Although OpalisRobot offers many internal tasks, it also can run Windows NT programs in response to tests so that you can customize your response to conditions. Moreover, it allows you to send command-line arguments to the programs to further customize responses. The power of OpalisRobot is further extended because it can report on the success or failure of tasks, so users can take corrective actions. Graphically, the events and tasks are represented as icons on OpalisRobot's console screen, and they can be connected with lines. The relationships aren't just one to one.
Events can be logically related, such that any number or combination of events can trigger a task.
Using OpalisRobot's events and tasks, we were able to quickly create a network monitoring system thhat notified us of problems with our LAN and WAN connections. We set the event timer at 5-second intervals, though we could have extended the time frame to 5 minutes. Every time the interval ticked off, OpalisRobot would start a dozen tasks that tested different network resources. Extending the robot's reach The latest version of OpalisRobot supports extensions, called add-ons, which extend the tool's reach. Although we didn't test any of these add-ons directly, we did use a call manager that interacts with Dialogic voice modem boards and allows OpalisRobot to act as a voice mail system and to send voice messages in response to system conditions.