Pharos Architectural Controls

Making provision for holiday and special event days can add complexity, and there are many approaches that work, but here’s the one I think is the cleanest. It takes advantage of the fundamental principle of trigger programming which is that a trigger is tested in the list order, and once is finds a match it stops looking (search is ‘absorbed on match’).

Triggers with conditions need to be higher in the list than the same trigger without a condition – so it matches the specific trigger before finding a general or ‘catch-all’ trigger. As a simplified example imagine an exterior project that turns on at sunset. For most of the year you have a default timeline, but in the winter you have a different sequence, and on Valentine’s Day you have a special sequence. They would all have a sunset trigger. The winter timeline would need a condition that matched December, January and February, and the yucky pink timeline would need a condition that matched 14th February.

Simplified trigger structure for special days

Because on Feb 14th it would match the general trigger, the winter condition and the Valentine condition, the most specific trigger (equals Feb and equals 14) would need to be higher than the winter timeline (equals Dec, Jan and Feb) and the general trigger (no conditions) lowest. So for instance at sunset on Feb 13 the system will test the Valentine trigger but not match, so will pass on to the winter trigger which it will match, then it will stop looking. The following sunset it will match the first trigger and stop. Two weeks later in March it will not match either, and will instead match the trigger with no conditions.

Advanced Realtime mask for Feb 14: any time, any year, any day, only date 14 and month 2

Advanced Realtime mask for Winter: any time, any year, any day, any date, only months 1, 2, and 12

Tip: If the Real Time condition is calendar based, but the trigger is astronomical, remember to select ‘Any Time’ in the editor before clicking the Advanced button. This selects all hours, minutes and seconds because variable time trigger events need to match at any time.

These triggering principles can be extended to a proper example. The design brief requires an early evening sequence to start at sunset, and a late evening sequence to start at 10pm. It turns off at midnight, except at weekends and holidays when it turns off at 2am. There are special sequences for holidays throughout the year which run all evening, without the change at 10pm.

This is what we need (only some of the holidays are programmed for illustration):

Trigger structure for special days

The default trigger #1 is sunset -30mins, but is lower in the list than all the special day sunset triggers, so will only play if none of them match first.

Two more useful features are also illustrated here and described in detail below. Firstly, using the advanced Real Time conditions to match moveable holidays, and secondly, using the Timeline Running condition to check the status of a ‘lockout’ timeline before activating triggers that only occur on non-special days.

Fixed special days such as New Year and Halloween, and seasonal conditions are simple to achieve, as illustrated above. However some events will change annually. Easter, for instance, requires a little bit of research and triggers for every year. Others, such as Thanksgiving can still be accommodated within one trigger as the variation is still within boundaries – the fourth Thursday in November can only fall between the 22nd and 28th. This condition is set to match any time, any year, only November, only Thursday, only 22 thru 28. Each year this will only match on the correct day.

Advanced Realtime mask for Thanksgiving: any time, any year, only month 11, dates 22-28 and day 4

Finally, the design brief had requirements for the Holidays to ignore the 10pm trigger and the midnight weekday turn off. To do this, these regular triggers need to check if it is a special day. Checking the calendar list might need a complicated script with a table, or checking that every special timeline is not running. By far the best way is to have the special day triggers also start a common ‘lockout’ timeline, and then the standard evening triggers only need to check if this one timeline has been activated.

This lockout timeline does not need any programming, it just needs to maintain for the day – so hold at end. We use a flag just to give it some duration, so it starts then holds.

Lockout timeline only needs a flag and release behaviour

If the timeline is running, the triggers will do nothing. If it is not running, they will execute their actions as normal.