Setting the Alarm Database

The alarm history can be saved either in the IWS proprietary format or to an external SQL Relational database by ADO.

On the Project tab of the ribbon, in the Settings group, click Options. The Project Settings dialog is displayed:

Figure 1. Project Settings - Options tab

The Alarm History and Events interface allows you to configure the following settings:

Field	Remarks	Syntax
History Life Time (days)	The history for alarm/event messages older than the number of days specified in this field are automatically deleted, following a FIFO (First-In, First-Out) behavior. If this field is left in blank, the history of alarms/events are not deleted automatically.	Number
History Format	Defines the format of the history of alarms/events: Proprietary: Saves the history in the proprietary format. The alarm messages are saved in a text file with the name AL`yymmdd`.ALH, where: `yy` is the last two digits of the current year. `mm` is the month. `dd` is the day There will be one history file for each day. By default, the alarm history files created with the proprietary format are stored in the \Alarm sub-folder of the project. However, it is possible to direct the alarms to a different directory by using the SetAppAlarmPath function from the built-in language. Database: Saves the history in a third-party SQL Relational Database (e.g., SQL Server).	Combo-box
Alarm Database	When selecting Database as the format for the history of alarms, the specific settings to interface with the third-party SQL Relational Database can be configured by the dialog launched when pressing this button. For further details about support for third-party SQL Relational Databases, see Database Interface.	—

When saving the alarm history in the proprietary format, each alarm event is saved in a new line, using the pipe character ( | ) to delimiter the different fields, as illustrated below:

P1|P2|P3|P4|P5|P6|P7|P8|P9|P10|P11|P12|P13|P14|P15|P16|P17|P18|P19|P20|P21
P1|P2|P3|P4|P5|P6|P7|P8|P9|P10|P11|P12|P13|P14|P15|P16|P17|P18|P19|P20|P21
.
.
P1|P2|P3|P4|P5|P6|P7|P8|P9|P10|P11|P12|P13|P14|P15|P16|P17|P18|P19|P20|P21

The format of the history both in proprietary format and in the SQL Relational Database format is described in the following table:

Proprietary	SQL Relational Database		Remarks	File Vers.
Field No.	Field Name	Field Type	Remarks	File Vers.
P1	—	—	File version (Current = 003)	001
P2	Al_Start_Time	Date/Time	Start Date (MM/DD/YYYY)	001
P3	Al_Start_Time	Date/Time	Start Time (HH:MM:SS)	001
P4	Al_Tag	Text	Tag Name	001
P5	Al_Message	Text	Alarm Message	001
P6	Al_Ack	Number	Ack, where: 0: Alarm was acknowledged or does not require acknowledgment 1: Alarm was not acknowledged	001
P7	Al_Active	Number	Active, where: 0: Alarm is not active 1: Alarm is active	001
P8	Al_Tag_Value	Number	Tag Value when the event occurred	001
P9	Al_Group	Number	Alarm Group Number	001
P10	Al_Priority	Number	Priority Number	001
P11	Al_Selection	Text	Selection	001
P12	Al_Type	Number	Type, where: 1 is HiHi 2 is Hi(On) 4 is Lo(Off) 8 is LoLo 16 is Rate(Change) 32 is Deviation+ 64 is Deviation-	001
P13	Al_Ack_Req	Number	Ack required, where: 0: Alarm requires acknowledge 1: Alarm does not require acknowldge	001
P14	Al_Norm_Time	Date/Time	Normalization Date (MM/DD/YYYY)	001
P15	Al_Norm_Time	Date/Time	Normalization Time (HH:MM:SS)	001
P16	Al_Ack_Time	Date/Time	Ack Date (MM/DD/YYYY)	001
P17	Al_Ack_Time	Date/Time	Ack Time (HH:MM:SS)	001
P18	Al_User		User Name	002
P19	Al_User_Comment		Comment	002
P20	Al_User_Full		User Full Name	003
P21	Al_Station		Station	003
P22	Al_Prev_Tag_Value	Number	Previous Value	003
P23	Bias	Number	Time Zone Bias	003
—	Al_Start_Time_ms	Number	Number of milliseconds for the Start Time timestamp. This field is used when the database does not support ms in a TimeStamp field.	003
—	Al_Norm_Time_ms	Number	Number of milliseconds for the Norm Time timestamp. This field is used when the database does not support ms in a TimeStamp field.	003
—	Al_Ack_Time_ms	Number	Number of milliseconds for the Ack Time timestamp. This field is used when the database does not support ms in a TimeStamp field.	003
—	Al_Deleted	Number	Deleted, where: 0: Alarm message was not deleted by the user (not visible). 1: Alarm message was deleted by the user (visible).	003
—	Last_Update	Date/Time	Timestamp of the last update for this event.	003
—	Last_Update_ms	Number	Number of milliseconds for the Last Event timestamp. This field is used when the database does not support ms in a TimeStamp field.	003

Tip: When saving the History Alarms in a SQL Relational Database (File Format = Database), you can customize the name of the columns created in the database by editing the project_name.APP file, as follows:

[Alarm]
DefaultName=NewName

For example:

[Alarm]
Message=Alarm_Message
Ack=Acknowledgment