Alarms

Module 12
Alarms - Basics
Contents

1 Introduction 3
1.1 PcVue version 3
1.2 In this module you will learn 3
1.3 Files used in this module 3
1.4 Third party software used in this module 3

2 This feature in PcVue architecture 4

3 Basics 5
3.1 Alarm concepts 5
3.2 Alarm life cycle 6
3.3 Create an alarm 7
3.3.1 Alarm properties 8
3.3.2 Alarm behaviours 9
3.4 Displaying an alarm 10
3.4.1 Alarm animation 10
3.4.2 The Alarm Viewer 12
3.4.3 Alarm Viewer properties 16
3.5 Using Differentiation to set variable properties 19
3.5.1 What is differentiation? 19
3.5.2 How to define a property using an expression 20
3.5.3 An example of differentiation 21

4 Summing-up 24

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1 Introduction
1.1 PcVue version
This module is for PcVue version 12.

1.2 In this module you will learn

What the alarm life cycle is,
How to create an alarm,
How to display an alarm in a mimic,
How to interact with an alarm.

1.3 Files used in this module

The PcVue project at the end of Module 11 Animations Basics.

1.4 Third party software used in this module

None.

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2 This feature in PcVue architecture

Figure 1

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3 Basics
3.1 Alarm concepts
An alarm variable is a special case of a bit variable.
Reminder:
A bit has two values (0 or 1).
A bit has two statuses (S or NS).
When a bit is configured as an alarm, PcVue adds five statuses that are managed
according to events and operator actions.
The behavior for an alarm is:
An alarm has two values (0 or 1) because it is a bit.
An alarm has these five statuses:
 OFF,
 NOACKON,
 ACKON,
 NOACKOFF,
 NS: the status NS can, as usual, be caused by lost communication (NS
COM). But, in case of alarm, it can also be caused by a masking action.
 NS OP: Masked by operator.
 NS M[1 to 4]: Masked by a script.
 NS DE: Masked by another variable.

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3.2 Alarm life cycle
The best way to understand the various alarm status is to examine the Alarm Life
Cycle.
The following diagram describes it:

Figure 2

OFF: Alarm Off and acknowledged (no alarm).

NOACKON: Alarm On not acknowledged.
ACKON: Alarm On and acknowledged.
NOAKOFF: Alarm Off not acknowledged.

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3.3 Create an alarm
As mentioned in the previous section an alarm is a special kind of bit.
To create an alarm:
Step 1. Create or select an existing bit.
Step 2. Tick the Alarm option in the General tab of the bit Properties dialog.

Figure 3

Step 3. Configure the alarm properties.

Step 4. Configure associated behaviors using the Associated Behaviors
toolbar.

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3.3.1 Alarm properties
To change the alarm properties from the defaults you must select the Advanced
option. Reminder right click in the Properties pane and select Advanced from the
context menu.

Figure 4

[A]: Priority. The priority is a number in the range 0 to 29. The priority is used by
PcVue features such as the User rights, alarm viewer etc. You can apply the priority to
hierarchies and/or filter alarms.
[B]: Positive alarm. Selects the transition of the alarm source that is to cause the
Alarm to change to NOACKON. Yes means 0 to 1.
[C]: Levels. By default the user level required to acknowledge, maintain and mask an
alarm are the same as the priority, but they can be changed here.
[D]: Temporization. A period in seconds between the alarm source becoming active
and the alarm changing state to NOACKON.

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3.3.2 Alarm behaviours

Figure 5

Acknowledgment transmission. Select a bit that can be used to trace the

acknowledgement.
Program action. Add an option to click a button to run a program. This topic is
covered in the Advanced module.
Window action. Add an option to click a button to open a window. This topic is
covered in the Advanced module.
Masking by variable. Feature used to inhibit the alarm. The Alarm is inhibited if the
Bit is set. This topic is covered in the Advanced module.
Masking by expression template. Feature used to inhibit the alarm. The Alarm is
inhibited if the result of the expression is true.

Exercise 1.
Add an alarm variable to the METER template.
a. Open the Application Architect and add a bit
variable to the METER template. Use the Name
FAULT and the Description “Meter Fault”.
b. Configure it as an Alarm and a Command.
(Command allows you to force it at run-time from a
Send animation. Alarms do not normally have the
Command property set.)
c. Save and re-generate

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3.4 Displaying an alarm
There are two ways to display an alarm: The Alarm animation and the Alarm Viewer.

3.4.1 Alarm animation

The Alarm animation is used to display the different states of a particular alarm.
To create the alarm animation:
Step 1. Select the graphical object to apply the animation.
Step 2. Select the animation Color / Alarm.
Step 3. Configure the animation’s properties.

Figure 6

[A]: Alarm variable. Click the button to select it.

