Introduction to Alarms Module
The Alarms module is a powerful tool designed to monitor and manage alarm events within your solutions, providing alerts for critical events, and storing data for future analysis.
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Purpose and Key Concepts
The Alarms module is designed to provide real-time monitoring and notification of events or conditions that require immediate attention. This is done by evaluating tags values in real-time to generate alarms when the monitored value reaches a defined limit or condition. The module evaluates the conditions of AlarmItems and compares their current value with the set limit to determine whether an alarm should be triggered or not. The module can evaluate conditions such as exceeding a limit, falling below a limit, or entering/exiting a range.
The configuration of the Alarms module is performed on the sections: AlarmGroup, AlarmArea, AlarmItem, and AuditTrail.
AlarmGroup
An AlarmGroup is a collection of AlarmItems that share common properties and characteristics. Each AlarmGroup can have its own configuration properties, such as AckRequired, AutoAckTime, and Sound, that apply to all of its AlarmItems. The configuration of AlarmGroup is on the Solution Explorer, at Alarms → AlarmGroup.
AlarmArea
An AlarmArea is a hierarchical grouping of AlarmGroup that allows for a more organized and structured approach to managing alarms. An AlarmArea can have child AlarmArea, allowing for a hierarchical structure of AlarmGroup and AlarmItems. The configuration of AlarmArea is on the Solution Explorer, at Alarms → Area.
AlarmItem
An AlarmItem is a tag or expression that is monitored by the Alarms module. It contains information such as the tag name, the alarm condition (what triggers the alarm), and the associated AlarmGroup. Each AlarmItem can have its own configuration properties, such as Limit, Deadband, and Message, that define the alarm behavior and characteristics. The configuration of AlarmItems is on the Solution Explorer, at Alarms → Items.
AuditTrail
The AuditTrail is a feature of the Alarms module that logs all changes made to the AlarmGroup and AlarmItems, including creation, modification, and deletion events. It is a way to track and record the history of changes made to the alarm configuration, providing a clear audit trail of who made what changes and when. The configuration of the AuditTrail is on the Solution Explorer, at Alarms → Global Settings → AuditTrail.
Alarms Functionality
Features Highlights
The Alarms module offers the following key features:
The AlarmHistorian allows the Alarms module to save alarms and their state changes in a separate database (it is different from AuditTrail that only saves when editing the settings).
The Alarm Window object used to displaying active alarms and their state changes on displays
Real-time alarm processing to quickly identify and respond to critical events
Hierarchy organization and management of alarms for greater flexibility and control
Universal time and daylight saving considered for accurate timestamps
Dynamic language localization of alarm messages for easy understanding
High-precision timestamps up to 0.1ms for accurate and reliable data
Understanding the Alarms module
Such as other modules, the alarm module run in a separate process from TServer.exe, it means that the alarm operations occur at the same time that other events in the solution bringing reliability to process monitoring.
When an alarm is triggered, it can be acknowledged by any client logged in with a user with matching access level through the Alarm Viewer, this also can be done through other ways like: Tag properties, Alarm Group or Alarm Item's runtime properties.
Monitoring Tags and Evaluating Conditions
The Alarms functionality allows users evaluate if tag values satisfy certain conditions in real-time. With that the FrameworX can send notifications to users or take actions based on specific conditions.
When monitoring tags, users can set up one or more conditions to evaluate. For example, a user might set up a condition to trigger an alarm if the value of a tag exceeds a certain threshold. Also, it's possible to bind any alarm trigger with a Script Task through the property "Alarm.Item.<AlarmID>.State", chaining an automatic process.
Conditions can be based on a variety of factors, such as tag values, tag quality, or any object property.
Configuring the Alarms Module
Describe and link to child page.
More on the Alarms Module
Follow the structure of the other modules.
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