Alarm Priority Tag Type Properties: Alarm Configuration Tab
The Alarm Configuration tab for the alarm priority tag properties folder consists of the properties used to identify the types of alarm signals that will occur when an alarm is triggered by an associated alarm tag.
For the audible warning sound, you may either configure a two-tone alarm by setting the frequency and duration of each tone, or you may select a .WAV file from disk.
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The Priority field indicates the priority of this alarm as a number from 0 to 4, where:
• 0 indicates that the alarm will not occur, but its value may still be used as a setpoint by other tags
• 1 indicates the highest priority alarm
• 2 indicates a regular priority alarm
• 3 indicates a warning
• 4 indicates a notice or informational event
You may also set the Priority property to values higher than 4 for user-defined alarm priorities.
When clicked, the Priority Color button opens the Select Color dialog from which you can select the color you wish to be used to highlight alarms of this priority in the alarm list (thereby helping operators to identify the priority of the alarm visually). The default color is white. If you are unfamiliar with the Select Color dialog, please refer to Select Color Palette.
The Tone 1 Freq in Hz field enables you to specify the first of two audio tones that will be used to signal alarms associated with this alarm priority tag. Typically, an alarm sound consists of two tones alternating within a specific time period (the second of these two audio tones is specified in the Tone 2 Freq in Hz field).
The default value for this property is 2000Hz.
This field sets the length of time that the tone 1 frequency will sound. The default value is 0.5 seconds.
The Tone 2 Freq in Hz field enables you to specify the second of two audio tones that will be used to signal alarms associated with this alarm priority tag. Typically, an alarm sound consists of two tones alternating within a specific time period (the first of these two audio tones is specified in the Tone 1 Freq in Hz field).
The default value for this property is 1000Hz.
This field indicates the length of time that the tone 2 frequency will sound. The default value is 0.5 seconds
The .WAV File Name field enables you to specify the name and extension of a .WAV sound file to be used in place of the typical alarm tones to signal to operators that an alarm has been triggered.
If a .WAV file is specified, the Tone 1 Period in Secs and the Tone Cycles fields enable you to set the duration of play and the number of times the .WAV file is to be played (respectively) once an alarm has been triggered.
When specifying a sound file, you must enter its full name and extension (e.g. MyAlarmSound.WAV) . VTS searches for the specified .WAV file in your application directory. If the .WAV file is not found, the alarm will revert back to using the tones as specified in the Tone 1 Frequency in Hz and Tone 2 Frequency in Hz fields.
The Priority Descriptor field enables you to enter a short text description (no more than 81 characters in length) that will be used to identify the priority of those alarms associated with this alarm priority tag. This description will appear in filtering drop-down lists, and in the alarm list, wherever alarm priority is referenced.
The Tone Cycles field enables you to specify the number of times an alarm sound (either tones or a specified .WAV file) is played once an alarm has been triggered.
If you are configuring this alarm priority tag to play tones, the Tone Cycles field enables you to indicate the number of times the alarm tones specified by Tone 1 Freq in Hz and Tone 2 Freq in Hz will cycle (where one cycle is one instance of the first tone sounding for the amount of time specified in Tone 1 Period in seconds, followed by one instance of the second tone for the amount of time specified in Tone 2 Period in seconds).
If you are configuring this alarm priority tag to play a .WAV file rather than alarm tones, the Tone Cycles field enables you to specify the number of times the .WAV file is played (whereas the Tone 1 Period in seconds field below enables you to indicate the duration of play.)
The Tone Cycles field can be set to one of the following values:
• -1 if you wish the tones or the specified .WAV file to cycle infinitely (default)
• 0 if you do not require any alarm sound
• A number representing the number of times you wish the first and second tone or the .WAV file to cycle
Note that, if alarm speech is enabled, the first option (-1 to play the tone indefinitely) will not be available. If this is the current value when alarm speech is enabled, the tone cycles field will automatically be set to 0.
A checkbox to enable or disable spoken alarms. Please refer to Configuring Spoken Alarms for the instructions to make this feature work on your system.
Similar to Tone Cycles, but applies only to spoken alarms. If both the tone cycles and the alarm annunciation cycles are set to non-zero values, then the alarm tone will sound first for the set number of cycles, followed by the spoken alarm.