Preferences and Notifications
Two sections of a user record: how eConnect presents information to that person, and where their alerts are delivered.
Both can be set by the person themselves from their profile; administrators can set them too, which is useful when getting somebody started.
Preferences
| Preference | Effect |
|---|---|
| TimeZone | The zone every timestamp is displayed in for this user |
| Use 24 Hour Time | Show 14:30 rather than 2:30 PM |
| Video Buffer | How far before an event video begins playing |
Time zone is the one that matters
Records store real instants; this setting decides how they are shown. Someone reviewing a property in another zone sees the same detection at a different clock time to a local colleague, which causes genuine confusion when two people compare notes.
Set it to the zone the person actually thinks in, and make sure investigators working across sites know which they are set to.
Video buffer
This decides how much lead-in someone gets when opening video from an event. A few seconds before the moment is usually what makes the moment interpretable — an operator who sees only the instant of a detection often cannot tell what led to it.
Notifications
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Email Alerts | Deliver alerts to the user's email address |
| SMS Alerts | Deliver alerts to the user's SMS address |
These control alerts leaving eConnect. Behaviour inside the application — popups, sounds, auto-acknowledge, Auto-Follow — is set separately, per user, and is covered in Alert Preferences.
Turning on email or SMS alerts without a valid address in Personal Info silently delivers nothing. There is no error — the alerts simply never arrive. Set the address first, then enable delivery, then confirm one has been received.
Email delivery also depends on the mail relay being configured correctly — see Email.
Who should get email or SMS alerts
Reserve them for people who need to know when they are not in eConnect — on-call staff, supervisors away from a desk. Someone sitting in front of the application already has the alert tray, and duplicating every alert into their inbox trains them to ignore both.
What is recorded
Preference and notification changes are audited under the user administration type, whether made by the person or an administrator. See What eConnect Audits.