ci-server-engineer/knowledge/manuals/IM36K10C20-01EN.md

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manual: IM 36K10C20-01EN title: Engineering Module - Alarms edition: 4th Edition, Feb. 2026 (R1.05); content unchanged since the 3rd Edition, Sep. 2023 (R1.03): full text diff 2026-10-09 found only contact information and one grammar fix in §A12 version: R1.05 (first written for R1.03) status: R1.05 - dataset definitions (ITEM_DF alarm fields, ALARM_ACK_DF, ALARM_AOI_DF, ALARM_ASA_DF, ALARM_FO_DF, ALARM_FU_DF, ALARM_PRIORITY_DF, STATUS_DF) identical to R1.03, ALH storage group checked and the sample's ack type, AOI, ASA and item alarm loaded with 0 errors on the R1.05 test server (2026-10-08/09; load check only); forms and alarm behaviour not re-tested on R1.05. R1.03 - item alarm settings, acknowledgement types, areas of interest, alarm selection areas, delay/repeat verified by quick load on CI-Eng-Sample 2026-10-01; Engineering Module forms, overviews, grouping, shelving, link display, notifications and external/Vnet alarms from docs

Engineering Module - Alarms (R1.05)

R1.05 changes: none in substance (revision table and full text diff, 2026-10-09; §A12 only "Output" → "Outputs" in the report table, which still names ALM_ATTS_CUR / ALM_ATRS_HIS, ISS-043). Related R1.04+ functions documented elsewhere: acknowledgement with reason and approver from a display (C50 §2.22, §4.12, ISS-099; skill alarm-management, tasks/item-alarming.md §4.1). External alarm dataset EXTERNAL_ALARM_DF unchanged (its data access server got an internal update fix). The ALH lifetime of 52 weeks is the installed default (§A7, ISS-135).

How alarms are set up in the Engineering Module (Configuration > Alarming and the item form) and what the operator sees. Part A = item-based alarms, part B = external alarms (OPC UA servers, CENTUM VP). Kernel internals: IM36K10L15-01EN.md. Section numbers refer to the manual. Dataset/field names below were checked on the installed system.

A1. Functions (§A1)

Detection (limit check, OPC A&E), management (acknowledgement, first-out groups, alarm collections, history), display/operation (current/historical/shelved overviews, alarm sound, AOI and ASA filters, shelving, alarm link display), external notification (e-mail, SMS), reporting. A jump NORMAL → HIGH HIGH gives only the HIGH HIGH alarm.

A2. Item form, alarm fields (§A2)

Form	Field (ITEM_DF)	Meaning
General	Alarming (ALARMING)	Show/notify this item's alarms
Item management	Alarm inhibit (ALARM_INHIBIT)	Suppress display and notification
Limits and filtering	HIGH_HIGH_LIMIT, HIGH_LIMIT, LOW_LIMIT, LOW_LOW_LIMIT, deadband	Status by value; deadband for the way back
Alarming	OPC AE alarm detection	Alarm from an OPC A&E source; no limit check then
	Acknowledgment type (ACKN_TYPE)	ALARM_ACK_DF name; none = automatic
	Alarm collection (COL_GROUP), First-out group (FO_GROUP), First-out item (FO_ITEM)	One group per item; never both kinds
	Delay time (DELAY), Repeat time (REPEAT), seconds, 0 = off
	Up to 6 per-item status overrides: status, alarm state, priority, alarm text, colour, mnemonic, shelve enable (ITEM_STAT_n, ALARM_STATE_n, PRIORITY_n, ALARM_TEXT_n, ALARM_COLOR_n, MNEMONIC_n, SHELVE_ENABLED_n)
Areas of interest	Area 1–16 (AOI_1 … AOI_16)	Same AOI not twice

• Changing alarm settings re-evaluates the item even without a status change. Verified: a dssqld -m on ALARMING, DELAY or REPEAT produced a NORMAL event; when the item was back to normal but still unacknowledged, this new event was acknowledged automatically and the alarm left ALARM_CURRENT.
• Delayed alarm (verified, DELAY 5): DIRECT at once, DELAY 5 s later (same original time). The current alarm overview shows DIRECT only if wfladi.sup EVENTS includes DIRECT (installed: not included; add it and restart, §A2.4).
• Repeated alarm (verified, REPEAT 10): REPEAT events every 10 s after the delay, RPT_COUNT 1, 2, …; repeats can be acknowledged only in the historical overview.

