Alarm Table+

Overview

When to use it

Use this symbol when you need to:

• Show the alarms of many assets in one table, for example every line of a plant.
• Raise Warning, Minor, Major or Critical alarms from limits that you set in the symbol.
• Let operators acknowledge alarms and hear a sound for the urgent ones.
• Review when past alarms started and ended, and how long they lasted.

Choose Events Table+ to list event frames that your PI System already creates. Alarm Table+ evaluates conditions itself, in the browser.

Before you begin

• Use assets with at least one numeric, digital or string attribute that has a limit or a state you want to alarm on.
• History mode needs recorded values for the attribute. Current mode works with calculated attributes as well.
• Alarm Table+ does not write to AF or the PI Data Archive. Acknowledgements stay in the browser (see Troubleshooting and limitations).

Add and set up the symbol

1. Select Alarm Table+ in the PI Vision symbol gallery and drag an attribute of an asset, such as Speed of one production line, onto the display.
2. To cover more assets, drag more assets onto the symbol, or right-click the symbol and select Search Criteria....
3. Right-click the symbol and select Configure Alarm Table....
4. Under Attributes, select the attribute and set Source Type to Alarm (1).
5. Set the operator to > (2), Value to 50 (3) and Severity to Minor (4).
6. Close the configuration pane. The table shows one row for every asset whose value is above 50.

A row disappears when its value returns below the limit.

Common tasks

Raise alarms at several severity levels

Use this when one attribute should raise a Minor alarm at one value and a Critical alarm at a higher one.

1. Right-click the symbol, select Configure Alarm Table... and open Attributes.
2. Select Add Condition (1).
3. In the new condition, set the operator and enter the Value (2), for example > and 60.
4. Set Severity (3), for example Critical.
5. Optionally, enter a Message. When it is empty, the row shows the condition, for example Value > 60.

When several conditions are true, the row shows the most severe one. In the picture, a value of 62 matches both conditions and appears once, as Critical. Rows with a Critical alarm show a bell in the sound column.

Review past alarms

Use this to see when alarms started and ended, for example during a shift review. History mode builds one row per alarm period from the recorded values.

1. Set the display time range to the period you want to review.
2. Right-click the symbol, select Configure Alarm Table... and open Data Retrieval.
3. Set Mode to History (1).
4. Choose how Event Time Range (2) matches alarms to the time range: Events Active in Time Range, Events Entirely in Time Range, Events Starting in Time Range or Events Ending in Time Range.
5. Optionally, set Event State (3) to In Progress or Completed, and turn Descending (4) on to list the newest alarm first.

The table gets the columns Start Time, End Time, Duration, Start Value and End Value. An alarm that is still active shows In Progress as its end time. Max. Rows (default 1000) limits the number of rows, and Max. Raw Values (default 10000) limits how many recorded values are read for each attribute. When a limit cuts the result, the symbol writes a notice to the PI Vision log, so raise the limit if alarm periods seem to be missing.

Filter and sort the alarms

Use this on a large table, so that operators can narrow the list to the severity they act on.

1. Right-click the symbol, select Configure Alarm Table..., expand General and open Header.
2. Set Filter to On. A filter field appears under every column header.
3. Close the pane. In the Severity filter field (1), tick the severities to keep (2), for example Major and Critical.
4. To narrow by value or time, type a minimum and a maximum in the Value or Time filter fields.

Only the ticked severities stay in the table. Severity sorts by priority rather than alphabetically, so the most severe alarms come first.

Group the alarms and show counts

Use this when an operator wants to see how many alarms of each severity are open, and to work through them group by group.

1. Right-click the symbol, select Configure Alarm Table..., expand General and open Columns.
2. Set Summary Bar to On.
3. Open Grouping. Select Severity in the list (2) and select + Add. The column appears in the list above (1).
4. To keep the groups open, turn Auto Expand (3) on.

The rows split into collapsible groups such as Severity: Critical (2). The summary bar above the table counts the alarms in total, by severity, and by acknowledgement state.

Require acknowledgement and highlight open alarms

Use this when operators must acknowledge the important alarms and see at once which ones are still open.

1. Right-click the symbol, select Configure Alarm Table... and open Acknowledge.
2. Keep Enabled on. Optionally, change Text (1), the label shown on an acknowledged row.
3. Set Required From (2) to the lowest severity that must be acknowledged, for example Major.
4. Set Highlight Rows (3) to On, and choose the Acknowledged and Unacknowledged colors (4).

Rows at or above Required From show an Acknowledge button and the unacknowledged color. Less severe rows show Not Required. Select the menu icon (1) in the Acknowledgement column header to see Acknowledge All (the menu is shown in the picture, not selected). Rows that need acknowledgement (2) are highlighted, rows below the threshold (3) are not.

Important: An acknowledgement is stored in the browser, not written to AF or the PI System. It does not reach other workstations.

Choose and rename the columns

Use this to show only what operators act on, and to use your site's words for the headings.

1. Right-click the symbol, select Configure Alarm Table..., expand General and open Columns.
2. Clear the check box of each column to hide (1), for example Attribute and Sound.
3. Type a new heading in the field of a column (2), for example Speed for Value.
4. Use the arrow buttons to move a column (3).
5. Select Reset to return to the default columns.

The table shows the columns in the new order with the new headings.

Use the symbol

• Hover an asset name to see its full path.
• Sort by selecting a column header. Filter with the fields under the header when Filter is on.
• Acknowledge selects the button in a row. Acknowledge All acknowledges every alarm that needs it and is currently listed, so filter first to limit it to one area. Acknowledging stops the sound once no unacknowledged alarm that meets Play From remains. It writes only to the browser.
• Time and Value show the reading that raised the alarm. In History mode, the table shows start, end, duration, start value and end value.
• Empty table: no condition is true at the moment, or the filter hides every row.

Configure the symbol

Right-click the symbol and select Configure Alarm Table.... The pane has the sections General, Data Retrieval, Acknowledge, Sound, Assets, Attributes, Numbers, Style and Export Data. The right-click menu also offers Export Data..., Search Criteria... and Add Multi-State....

General

Data Retrieval

Acknowledge

Sound

Assets and Attributes

Add Multi-State... colors a Data attribute by its states. Apply to Row colors the whole row.

Numbers, style and export

Troubleshooting and limitations

Limitation: Alarm Table+ evaluates the conditions in the browser. It does not create event frames, send notifications or write acknowledgements to AF or the PI System.

Limitation: Acknowledgements and active alarm times are kept in the browser for the display and symbol, 90 days by default. Clearing the browser data removes them.