Alarm Area Filtering
What is Alarm Area Filtering?
Alarm area filtering enables you to hide alarms that have been configured with one or more specified areas on a given workstation.
Why Should I Use Alarm Area Filtering?
Alarm area filtering is typically employed in applications where some users do not need to be aware of some alarms (e.g. in a large plant where alarms belonging to equipment in a certain plant section is beyond the responsibility of the operators in other sections).
How Does Alarm Area Filtering Differ From Tag Area Filtering and Realm Area Filtering?
Alarm area filtering hides alarms associated with specific areas on the Alarm page on a given workstation; however, the alarm tags will still be visible to developers who have access to the Tag Browser and other application development tools (unlike tag area filtering, alarm area filtering does not prevent alarm tags from loading.) Tag area filtering prevents tags that have been configured with specific areas from loading on a given workstation. Realm area filtering hides tags configured with specific areas from given users according to the group to which their security account belongs, and is not limited to any one workstation (i.e. the user may logon to any workstation and they will still only have access to the tags permissible under their group).
Where is Alarm Area Filtering Configured?
Alarm area filtering is best achieved using workstation.ini files. Workstation.ini files are simple text files that can contain the same sections, variables, and settings as those that can be found in your application's Config.ini file; however, because these workstation.ini files are named identically to the PC to which they apply (e.g. MyPC.ini or Workstation09.ini), their settings only affect a single PC (unlike Config.ini, whose settings affect all PCs running the application).
How do I Configure Alarm Area Filtering?
The following elements are involved in alarm area filtering:
• A workstation.ini file named for the PC to which it should apply (e.g. MyPC.ini), and
• The [Alarm_Manager] section and subsequent area declarations.
Workstation.ini File
For each PC to which you wish to apply tag area filtering you must create a workstation.ini file. To create a workstation.ini file:
1. Create a simple text file that is named for the PC to which its settings should apply, and which has the .INI extension (e.g. MyPC.ini).
2. Save this text file to the application directory on the applicable PC.
Note: A PC will only obey the workstation.ini file that carries its name; therefore, each PC running your application may have a copy of all workstation.ini files in their respective application directories without adversely affecting your application.
Once you have created your workstation.ini file, you must configure it appropriately for alarm area filtering as indicated below.
[Alarm_Manager] Section
The [Alarm_Manager] section is the workstation.ini section heading under which you may specify which alarm areas should be visible when the application is run.
The instructions below will guide you through the process of successfully configuring the [Alarm_Manager] section.
1. Create or open a WorkstationName.ini file, where WorkstationName is the name of the computer for which the alarm list should be filtered.
2. Add a section named [Alarm_Manager].
3. In this section, enter AlarmArea followed by an equals sign, followed by the name of the alarm area to be displayed (as in the following example).
Note: Unlike tag area filtering, alarm area filtering allows the asterisk wildcard character. For example, to view all alarms whose area ends with "1", you could enter *1 for the AlarmArea variable. To view all alarms whose area begins with "a", you could enter a* for the AlarmArea variable.
[Alarm_Manager]
; The alarm areas to show
AlarmArea = North
AlarmArea = South
Note: Once you have completed the configuration of your workstation.ini file(s), save the files and restart your application. (Workstation.ini files like Config.ini files are only read when the application initially runs.)
Some examples of different alarm area filtering scenarios are provided in the sections that follow.
Alarm Area Filtering Example
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