something like this:

Notice the ‘Voice Messages’ can be played directly from here (e.g. to verify that they are correct). Also notice that for ‘Fire Alarm’ no voice message has been selected, in this case the Control Tower will play 240 beeps when a fire alarm is received (when no voice message is needed for an alarm, it is not necessary to add the alarm to the Control Tower configuration. It can be useful though if in a later stage a voice message for that alarm is required).

Control Tower settings

Now the Central Units and alarms are defined, the actual Control Tower configuration can be done. The first step is to set some general Control Tower settings. To do so, click the ‘Overview Page’ item in the ‘Edit menu’ or click the Edit button at the bottom of the page.
If you already have configured a GUI+, the settings on this page will look very familiar:

Target device resolution

the screen resolution of the device on which the actual Control Tower will run.

Run Control Tower full screen

whether the Control Tower needs to run full screen or in window mode

Audio feedback on touch/click

whether a sound needs to be played when an item in the Control Tower is touched / clicked.

Extended alarm/central unit info is editable by Control Tower Operator

Enable this if the operator may change the Extra Info of the alarms and central units.

Page name

the name that will be displayed for the overview page in the Control Tower configurator.

Page preview

Use the ‘Select Image’ button to select a background image for the overview page (notice the recommended size for the image is displayed above the preview for the image).

Add Central units to the overview page

The main Control Tower configurator window will now look like this:

On the left you see the different Central Units defined in the configuration. To add a Central Unit to the overview page, simply drag the Central Unit from the list to the overview page and drop it to the overview page. A Central Unit can only be added once to the overview page, if you add a Central Unit to the overview page again, the existing item for the Central Unit on the overview page will be deleted. The symbol next to ‘House 1’ and ‘House 2’ indicates that these Central Units have already been added to the overview page House 3 is not yet added to the overview page.
To customize the layout of a Central Unit item on the overview page, right click on the Central Unit item and select ‘Edit item’ from the context menu.
On the new window that appears you can set the size for the Item, the exact location and if necessary the appropriate location to display a text for this item.

TIP: the Control Tower configurator will use the last Width, Height and Text Location in this window as default values for the next Central Units you drag on to the overview page. So if you would like the Width and the Height for all Central Unit items to be 72, drag the first Central Unit on the overview page, and change the size. When you drag the other Central Units on the overview page their size will now be set to 72x72.

Saving and opening a Control Tower Configuration

To save a Control Tower configuration, click the ‘Backup current configuration’ item in the ‘File’ menu. The Control Tower will now save all settings, including Control Tower client data (received from the Central Units), Voice Messages and overview page background image to one Control Tower configuration file.
When you open the Control Tower configurator it will automatically open the last Control Tower configuration used on that pc. To open a different one, simply click the ‘Restore configuration from backup’ item in the ‘File’ menu.