SMS Alerts

Overview

Verdi texts your team when something in the field needs attention, so nobody has to sit refreshing the dashboard. You choose who gets which warnings, for which fields, and whether those warnings are allowed to wake someone up at night.

Everything is configured in alert groups on the Settings page. Set a group up once and every person in it gets the same texts.

Alerts arrive as normal text messages. Recipients do not need a Verdi login or the app installed.
Every device in a text comes with a direct link to that device in the dashboard.
SMS alerts control who is told about a warning. They do not set the thresholds that create one. See Limits.

Key terms

Term	What it means
Alert group	A named set of phone numbers that all receive the same warnings for the same parts of the farm. Groups are how you control who hears about what. A group has three things: members, where it applies, and the warning types it watches.
Member	A phone number in an alert group. A number can belong to more than one group.
Critical alert	A warning type you have marked Critical in a group. Critical alerts break through a member's quiet hours and sort to the top of the text with a 🚨 and a `[Critical]` tag. Every other warning is standard and waits until quiet hours end. Critical is set per group, so the same warning type can be critical for your on-call crew and standard for everyone else.
Quiet hours	A nightly window set on each phone number. Standard texts raised during the window are held and delivered once it ends.
Where it applies	The part of the farm a group watches: the entire organization, or a specific list of fields.
All clear	An optional line added to a member's next text when a warning the group watches for has resolved.

Set up an alert group

1. Open SMS alerts

Go to Settings and find the SMS Alerts card in the right column. Click Manage SMS alerts.

2. Create a group

Click Create an alert group. If you already have groups, use New alert group at the bottom of the left panel instead.

3. Name it

Give the group a name your team will recognize, such as Irrigator Alerts or Thomas Ranch Crew. Click Next.

4. Choose where it applies

Pick Entire organization to watch every field, or select one or more fields so members only hear about what they are responsible for. Click Next.

5. Choose warning types

Check the warnings that should send this group a text. Start with the few that matter most; you can change the list at any time. Every option is listed in Warning types below. Click Next.

6. Add members

Search for an existing number by name or number, or click Add a new number to add someone new. Enter their phone number, confirm that they agreed to receive texts from Verdi, then click Add to alert group.

7. Set the number's name, language and quiet hours

Name the number, pick the language its texts are sent in, and set quiet hours using the time zone that phone is actually in. Leave Let critical texts through quiet hours on if this person should still be reached overnight for critical warnings. Click Save, then Create alert group.

Settings follow the number
Name, language and quiet hours belong to the phone number, not the group. They apply in every organization and every group that number is part of, so you only set them once. Verdi guesses the time zone from your browser, which will be wrong if you are adding someone in another region.

8. Mark your critical warnings

The group opens as soon as it is created. In Warning types, turn on the Critical toggle for anything that should reach people during quiet hours. Use Add warning types to extend the list, and turn on Send a text when a warning ends if your team wants an All clear line when a problem resolves.

Ways to organize your groups

Groups are deliberately flexible. Three patterns cover most farms:

By role. An Agronomy group on High Sensor Reading, Low Sensor Reading, Invalid Sensor Reading, Zero Sensor Reading and Damaged Tensiometer. An Irrigators group on Device Offline, Failed Verification, Over Watering, Under Watering and Manual Override Engaged. Each team only hears what it can act on.
By field. One group per field or per cluster of fields, with the same warning types in each. The Thomas Ranch crew hears about Thomas Ranch, the Perfect Hedge crew hears about Perfect Hedge.
By urgency. A small on-call group with a short list of warning types, all marked Critical, so only the person on call gets woken up. Everyone else sits in a standard group and reads it in the morning.

Groups can overlap. A number in two groups receives texts from both, so avoid putting the same warning type and field in two groups the same person belongs to.

Manage groups and members

Select a group in the left panel to edit it. From there you can:

Rename the group with the pencil next to its name, or delete it with the trash icon.
Add a member, or remove one with the X. Removing takes them out of this group only. The gear icon opens that number's name, language and quiet hours.
Change where the group applies by adding or removing fields.
Add warning types, remove one with the X on its row, or flip its Critical toggle.
Turn Send a text when a warning ends on or off. It only covers the warning types that group already watches.

Use Manage phone numbers at the bottom of the left panel to see and edit every number in your organization in one place.

