Messaging

There are 4 default Broadcast Settings:

1. All messages show up through a popup-notifier. This shows up temporarily, for 30 seconds (setting on the Options window).
2. All messages show up as an icon in the system tray. The icon shows permanently, or at least until you click it.
3. Error messages are sent to us via Notify.io, but only if you said that was okay when you created the settings file.
4. "Settings File Opened" messages are sent to us via Notify.io, but only if you said that was okay when you created the settings file.

Deleting or changing these defaults

Deleting / enabling / disabling these 4 default Broadcast Settings is fine. They are normal Broadcast Settings just as if you had created them.

If you did not give us permission to send ourselves the error messages or "settings file opened" messages, you might be surprised to see those Broadcast Settings there. But rest assured they would be disabled. Feel free to delete them if you want.
 

ATM is automated trading software. Often you'll start it and go and do other things. But yet you will probably also want to be alerted when important events happen. ATM gives you a variety of ways to be notified.

What you do is create Broadcast Settings (Admin > Broadcast Settings). This is where you tell ATM what kind of messages you want to be notified of, and how you want to be notified. For example, you may choose to be notified by email for all kinds of messages. And, in addition, you want any error messages to be sent to your phone.

With the appropriate Broadcast Settings in place, you then just go about your business using ATM as normal. Backtesting, automated trading, alerts, etc, send out messages, and these messages are broadcast (or not) as per the Broadcast Settings.
 

To your email address

Email messages can be sent to any email address.

However, you have to first set up an email address to be used as the sending address. That is, the address that goes in the "From:" field. And this sending address must be a Gmail account (from Google). Read more here.

Gmail allows 500 messages to be sent per day from a single account. If we simply used our Gmail account to send the messages, we can reach 500 messages easily. But everyone using their own Gmail accounts would make it very difficult to reach 500.
 

To notification handlers

There are a couple of free notification handlers out there which aim to standardise your messaging experience. The theory is that other software sends their messages to these handlers, and the handlers show them to you on your computer, or not, or send the messages to you (via email, SMS, etc), or not, based on your settings.

In short, you can get ATM to send messages to these notification handlers, and the handlers work out what to do with the messages based on your settings.
 

Growl

Mac users will be very familiar with Growl, which has a Windows equivalent suitably called Growl For Windows. From their website:

Growl gives you full control over how you are notified and what action (if any) you want to take in response to the notification. You can choose to be alerted with a visual indicator or an audible alert, both, or neither. You can choose the type of display that is shown, whether the display remains on the screen, the importance of the notification, and even if the notification should be forwarded to another computer. You can have notifications that trigger an email, run a script, launch a program, or are read out loud.

Snarl

Snarl is very similar to Growl. It's up to your personal preference as to which you install. No harm in using both.
 

Notify.io

Notify.io is another notification handler, but is slightly different in that you don't need to install anything on your computer. Rather you just create an account on the Notify.io website. (Be warned that at time of writing, Notify.io was in the alpha stages of development).
 

To your mobile/cell phone

There are two different SMS providers (or "gateways") that can be connected to directly by ATM. One is free with limited coverage, and the other (Clickatell) is not free but covers most of the planet. It's pretty cheap though. See here for more info.

In addition, there is at least one more SMS provider available indirectly. You can get ATM to send messages to Notify.io, and in your Notify.io account you can set up TextAuth as your SMS "outlet". Messages would be sent from ATM > Notify.io > TextAuth > your mobile/cell phone. Most likely there are other options available through Growl and/or Snarl.

And that's just the possibilities for traditional SMS messages. ATM can also connect to Notifo, which can push messages to your iPhone, Android or Blackberry.
 

Via Twitter

Twitter has 2 kinds of messages - tweets and direct messages (DMs). Tweets are public for all to see. DMs go to an individual and are similar to email. However, DMs only work for people that are already following you. Luckily, you can DM yourself (and we imagine this is how people would use Twitter for notifications).
 

Other

If you are normally in front of your computer, the popup-notifier and/or icon in the system tray might be of use.
 

Setup Instructions

Some broadcast methods need a sending address, some need the receiver to first "allow" them to send messages, and so on. Setup instructions are all on the "Messaging" tab of the Options window (Admin > Options).

See also:

• Default Broadcast Settings
   

Fortunately, Clickatell will give you 10 free credits so you can test that it works before paying any money. If it works and you're happy, you then purchase some SMS credits from them.

