View of the Alarm and Event Screen

Open the alert or the event panel through the System Management -> Diagnostics tab:

Figure 1. System Management - Diagnostics Tab

CAUTION: If the description of a data point element is inherited from the master data point, the description cannot be used for the filtering of the alert screen. In order to use the filtering, copy the data point description to the instances!

CAUTION: You cannot open the alert panel via a module whose name contains blanks.

CAUTION: Under Linux, it could be necessary to use the function stayOnTop() after a delay (0,1) in order to open the alert and event panel.

Click the Alert or Event panel button. The alert or event panel is opened with the default configuration. The alert and event panels can also be opened simultaneously. The following figure shows the alert and event panel with a specific configuration in the split mode. This configuration shows alert and event tables simultaneously.

The alert and event panel comprises two tables placed vertically above each other. Alerts are shown in the upper table and events in the lower table. The configuration of the panel can be changed through AES Config in the bottom right corner of the panel. The height of both tables can be changed by means of the slider on the right side. Under Linux, this slider does not exist and you use buttons for changing the table heights by scrolling the dividing line up or down. Click on the slider and drag it up or down to change the size of the tables. The two buttons above and below the slider maximize the selected table to full size. Another click on the button restores the original proportion of both tables. In this way, it is possible to use the alert and event panel in the full screen mode with one table only to display a maximum amount of data although both tables are active.

Note: The "Draggable" attribute is set for both tables (top table: Alarm table and the bottom table: Event table). Therefore, you can implement your own Drag & Drop actions for AES row(s). You can, for example, use the Accept drops " attribute for a text field or another graphics object and drag and drop an alarm to the graphics object at runtime.

Note: The fore and background colors of the last active or not active alarm can be set blinking in both the open and closed mode of the alert and event panel (see also as_activeAlarmBackCol, as_activeAlarmForeCol, as well as as_alarmBackCol und as_alarmForeCol in the chapter User interface).

Note: Using [ui] as_descriptionMode = 1 you can define that if a data point description does not exist, the alias is shown in the alert view (see figure above). If an alias does not exist either, the data point name is shown.

CAUTION: If new columns are added in the configuration panel, they are not visible automatically. The columns have to be set visible. See the Visible tab in the chapter Properties of the alert table.

Note: The alert and event panel is restarted after a language switch.

Note: In a multilingual project the alert screen filters for alarms in the current UI language.

CAUTION: If you query a huge amount of alarm historic data, the data manager might show the following error message: "Send buffer limit exceeded, closing connection to (SYS: 1 Ui -num 7 CONN: 2) @ localhost, [PeerItcIOHandler::sendCall]". The module VISION looses the connection to the Data manager and establishes the connection anew. No answer is returned for the query and the progress bar is shown. Further queries are not executed in the AEScreen anymore. Close the panel and open it again.

The lowest part of the alert and event panel is intended for displaying and changing settings:

Figure 3. Configuration of the Alarm and Event Panel

This area includes two tabs. The current displayed values/properties for a query are shown behind one tab (for the upper and lower table, respectively). Depending on the table focus, the right tab can be active as well.

All relevant information of a query in compressed form is shown behind these tabs. Furthermore, you can start and stop a query for the specific table with the two buttons at the bottom. The mode is reflected also in the tab heading as - Running, Current, Stopped. You can acknowledge all visible alerts and open the properties panel for changing the query parameters through this panel.

In the left text field, you can see the number of alerts as well as the number of unacknowledged alerts. The first number represents the number of alerts and the second the number of unacknowledged alerts.

The second tab is visible or invisible depending on the configuration. In the standard view, the second tab is used for events with the same functionality as the first tab.

CAUTION: If you sort by time in the alert and event table, the sorting works only when the time is displayed in the format Year/Month/Day/Hour/Minute/Second.

Note: When you choose a configuration from the AES Config combo box, querying the alerts is not started automatically. The query can, of course, be started via the "Start" button. Otherwise, the query is started only when you confirm the query with the OK button in the property panel. This enables you to modify a query before executing it.

Note: The size of the tables is not saved when switching languages under Linux and the 50/50 proportion is restored.

Saves the content of the alert and event tables. The settings are saved in <proj_path>/data.

Prints the table

Note: For printing the columns are adjusted to the print area. Therefore it may happen that the content of some columns is not completely displayed on the printout.

Starts the query of the alerts or events (what query is started depends on the selected table). If the connection between two distributed system is, a new server was added or the DIST Manager has been stopped, then the play button in the alert and event panel is displayed with a blue border. Thereby the user knows that the data shown is possibly not up-to-date and the view in the table should be updated (by a click on the play button).

Note: When you click on the start button, a stop is automatically executed before the query starts.

Stops the query.

Use the button to scroll backward in time. The button is only displayed in the closed mode.

Use the button to scroll forward in time. The button is only displayed in the closed mode.

