Skype is a popular VOIP PC client and service. The Skype PC client is used to make voice calls to other Skype clients or from the client to regular telephone line. Skype also supports chat between clients. You may deliver alarms as voice calls to Skype users on thier PCs or to regular telephones. Such alarms arrive as phone calls and when the recpient answers, the alarm message is spoken. You may also send the activity log to the chat window of a Skype client.

Use of Skype requires the Skype PC client be installed on the same system as NightWatchr. You just also have an account on the Skype Service. If you wish to call regular telephones, you must have this feature enabled on your Skype account (may require fee).

Go to OPTIONS/More OPTIONS then click the Skype tab.

Check ‘Enable Alarm Notification via Skype’ to enable use of Skype for Alarm Notifications.

In ‘Greeting’ enter text to be spoken at the start of a voice alarm notification. This introduces the alarm message.

In ‘Sign Off’ enter text to be spoken at the end of the alarm notification. This signifys the end of the message.

In ‘Skype Path’ enter the full disk path to the Skype.exe executable program.

Default Target: this is the default target or recipient of alarm notifications. This can be a Skype user name (target), a name in the local Skype client's contact list or a telephone number (starting with a + sign).

In ‘Message Repeat’ enter number of times to send the notification.

‘Voice KB/sec’ is to adjust the number of Kbytes of wav file size representing one second of speech.  This value is used to compute how long to wait for Skype to deliver the message once it is converted to a wav file and given to Skype for delivery. Skype does not tell us when it has completed speaking the message, so we have to wait an appropriate amount of time.

Message Timeout is the maximum time in seconds to allowed for a complete alarm notification message.

Connect Timeout is the maximum time to wait for a connection to the target client or phone line to be established.

In order to send alarm notifications via Skype, you must configure Contact objects to make use of Skype. On a Contact, enter the word skype in the Pager Script field. Enter the Skype target (name or +number) in the Pager Service # field. On an Alarm object, you enter the word skype in the Pager Script field to send alarms to the default Skype target.

If running NightWatch on the desktop, the Skype client may also be running, but it cannot be used to make calls as that  will prevent NightWatchr from making calls. If the Skype client is not running when NightWatchr wishes to make a call, NightWatchr will launch the client.

If running NightWatchr as a service, you must  NOT run the Skype client  on the desktop. NightWatchr will manage the Skype client itself in a manner compatible with service mode operation.

Please note that the login of the Skype client to the Skype service can take a while.

If Skype is enabled, you can log activity to the default Skype target via Skype chat. On the Messaging Tab under OPTIONS, you can select logging and alarm notifications to be sent via Skype Chat.