Alarm Management

Citect SCADA 2018 includes the following enhancements to the way operators can manage alarms at runtime.

Alarm Cause and Response

Citect SCADA 2018 allows you to associate cause and response information with an alarm tag. This means you can describes the circumstances that are likely to cause the alarm, and the appropriate course of action required to address the alarm. This information can then be presented to an operator at runtime. See Provide Cause and Response Information to Operators.

To specify cause and response information for an alarm tag, you need to use the new Alarming > Cause and Response view in the Setup activity. See Add Cause and Response Information to Alarms.

Alarm Shelving

When you shelve an alarm, it is disabled for a specified period of time, or until a specified time is reached. This allows an operator to temporarily disable alarms that are causing an unnecessary distraction.

Shelving is available via the Workspace's new Alarm tab in the Information zone.

If your project uses the SxW or Tab Style templates (accessible via a starter project), you can shelve alarms during runtime from the Active Alarms and Alarm Summary page.

You can also shelve alarms by setting the EndTime argument for the following Cicode functions:

• AlarmDisable

• AlarmDisableRec

• AlarmDisableTag

• AlmBrowseDisable

• AlmSummaryDisable

• AlmTagsDisable.

For more information, see Shelve Alarms.

Alarm Indicators

Citect SCADA 2018 allows you to use alarm indicators. Consisting of an alarm border and flag that appear around the extent of an object group or Genie, an alarm indicator provides a prominent visual indication of alarm occurrences at runtime.

See Use Alarm Indicators.

To configure an alarm indicator for an object group or Genie, there are two tasks you need to consider:

1. You need to define display properties for the alarm priorities that an indicator will represent. See Configure Display Properties for an Alarm Priority.

2. For each object group or Genie, you need to define the Alarm Indicator properties in Graphics Builder. See Alarm Indicator.

Alarm Priority Display Properties

You can configure optional display properties for an alarm priority that allow you to:

• Specify a name for a priority value to provide a meaningful representation of its purpose.

• Define background and foreground colors that support a visual representation of priority on a graphics page.

• Define a Large and Small genie to visually represent the priority on the Alarm Indicator and Alarm Lists.

These additional properties are configured in the Setup activity (see Configure Display Properties for an Alarm Priority).

For more information, see Prioritize Alarms.

See Also

What's New in Citect SCADA 2018