Following these links will show you the coverage and prices of Clickatell.  Then follow these instructions to open an account:

1. Follow this link to start the registeration.
2. Choose the "Clickatell Central" option.
3. Fill in your details (which includes choosing a username and password), and click the "Continue" button.
4. Follow their directions to verify your email address and phone number.
5. During the verification process you will find out your Client ID. Note that down.
6. You should now be logged in to your Clickatell account. But there's more to do...
7. Click the "Manage my Products" link (at the top, just below the header).
8. Click the "HTTP/S" link.
9. Fill in the "Description" field. This can be anything you like, e.g. "My HTTP/S connection". Leave all the checkboxes empty.
10. Click the "Submit" button.
11. Note the "API ID" of your connection.

Now you are all set to go. When you enter the SMS details into ATM, you will need to type in your Clickatell username and password, and the API ID.

Here are a couple of extra points of interest:

• If you're still looking at the Clickatell account page, you can see your Client ID in the header. Note that down if you didn't before. You'll need to enter this along with your username, next time you want to login to the Clickatell site.
• Also in the header is an "Buy SMS Credits" link. But you should have been given 10 free credits, and before buying any more credits, you should use those 10 free ones to test that ATM can actually send SMS to your phone through Clickatell.
• While using the free credits, the actual text sent by ATM will not show on your phone. Instead you'll just get a "Clickatell test message". But at least you'll be able to determine that text messages can be sent to your phone by ATM, and approximately how quickly they turn up.

If everything works fine, then use the "Buy SMS Credits" link mentioned above to purchase SMS credits from them.

Thinking Stuff is an affiliate of Clickatell, and we receive 10% of the money you pay to them. We didn't choose Clickatell because of the money. In fact at first we decided to use Clickatell, and then thought that if if we're sending business their way anyway, we might as well join their affiliate program and reap the rewards on offer. If only all the companies we use had similar offers... *sigh* :-)

Note that we stop receiving commissions 6 months after you join up, so if you were a real friend, you'd create a new account every 6 months using the links here :-)
 

Fairly straight-forward:

1. Go to the Gmail website.
2. Click on the "Sign up for Gmail" link just below where login details are normally entered.
3. Fill in the mandatory details.

Note down your new email address and password. You'll need to enter these details into ATM.
 

Most likely you are reading this article because your alert refuses to send you any notifications. So we will focus on the possible causes. Check these:

• Does your alert have at least one alerting rule?
• If there is more than 1 alerting rule, can they actually all be true at the same time?
• Is the alert's status set to "Enabled"?
• Is there a holiday attached that's preventing alerts?
• Are the settings on the "Frequency" tab set correctly?
• Have you set the frequency to stop after a certain number of alerts have fired, and that number has been reached?
• Are you sure that the alerting rules have been true at some point after starting alerting?
• Scheduled processes on the Command Centre:
  • Have you started the price download and/or creation process? Is it working and new price bars are coming in? You can check this by using the Chart window or Price History Search window. If no then read this.
  • Have you started the alerting process?
  • Are the alerting tasks being processed without error? You can check this on the "Alerting Tasks" > "Completed List" tab. Scroll to the right-side of the result grid. Anything in the "Error Text" field is bad.
• Did you accidentally set the alert's "last bar used" dates or "last checked" date into the future? This will pause alerting until those dates are reached.
• Have you created at least one Broadcast Setting which matches the alert?
  • Is it enabled?
  • Is the address being sent to enabled?
  • Is the address correct?
  • On the Options window, have you enabled messages in general?
  • Each time a message is broadcast, ATM Activity is logged. Search through that ATM Activity and check the results of the broadcast attempts. Error messages there will give more clues.
     

Graphical representation of the checklist

Here's what it kind of looks like graphically:

If it still doesn't work

If your alert still refuses to fire, you will need to seek advice in the forum. Give as much information as you can. An exported version of your alert would be ideal. If you are worried about your privacy, then make a copy of your alert. Edit the copy, delete the private stuff, and maybe make a generic version of your alert that still displays the same problem but doesn't give away your special sauce. Export that one instead.

Screenshots are also good. We've found that glancing through these screenshots, it takes about 20 seconds to diagnose the problem. Without the screenshots or the exported alert it takes a lot longer.