Fact is: Homey is sometimes unreliable. Everybody is writing things to paper trail or another log. But in the end it is quite cumbersome to check those logs. They are not easy to reach, read and analyse. Also, for “info” entries, you would have users to see it.
An option is to make a notification: that goes to the timeline. But administrators also will get a push notification of this. Which isn’t always necessary. This should change, in my opinion. Because you can turn it off, but only for ALL flows. That is not what I want, I need then to write to the timeline and have another card to sent a push notification to all users/administrators.
Why not have a card “write to time line” and a card “write to time line and notifiy (admins)”.
Even better would be that logging apps get their own menuline in the “more” tab of the app, after the 7 options there, it should have “log”. Homey could add the items added from paper trails. Or be brave and add Homey log cards to the system.
This way you can have an easy access log option, but also can inform every user on the time line and not annoy the administrators.
There are many ways to Rome, but this works best for me:
I’ve checked the simple and papertrail logging apps, but in the end do the logging without apps.
In the flows I wish to log, I add a Logic text card with a text variable (eg. PushMessageAlways or PushMessageSelected) containing the name of the flow and the value of the variables I am interested in.
Several logging/notification flows are triggered every time the text variable changes (*1) and in each flow I decide what to do with the message (I use Virtual Devices buttons to enable or disable a flow).
A flow for Timeline in case the virtual button for Timeline is turned on (Timeline has a limitation for quantity of notifications it can handle)
A flow for Telegram in case the virtual button for Telegram is turned on (Telegram logs endlessly, can be used on multiple phones, desktop and has a great search capability)
A flow for Push Notification in case the virtual button for notifications is turned on
Same for PushMessageSelected. You can make it as sophisticated as you want for single or multiple users or filter on a keyword in the message.
(Tip: if some flows execute at exactly the same time, the solution is to add a 1 sec delay to one of the text cards.)
*1 There is a small limitation: in the case the Logic text variable does not change when a flow is called very fast multiple times. Adding a time variable (with seconds) when setting the Logic text card can solve this, but I decided I do not want too many notifications .
I have my settings as per your post above but I don;t get Flow notifications in my timeline. The only notifications I get are when I’m away from Home and Surveillance is armed.
Could this have something to do with Heimdall?
Right. I have never used Timeline before. So the timeline card adds notifications to the timeline seen on the home page of the App, correct? I have started to add some to test this out.
Is the page on the devices (last tab) which shows when, and by whom, devices are turned on and off also called a timeline?
Resolved and even better with advanced flows.
Even notifications that are a few 10ths of seconds (0.01) apart will be shown.
I only want to see notifications that contain “critical” in the timeline.
An extra benefit is that the timeline will not easy overflow and timeout on all logs.
For me Telegram is still a great solution for endless logging and easy reading on various devices.
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