What an alert text looks like

Verdi batches everything that changed into a single text instead of sending one text per warning. Each text is written in the language set on the receiving number.

Every device line leads with a short link like vrdi.ly/D-BAB-103 that opens that device in the dashboard, followed by the name your team gave the device.

Three warnings or fewer. You get the likely cause with each one:

🚨 Device Offline [Critical]:
North Field
vrdi.ly/D-BAB-103 Gateway 3
Problems: Battery may be depleted

Failed Verification:
North Field
vrdi.ly/D-NF-2014 Valve 12
Problems: Verdi could not confirm the valve opened for a scheduled irrigation

Four or more. The text groups by field, then by warning type, and drops the cause line. Open a link for the detail:

Main estate
🚨 Device Offline [Critical]:
- vrdi.ly/D-BAB-103 Gateway 3
- vrdi.ly/D-CAB-103 Gateway 2

Over Watering:
- vrdi.ly/D-BAB-118 Valve 12

River Bend
Poor Connection:
- vrdi.ly/D-CD-207 East Pump

✅ All clear
- River Bend, vrdi.ly/D-CD-233, Tensiometer 2, Damaged Tensiometer [resolved]

Reading a text:

🚨 and [Critical] mark warnings that break through quiet hours. Critical items always come first.
Problems: is the likely cause. It is included when the text covers three warnings or fewer.
✅ All clear lists warnings that have resolved, if the group has Send a text when a warning ends turned on.
A name in parentheses after the field, such as North Field (Sunridge Farms), is the account. It appears only if you receive alerts for more than one Verdi account.
A line like "13 more warnings were not able to be included" means the text hit its 20 warning limit. Open the dashboard for the full picture.
⏳ Alert limit reached means a burst of warnings tripped the rate limit. Further updates are batched, and the line tells you roughly when the next text arrives.

Warning types

Warning type	Alerts when
Damaged Tensiometer	A tensiometer reads negative pressure, which usually means it needs refilling.
Device Offline	Verdi cannot contact a device.
Failed Verification	Verdi cannot confirm that a valve opened or closed as expected.
High Sensor Reading	A sensor reads above a threshold you set.
Invalid Sensor Reading	A sensor reports a value that is not physically possible.
Low Sensor Reading	A sensor reads below a threshold you set.
Manual Override Engaged	A device is switched to manual mode and stops following its irrigation schedule.
No Network Data	Verdi is not receiving enough data from a device to measure its connection quality.
Over Watering	A device irrigates more than the limit you set for a single run or for the week.
Poor Connection	Too many messages between a device and its gateway are being lost.
Under Watering	A device has not irrigated for much longer than expected.
Zero Sensor Reading	A sensor reads zero, which usually means it is disconnected or broken.

Limits

SMS alerts decide who is told, not what counts as a problem. Sensor thresholds are set on the sensor in the device card. Over and under watering limits are set in Over Water Protection on the Settings page. Turning a warning type on here does not change how sensitive it is or reduce false positives.
20 warnings per text. Anything beyond that is reported as a count on the last line of the message.
Bursts are batched. When many warnings fire at once, Verdi holds the rest and tells you roughly when the next text will arrive.
Long names are shortened. Device, field and account names over 25 characters are truncated in the text.
Some third party sensors appear with an identifier instead of a device name and link.

Troubleshooting

Someone is not getting texts.
Check in order: the number is a member of a group, the warning type is on that group's list, Where it applies covers the field the device is in, the number's quiet hours are not holding the text, and the person has not replied STOP.

A text arrived in the middle of the night.
That warning type is marked Critical in the group, and that number has Let critical texts through quiet hours turned on. Turn off the Critical toggle for that warning type, or turn off the override on that number.

Alerts arrived late, or all at once.
Standard warnings raised during quiet hours are held until the window ends. A large burst is also batched. Both are normal.

Someone got the same alert twice.
They belong to two groups that both watch that warning type for that field. Remove the warning type from one of them.

A member's quiet hours look wrong.
The time zone is probably the one Verdi guessed from the browser of whoever added the number. Open the number with the gear icon and set the time zone that phone is actually in.

Opting out

Anyone can reply STOP to any Verdi text to stop receiving them, or HELP for help. You can also remove a number from a group, or delete the group.

Adding a number requires confirming that the person agreed to receive texts from Verdi at that number. Verdi texts them once to let them know they have been added. Message frequency varies, and message and data rates may apply.