This button is displayed only if your query is explicitly connected to other systems or the "All available systems" check box in the "Filter system" tab of the property panel is activated. The button shows connection information for the different systems. The numbers of connections to the systems are given in the text field. The first number represents the number of the actual connections and is followed by the number of the configured connections. The asterisk indicates that you allow connection to all available systems.

A click on the "..." button opens the connection information panel:

The property panel (see button below) allows configuring relevant changes in the view at runtime. You can specify what query is started, what mode is active and what filter settings should be used. You can also set, for example, the table inactive, specify the types of the data point elements for the upper and lower table. For detailed information about the property panel, see the chapter properties of the alert panel.

Opens the property panel (see properties of the alert panel) for configuring queries in the alert and event panel. This panel looks differently for alerts and events. This panel allows specifying new content (what data should be queried).

The content of a newly created configuration is specified in its own panel. The panel AES table configuration (see table configuration) opens through the AES settings button behind the Settings tab of the System Management. Through the table configuration, you define what the alert and event tables should look like, for example, what columns should be displayed.

The available configurations (the default configurations as well as the configurations created via the AES table configuration panel) can be selected from the AES Config. combo box. There are four configured configurations for the view of the alert and event panel by default (these cannot be edited or even deleted):

aes_default: Shows the alert and event panel in split mode (see figure "Alert and Event panel").
aes_alerts: Shows only the alert table in full screen mode (events are deactivated).
aes_events: Shows only the event table in full screen mode (alerts are deactivated).
aes_command: Commands from a visualization and control system are generally transferred to the periphery. For this purpose, own command data points are used (see chapter state signal simulation). This configuration shows all command data point groups with users.

To change the view of the alert and event panel, select a configuration from the combo box.

Note: You can scroll up and down the list of alarms by using the PgUp and PgDn keys of the keyboard.

Close the alert and event panel by means of the close button. The OnlineHelp button is located next to the Close button.

Note: If the AEScreen becomes overloaded, the AEScreen first tries to display all values. If the load becomes too high for the AES, values are buffered. If the number of buffered values is exceeded, values are discarded. The following error message is shown in the log viewer:

WCCOANV (3), 2005.04.26 22:45:45.751, CTRL, SEVERE, 114, Values were discarded, Panel: vision\aes\AEScreen.pnl []
         Object: 1 [table_top]
         Script: EventInitialize
         File: C:\Siemens\Automation\WinCC_OA\3.10\scripts\libs\aes.ctl
         Line: 9813, aes_workCB, function has 1000 pending runs -> DISCARDING!

The AEScreen recognizes the overload. A warning is displayed in the AEScreen. The AEScreen is stopped automatically. AEScreen does not display any new values until the overload has passed. Therefore, there are two timeouts: MINCB_TIME (hardcoded = 2 sec) and MAXCB_TIME (hardcoded = 5 sec). This means that the AEScreen is stopped for a minimum of two and a maximum of five seconds. The AEScreen is restarted after MAXCB_TIME. If the AEScreen is overloaded and the buffer limit (maxBcmBufferSize) has been exceeded, the Event Manager automatically closes the connection to the VISION and the VISION is stopped:

##########
        WCCILevent (0), 2005.04.27 10:16:16.756, SYS, SEVERE, 39, Connection lost, Send buffer limit exceeded, closing connection to (SYS: 1 Ui -num 3 CONN: 1) @ localhost, [PeerItcIOHandler::sendCall]
        WCCOANV (3), 2005.04.27 10:16:16.766, SYS, INFO, 39, Connection lost, MAN: (SYS: 1 Event -num 0 CONN: 1)
        ##########

Context menu

The context menu simplifies the use of the tables. It is opened by right-clicking on a table. The menu is built up dynamically and shows different options depending on the options that can be executed. The menu provides the following options:

Acknowledge: Acknowledges the currently selected alert in the table.
Insert comment: Allows inserting a comment for the selected alert.
Process panel: Opens a panel that was configured for the alert handling of the data point element. There are two options: It is either opened as childpanel or in the appropriate module (this is only working if there exists a panel topology).
Trend: Shows the trend of the chosen DPE (provided archiving was activated).
Details: Detail information of the selected alert is shown in a panel. For sum alerts, all alerts are shown in the panel. Note that detail information of a sum alert is only shown in the current time range (see properties of the alert panel for current mode).
Change priority/alertclass: Opens the panel for changing the alert class at runtime. This option is only shown in the current time range and only then when RDB is used and the alert is an alert with discrete values.
Show help information: This can be a panel, a HTML file or a text file. Which panel is opened can be defined when configuring the alert handling of the data point element.
Demo: Allows you to implement customized menu items for the Alarmscreen.
The winccoa_path/scripts/libs/aescustomizations.ctl contains a sample implementation and a description.

To see the menu item, set the variable local const demo from false to true in the aescustomizations.ctl.