The Alarm Summary object lets users track and manage alarms in one tool. It can display times, names, values, and current statuses. Alarms are filterable by using Group and Level labels. Shelving alarms can also help declutter the Alarm Summary object’s Active Alarm tab. Each Alarm Summary object has Basic Properties, Appearance, and Transform options. This allows users to customize the content, look, and characteristics. For in-depth descriptions of elements and design options, visit Alarm Summary Information.

• Designer Functionalities

  • Properties

    • Basic Properties

    • Appearance

    • Transform

    • Actions

• Runtime Functionalities

  • Filtering

  • Acknowledging

  • Shelving

  • Historical

The Canvas Simulator can operate a project with an Alarm Summary object that displays up to 150 alarms reliably. Likewise, a physical Xpanel can reliably do the same with up to 1,000 alarms. The operating speeds of both the Simulator and a physical Xpanel will depreciate with the creation of more alarms. Click Insert > Alarm Summary, or the Insert Alarm Summary icon in the toolbar, and click and drag on the page to bring up the Alarm Summary object as shown to the right:

Provides ways to customize the user’s Alarm Summary.

To ensure the property windows are enabled, click View > Properties > Basic Properties, Appearance, Transform, or Actions and check the boxes.

The Basic Properties window allows changing the displayed content and formatting within the object. The object’s name will show up in place of Basic Properties, as pictured to the right:

The Appearance pane enables the use of colors and selections to alter visible characteristics.

The Transform tab provides adjustable properties that reshape or move the object.

There are currently no applicable actions for the Alarm Summary object. This is intended, and there are no plans to add this capability.

When running the program, the user can select the Label Filter option in the Alarm Summary to display the alarms with a specific label. One or multiple labels may be applied at once. All active, cleared, and acknowledged alarms with the selected labels will be displayed in the Active Alarm tab of the Alarm Summary. If an active alarm has more than one label, it will be displayed when any of its labels are selected. The same can be done in the historical tab with active, cleared, acknowledged, and shelved alarms.

The user can acknowledge alarms to confirm they have been seen and trigger Acknowledge actions. If a cleared alarm is acknowledged, it will move from Active Alarm to Historical Alarm. Otherwise, any alarm will stay on the page until deleted. Users can check or uncheck the boxes for Active, Cleared, Active, Ack., and Cleared, Ack to show or hide certain statuses.

The user can shelve alarms to temporarily hide them from the Active Alarm tab. Shelve acts like a snooze button for a specified time interval that the user sets. After the interval, the alarm will unshelve and reappear in the Active Alarm tab. The user can bypass the set timer by clicking the Unshelve button in the Shelved Alarm tab.

The Historical Alarm tab creates a new record whenever an alarm status changes. The user can check a past alarm along with the status it was changed to, the time it was changed, and the value it had when it was changed. The logged alarms are filterable and deletable for better organization.