Scenarios¶

What and Why¶

Scenarios can be defined both as a set of conditions which switch on the scenario and/or as a set of overrides to apply if the scenario is active.

For example, a scenario could be defined by conditions such as alarm panel arm state, occupancy and time to indicate when notifications should be minimized, and then different chime sounds could be selected or deliveries switched off.

Scenarios can override specific delivery configurations, general media configuration (such as setting a camera, or specifying which alert sound to use for a mobile push ). A scenario has a default delivery_selection basis of implicit, where the scenario inherits all the default deliveries, or have this switched off by overriding delivery_selection to explicit in which case only the deliveries mentioned in the scenario are included.

Usage Modes¶

Minor¶

Couple of scenarios added to a minimal Supernotify configuration to redirect notifications based on occupancy, priority etc

Medium¶

Scenarios used to factor out common code from multiple delivery configs in Supernotify, or complicated automations, sequences, scripts, appdaemon apps etc.

Major¶

Fully scenario driven configuration
- All delivery configurations have selection: scenario set so they are not enabled by default
- Notifications that don't match a scenario get dropped
  - Alternatively, a fallback delivery can be selected if every message goes somewhere
- This is a good option when you're comfortable with the integration and its configuration, and you have noisy notifications, which should be either dropped, or result only in a chime ringing or an Alexa sound playing.
- Even if no notification occurs, there can still be an archive notification, to file system or MQTT as a record, for example if you are experimenting with tuning out noise, see Archive.

Conditions¶

For more on the conditions, see the Home Assistant Conditions documentation since the conditions are all evaluated at time of notification by the standard Home Assistant module.

Supernotify also adds more context variables to use in conditions, see the full list on the Condition Variables section. You can use these to switch on scenarios based on the notification priority, or even patterns of words in the message or title - see Content Escalation Recipe for an example.

Tip

There's a Scenario Schema defined for the configuration.

Examples¶

This scenario could be used to select more obtrusive notifications, like email or Alexa announcements, from a combination of conditions, hence simplifying separate notification calls, and providing one place to tune multiple notifications.

more_attention:
        alias: time to make more of a fuss
        condition:
          condition: and
          conditions:
            - not:
                - condition: state
                  entity_id: alarm_control_panel.home_alarm_control
                  state: disarmed
            - condition: time
              after: "21:30:00"
              before: "06:30:00"

In this example, selecting the scenario by name in a notification call switches on a set of delivery transports, which saves repetitive declaration in many notification calls. Delivery Selection is made implicit so not switching off any other deliveries that would have applied.

red_alert:
      delivery_selection: implicit
      delivery:
        chime_red_alert:
        upstairs_siren:
        downstairs_siren:
      media:
        camera_entity_id: camera.porch

Controlling Delivery Selection¶

Delivery selection can also be passed in the data of an action call, including overriding what scenarios would otherwise switch on. delivery_selection can be set to one of three values:

implicit - The default, all deliveries are enabled plus scenario selected
explicit - Only deliveries listed on the action call are enabled, plus ones switched on by a scenario
- This is switched on automatically if a list or single delivery is given.
fixed - Stops scenarios from enabling or disabling deliveries and leaves it solely

Scenario Selection at Notification¶

Conditions aren't essential for scenarios, since they can also be switched on by a notification.

For example in this case, where the home_security and garden scenarios are explicitly triggered, and so any overrides declared in those scenarios will be applied. The constrain_scenarios prevents any scenario other than unoccupied or the ones explicitly applied here ( to switch off all other scenarios, use NULL).

  - action: notify.supernotifier
    data:
        title: Security Notification
        message: '{{state_attr(sensor,"friendly_name")}} triggered'
        priority: high
        apply_scenarios:
          - home_security
          - garden
        constrain_scenarios:
          - unoccupied

Overriding Content¶

Individual deliveries can be overridden, including the content of the messages using message_template and title_template. The templates are regular HomeAssistant jinja2, and have the same context variables available as the scenario conditions (see below ). In the example below, Alexa can be made to whisper easily without having to mess with the text of every notification, and this scenario could also have conditions applied, for example to all low priority messages at night.

  scenarios:
    emotional:
      delivery:
        alexa:
          data:
            title_template: '<amazon:emotion name="excited" intensity="medium">{{notification_message}}</amazon:emotion>'

Multiple Scenarios¶

Multiple scenarios can be applied, in the order provided, and each template will be applied in turn to the results of the previous template. So in the example below, you could apply both the whisper and emotion Amazon Alexa markup to the same message, or add in some sound effects based on any of the conditions.

A blank message_template or title_template can also be used to selectively switch off one of those fields for a particular delivery, for example when sending a notification out via email, push and Alexa announcement.