[B]: Color mode.
Dynamic: The colors used are those configured in the General Preferences. You
can modify the colors for each alarm status and by alarm priority selecting the
command Configure /Preferences / Colors....

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 Figure 7

Select the Alarm on text tab if the graphical object is a text.

Select the Alarm tab for other graphical objects.
Static: The colors are configured in this dialog in the Colors area [C].
[C]: Colors. Select a color for each alarm state.

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3.4.2 The Alarm Viewer
The Alarm Viewer is used to display a list of alarms. It also allows the user to interact
with the alarms by acknowledging or masking them.

The Alarm Viewer animation displays alarms in real-time. To

display an alarm history (logged alarms) you use the Log
Viewer.
The Alarm Viewer uses a buffer of 100 lines by default.
The following diagram represents the Alarm Viewer mechanism:

Figure 8

The Alarm Viewer can display a maximum of eight columns.

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3.4.2.1 Insert Alarm Viewer
To insert an Alarm Viewer:
Step 1. Select the command Insert / Alarm viewer....

Figure 9

Step 2. Resize the Alarm Viewer according your needs.

Step 3. Double click on it to open the Alarm Viewer Properties dialog.
Step 4. Configure the properties.

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3.4.2.2 Alarm Viewer at run time

Figure 10

[A]: Toolbar. You can customize the Toolbar by right-clicking on it.

Use of the tools is described in the online Help: Developing the

HMI / The Viewers / Alarm Viewer / Using the Alarm Viewer at
run-time / Using the toolbar.
[B]: Headers.
[C]: Alarms list.
[D]: Scroll bar and Filter Button. The Filter Button can be used by the operator to
filter the list at run time.

You can insert more than one Alarm Viewer in the same mimic.

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 Exercise 2.
Create an alarm mimic.
a. Create a new mimic called “Alarms” and save it.
b. Insert a Text button and animate it to set the
variable BUILDING.FLOOR_01.METER.FAULT
c. Insert a graphical object and animate it to display
the alarm statuses.
d. Insert an Alarm Viewer macro animation in the
mimic. Keep all the default parameters.
Check the value of the alarm in the Application Explorer.
What do you see?

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3.4.3 Alarm Viewer properties
The Alarm Viewer’s properties are divided across four tabs Display, Aspect, Execution
and Filters. The Aspect is identical to the Aspect tab of any solid drawing object
(rectangle etc.) We will focus on the main properties in the other three tabs.

3.4.3.1 Display Tab

Figure 11

[A]: Configure to Display the toolbar, the Scroll bars and the header.
[B]: Configure the Background color and the text/Line font.
[C]: The eight fields represent the eight headers. The Alarm Viewer automatically
adds a column at run time for each header that is configured.
[D]: Each field configures what is displayed in the corresponding column using
substitution characters.

The formats are specified in the online Help: Developing the HMI /
The Viewers / Alarm Viewer / Creating and configuring an Alarm
Viewer / Configuring the Line Format.

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3.4.3.2 Execution Tab

Figure 12

[A]: Realtime buffered. Select the number of lines you want to manage.
[B]: When mimic opens. Selects the basic behavior of the display list when the mimic
containing the Alarm Viewer is opened. Other behaviors are determined by the
properties in the Display group.

Display new alarms at the bottom (top) of the list: Determines the initial
chronological order of the alarms. Either the newest at the bottom or newest at
the top. The default is to display new alarms at the bottom of the list.
List mode: List mode is the normal mode of operation of an Alarm Viewer.
A change in the status of any of the alarms will cause the following actions:
 If the alarm is visible, its status, time and date will be updated, but its
position in the list does not change at this time.
 If an alarm is not visible, the Mode button will flash until the list has been
scrolled to display the new alarm status.
On line mode: On-line mode provides the User with a real-time list of alarm
transitions in the order in which they occurred. The alarm transitions are stored
in the display buffer which may be navigated using the scroll bar. Selecting an
alarm automatically switches the display to List mode.

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[C]: Allowances. Select the actions the operator is allowed to take at run time.
[D]: Printing. If this option is selected, the operator can print the selected alarm by
clicking the Print icon in the toolbar.
[E]: Display. The properties in the Display group affects the detailed behavior of the
display list at run-time. We will use the default settings for the training as some of
the effects are quite subtle and not always easy to see. If you want to learn more
refer to the topics in the help book: Developing the HMI / The Viewers / Alarm Viewer
/ Creating and configuring an Alarm Viewer / Configuring the Run-time behavior.

3.4.3.3 Filters Tab

This tab represents the filter applied to the Alarm Viewer list when the mimic is
opened. The operator can change this filter by clicking the Filter button.

Figure 13

[A]: Domain and Nature. This topic is covered in another module.

[B]: Alarm status. Filter by alarm status.
[C]: Alarm level. Filter by alarm priority.

Exercise 3.
Modify some Alarm Viewer properties and check what happens at
run time.

