Using CitectSCADA > Configuring and Processing Alarms > Handling Alarms at Runtime

Handling Alarms at Runtime

When an alarm is triggered, it becomes active. The active state of a digital alarm is ON, while the active state of an analog alarm varies, depending on the type of alarm (for instance HIGH, LOW , RATE, and so on). When an operator acknowledges the alarm, its state changes to ACKNOWLEDGED. When the alarm is reset (when the conditions that caused the alarm have been rectified), its state changes to OFF.

Alarms are displayed on the standard alarm display page. To acknowledge an alarm, an operator either selects the alarm with the mouse and clicks the left mouse button, or moves the cursor onto the alarm and presses the Enter key. Alternatively, the operator can acknowledge every alarm by clicking Alarm Ack. When an alarm is acknowledged, its display color (on screen) changes. Acknowledged alarms remain on screen until their state changes to OFF.

If an alarm does not appear to be operating as designed, or is deemed unnecessary, an operator can disable it. Disabled alarms are ignored until they are re-enabled. (You need to define a command that uses the AlarmDisable() function to disable alarms.)

To maintain a history of alarm activity, an event log is kept of alarms. This log stores the time when each alarm was activated, acknowledged, and reset. You can display alarms from the event log (including disabled alarms) on the alarm summary page.

Create a page called Summary based on the AlarmSummary template. call the page "Summary" so that the alarm summary button (on pages such as the menu page) operates correctly (the PageSummary() function can only open a page called "Summary").

Operators can add comments to any alarm in the summary log. (You need to define a command that uses the AlarmComment() function to add comments to an alarm.)

Note: If you have many alarms on the alarm page or alarm summary page, use Page Up and Page Down to scroll through the list.

To create an alarm page:

  1. In Citect Explorer, double-click Create New Page in the Graphics|Pages folder.

  2. - or -

  3. In the Graphics Builder, choose File | New and then click Page.
  4. Select the alarm template you want to use. Use the Alarm template to create a page to display configurable alarms, the Summary template for summary alarms, the Disabled template for disabled alarms, and the Hardware template for hardware alarms.
  5. Choose File|Save.
  6. Specify a name in the page title field. Make the new page name match the template name. For example, call the new hardware alarm page Hardware.
  7. Click OK.

  8. Note: You can also create your own (non-standard) alarm pages. The easiest way to do this is by copying and modifying the standard alarm templates.

To display an alarm page at runtime:

  1. Create an alarm (or hardware alarm) page in your project if you have not already done so. Call the page Alarm for a configurable alarm page, and Hardware for a hardware alarm page.
  2. Create a new keyboard command or a button, to call the page at runtime. You can also add a touch command to an existing screen object.
  3. In the command field, enter PageAlarm() to display the configurable alarms page, or PageHardware() to display the hardware alarms page.
  4. Configure other properties as necessary.
  5. Click Add to append a new record, or Replace to modify an existing record.

  6. Note: If using the standard page templates, you don't usually need to create a command to display the page: the commands are already built in.

To display a customized alarm page (with a non-standard name), use the PageDisplay() function to display the page, followed by the AlarmSetInfo() function as necessary.