Users can respond to, or acknowledge, alarm events from an Alarm List by entering information associated with the event, such as a reason code, a piece of equipment, or a text comment. Alarm events are acknowledged in the Edit Alarm.
Alarm events have three stages of acknowledgment:
•Unacknowledged: The event has not been responded to by the user.
•Acknowledged: The alarm’s acknowledgment criteria have been met.
•Cleared: The alarm’s clearing criteria have been met.
Acknowledgment and closing criteria can include whether or not a reason, a comment, equipment, or evidence has been assigned, as well as whether the event has ended or been saved. See Alarm Acknowledgement Logic for more information.
Acknowledgment Warning
In Edit Alarm, if the event is in the open or acknowledged state, a red exclamation point warning icon will alert users that acknowledgment (or further acknowledgment) is required. Hover over the icon to see a message that describes the outstanding acknowledgment items.
To open the Edit Alarm window, double-click a row in the alarms grid or select the context menu option.
Type: The alarm event type.
Grade: In the drop-down menu, the grade assigned to the alarm event can be modified. This value is automatically populated with the value from the grade tag of the base tag’s process area at the start of the alarm event.
Recalc: Recalculates the grade value and assigns the active grade from the time of the event.
Start Time: The start time of the alarm event. Open the drop-down to use the date-time picker to modify the time.
End Time: The end time of the alarm event. Open the drop-down to use the date-time picker to modify the time.
Delta Time: The duration of the alarm event.
Rule: The SQC rule or description of Alarm that was violated to create the event. The rule cannot be edited. Most tag limits only use the “outside” rule, but additional SQC rules can be configured in Tag Limits.
Process: By default the Tag’s process area will be displayed in this field. Changing this field will affect the alarm’s process area for reporting purposes. For example, events may be categorized by sub-process areas.
Reason: Picking a reason from the pre-defined reason tree assigns a cause to the event.
Ellipsis Button: Opens the Reason Selector.
Asterisk Button: Applies the last chosen reason to the alarm event.
Comment: Typing a comment into the text box allows the user to add more information about the event.
Evidence Panel: If evidence has been configured either for the selected reason or for the alarm definition, the evidence panel will appear. For tag-based evidence, the configured aggregate will be calculated automatically, though it can be recalculated if the event duration changes. For pick list-based evidence, click on the evidence values to apply.
Get: Recalculate aggregate.
Clear: Clear evidence value.
Split: Opens the Event Split Time window, where alarm events can be split into two consecutive events with different cause assignments.
Save: Save all changes to the database. If editing a calculated alarm event, this will save the event to the database as a manually created event.
Logbook: If the process area of the tag in alarm has been configured to create Logbook entries when alarm events are acknowledged, click this button to preview, modify, or save the Logbook entry. This button is disabled if the auto-propagation is not configured or if a reason or comment has not been entered. If the process area’s Logbook Entry Mode is set to Manual, the user must save the entry separately, whereas if the Entry Mode is set to Auto, the entry will be created when the alarm event is saved with a reason and/or comment.
View Audit: Opens a window showing a history of changes made to the alarm event.
Acknowledgment Warning: If the event is in the open or acknowledged state, a red exclamation point warning icon will alert users that acknowledgment (or further acknowledgment) is required. Hover over the icon to see a message that describes the outstanding acknowledgment items.
Use the Reason Selector to assign a cause to an alarm event from the reason tree. Click the arrow icons to collapse and expand branches of the reason tree. Reasons with red flag icons next to their names are assignable reasons, while reasons with no icon cannot be selected.
The reasons can be filtered by category. The Reason Selector may only show a specific branch of the reason tree based on the process area settings of the tag in alarm.
Category Filter: Open the drop-down menu to filter the reason tree by a category. Reasons are assigned to categories in System Configuration.
Select: Apply the selected reason to the alarm event.
Cancel: Close window without applying reason.
Alarm events can be manually split into two consecutive events with different cause assignments. If the original event had a reason and/or comment assigned, both events will inherit the assignment, but the reason and comment can be manually changed.
Start First: The start time of the first event.
End Second: The end time of the second event.
Slider: Drag the slider to manually adjust the split time between the two events.
First Duration: The duration of the first event.
End First / Start Second: The split time. Open the time picker or type in the field to manually set the split time.
Second Duration: The duration of the second event.
First Reason: The reason assigned to the first event.
Ellipsis Button: Opens the Reason Selector.
First Comment: The comment assigned to the first event.
Second Reason: The reason assigned to the second event.
Ellipsis Button: Opens the Reason Selector.
Second Comment: The comment assigned to the second event.
OK: Apply changes.
Cancel: Close window without applying changes.