GroupTalk (Zenitel Connect Pro)

Introduction

GroupTalk delivers a cloud-based Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) service that turns smartphones, tablets and PCs into instant group communication tools, providing nationwide and global coverage over 4G/5G, Wi‑Fi and other IP networks. It enables secure, real-time voice communication at the push of a button, while also offering features such as private calls, location sharing, emergency alarms, dispatching and centralized user management.

This article describes how events generated in the Zenitel Connect Pro system can be delivered as notifications to users in the GroupTalk mobile app. Examples of such events include:

Device faults and system errors (for example, offline devices or failed tone tests)
Tamper alarms
Unanswered or unattended intercom calls
Events originating from third-party systems integrated with Zenitel Connect Pro, such as VMS platforms, Triton sensors, and other connected systems

Prerequisites

The integration is using Node-RED, and the integration license (ZCL-API) - 1002720900 is required in Zenitel Connect Pro.
API key from GroupTalk to use their admin API for sending notifications to users.

Configuration

Preparations

Install Node-RED
Download the flow GroupTalk Vx from the Downloads section
Import the flow in to your Node-RED application

Node configuration

In the imported flow there are three examples:

Station offline: Notification generated when a device loses communication with the Zenitel Connect Pro Server.
Tamper alarm: Alert triggered when a device (in this example, a VR3G-1) has been tampered with.
Unanswered call: Notification generated when a call has been ringing longer than the configured timeout without being answered.

Establish communication between Node-RED and Zenitel Connect Pro by double-clicking one of the Zenitel nodes (a node with a Zenitel logo ), and modify the wamp-client with the correct IP Address, Zenitel Link username and password.

The status "connected" should now show below all the Zenitel nodes.

Node-RED flows for notifications to GroupTalk

Configuration of the nodes

All nodes come with a configuration which can be modified according to the requirements.

Zenitel Event nodes:

Zenitel Device State Event: Triggers when any device in the system goes offline.
Zenitel GPI Event: Triggers when input 3 (= tamper alarm on VRG3-1 station) is triggered on any device.
Zenitel Call State Event: Triggers when Call Forwarding times out without answer.

Function nodes:
All three nodes have the following parameters:

Title: The headline displayed in the notification sent to the GroupTalk app
Body: The descriptive text displayed in the notification
Expires: Defines how long the notification remains visible in the app before it is automatically removed (e.g., PT1H = 1 hour, PT5M = 5 minutes).
Alert: Set to false or true. When set to false, the notification is sent with normal priority. When set to true, it is sent as a priority alert and triggers an alarm tone in the GroupTalk app.
toOffline: When set to true, users who were offline when the event occurred will receive the notification if they come online before the notification expires.
msg.url: https://api.grouptalk.com/api/my-organizations/users/notification (default endpoint). This URL can be modified with filters as described in the GroupTalk API documentation.

Notify GroupTalk node (http node):

Enable "Use authentication"
Type = basic authentication
Set Username and Password according to the API key from GroupTalk

Test communication

To verify communication between Node-RED and the GroupTalk service, connect a Debug node to the Notify GroupTalk node and trigger a relevant event in Zenitel Connect Pro.

A 202 status code confirms successful communication.

Successful communication when StatusCode = 202.