Challenge!
Try to change the colors of the alarm statuses in the Alarm Viewer.

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3.5 Using Differentiation to set variable properties
By now you have probably noticed a fundamental problem when generating variables
(in our case alarm variables) using the Application Architect. Because they are
generated from a template all of the properties are the same. This is very obvious in
the Alarm Viewer where we have three alarms and it is impossible to tell which one is
which!

Figure 14

We solve this problem in the Application Architect by using a technique called

differentiation.

3.5.1 What is differentiation?

Differentiation is the general name given to the mechanism in the Application
Architect by which the value of a property is not a fixed value. There are three
options for differentiating the value of a property:

3.5.1.1 Input
No value is given at the template level. Instead the value is entered each time the
template is instantiated. In the Architect, a property defined in this manner is marked
with a small red icon . We already defined a property in this way when we
configured the communication.

3.5.1.2 Expression
The property value is defined by an expression which is evaluated each time the
template is instantiated. An expression can include fixed values and context sensitive
operands such as the template name. In the Architect, a property defined in this
manner is marked with a small green icon . This is the technique we will use for
our alarms.

3.5.1.3 Parameter
The property value is defined by the value of a parameter. The same parameter can
be used any number of times in one or more templates. In the Architect, a property
defined in this manner is marked with a small blue icon . We will cover this
technique in a later module.

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3.5.2 How to define a property using an expression
Step 1. Open the Application Architect and select the Templates tab.
Step 2. Navigate the templates configuration tree and open the properties
grid that contains the property concerned.
Step 3. Right click on the property name (left column) and, from the pop-up
menu, select Define by and Expression. The value of the property will change to
the equality sign and it will be marked by a green icon.

Figure 15

Step 4. Click the down arrow button that now appears, adjacent to the
value field, and enter the expression using the Expression Edit dialog.

3.5.2.1 About expressions and the Expression Edit dialog

There is no hiding the fact that expressions can be complex and sometimes difficult to
understand. An expression can contain many items:
 String or numeric values - For example ”Meter Fault” or 100.
 Operators – For example + (addition) or NOT (logical not).
 Functions – For example StrLeft (left part of a string).
 The value of a parameter. Parameters are covered in a later module.
 A property of a configuration element - The syntax is Navigation.Property.
For example TemplateInstance.Name.

The Expression Edit dialog has a very useful feature that is worth knowing about.
After you enter a Navigation keyword a drop down list automatically appears with the
range of possible properties.

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 Figure 16

3.5.2.2 Some commonly used expression items

There are many Operators and Functions a lot of which you will probably never use.
However you will almost certainly use + which add two numbers or, more usefully,
concatenates two strings.
But the most commonly used item is probably the property of another configuration
element. The syntax in this case is Navigation.Property.
Some common Navigation items
 Parent - One level up the template instantiation hierarchy. A single use of
Parent would reference the template instance.
 TemplateInstance - The instance of the template.
 Template - The template itself.
Some common Properties
 Name - The name of the element.
 Branch - The branch of the element.
 Description - The description of the element.

3.5.3 An example of differentiation

We want to be able to see the difference between the various alarm variables in the
Alarm Viewer. We could do that by displaying the variable Name as it is always
different, but Name is not always user friendly so the best way is to display the
Description. So we need to use differentiation in the Description property.
First let’s re-examine the template structure that we have in the Application Architect.
We have cheated a bit in the screenshot, to make it easier to visualize, as the
variables normally appear in a different pane.

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 Figure 17

If we examine the structure we see that the first node, that is different, is the
topology element representing the floor. Each instance has a different name,
FLOOR_01, FLOOR_02 etc. The topology element representing the floor is the Parent
of the Instance of the METER template which contains our FAULT alarm variable.
So to reference the name of the floor topology element, in the Description property of
the FAULT variable we could use the expression TemplateInstance.Parent.Name.
To check our expression, after entering it in the Description property of the FAULT
variable, we can select the Template Instances tab and expand the tree to select an
instance of METER. The lower right pane displays any expressions and their results.

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 Figure 18

If we now generate and then re-open the Alarms mimic we can see that the three
alarms each have a different description (Title column in the default Alarm Viewer).

Figure 19

Exercise 4.
Use an expression to differentiate the alarm variables.
a. Change the Description property of the FAULT
variable so that it uses an expression to reference
the Name property of the floor node.
b. Re-generate the variables.
c. Check the result in the Alarm Viewer.

Challenge!
Enter something meaningful for the Description property of each of
the three floor nodes. Change the expression used in the Description
property of the FAULT variable so that it references the Description of
the floor instead of the name.

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4 Summing-up
An alarm is a special case of a bit with extra statuses.
You can display an alarm using an animation and the Alarm Viewer macro
animation.
You can use differentiation to calculate the value of an instance of a property in
the Application Architect.

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