A3. Alarm overviews (§A3)

• Current (standing + unacknowledged), historical, shelved. Columns include alarm time, section 1/2, tag, sub-item, alarm type (NORMAL, ALARM, ACKNOW, DELAY, DIRECT, FIRSTUP, INFO), text, priority, acknowledgement, value, quality, OPC fields and C… combined fields, item name, acknowledged by, original time, location, area nn, collection, priority text, CI attributes. Keep to 20–30 columns (throughput, memory).
• Priority text: Alarming > Alarm priority labels (ALARM_PRIORITY_DF, 0–15, ≤ 31 ASCII characters; empty on the test system).
• CI attributes (vendor attributes from OPC AE/UA client settings) are chosen on the overview's Attributes tab; listed under Alarming > Alarm attributes.
• Operations (right-click): acknowledge (also the check box; current overview only), block, shelve, link display, export (CSV/XML, all displayed rows), filters (condition; date normal or time-interval mode).

A5. Acknowledgement (§A5)

Unacknowledged alarms blink; acknowledgement is recorded as ACKNOW in history. The setting is per alarm state transition (4 states × Ack/Nack × 4 states = 32 check boxes = one acknowledgement type), not per item status — so give statuses that need different handling different alarm states. Form: Alarming > Acknowledgement type; name and External alarm flag cannot be changed; delete only when unused. Predefined MANUAL: every new alarm state manual; N → N automatic; Ax → N automatic only if Ax was acknowledged.

Quick load (verified, CI-Eng-Sample 01b_alarm_df.qli): ALARM_ACK_DF fields NAME, DESCRIPTION (max 78 characters), EAL_ACK, <from><A|N>_<to> (e.g. A2A_N) — see L15 summary §5. Acknowledge from a program or script: dssqld -m on ALARM_CURRENT with NAME (the <time>/<id> key) and ACK 1 (verified; same rule as the ODBC known issue in IM 36K01A50).

A6. Alarm grouping (§A6)

• First-out group (Alarming > First-out group; ALARM_FO_DF: DELAY internal, EXT_DELAY external, parents PAR_GRP_1…9): first-out items vs continuation items; while a first-out item is in alarm, new continuation alarms are hidden. Internal delay keeps the group active after the first-out items clear. Parents make children external-active (whole subtree, several parents allowed; no loops). Rename = copy; delete only when unused.
• Alarm collection (Alarming > Alarm collections; ALARM_FU_DF): group status = alarm × acknowledged × reset (8 statuses, numbers 9, 128–135, e.g. AL_NAK_NRS 132). Optional numeric status item (counts alarms; its own alarming shows the group), Boolean acknowledgement item and reset item (0→1, 1→0 or any), reset Manual/Automatic (use Automatic if reset is not needed), default ack type, node, first-up alarming (first alarm shown as FIRSTUP, priority offset −15…15), Acknowledge group too. Installed fields: NAME, NODE, PRIO_OFFS_1UP, RESET_TYPE, ACKN_TYPE, RESET_TRNS, ACKN_TRNS, EAL_ACKN_TYPE, FIRSTUP_MON, LOOPB_ACK, RESET_ITEM, ACKN_ITEM, STATUS_ITEM.

A7. Alarm history (§A7)

Storage group ALH (type Alarm): rollover 1 day; the manual says lifetime 2 days by default — the test system shows 52 weeks (ISS-036), and so does the fresh install on the R1.05 test server (2026-10-09): 52 weeks is the installed default (ISS-135). Set the lifetime to the required period; details in the historical manual (phase 9).

A8. Alarm filters (§A8)

Filter	Overview	Sound	Notification	User filter
Unit / item identification	yes	yes	no	no
Area of interest	yes	yes	no	no
Alarm selection area	yes	yes	yes	yes

• Area of interest (Alarming > Areas of Interest; ALARM_AOI_DF NAME, DESCRIPTION, NUMBER assigned automatically): a label, up to 16 per item.
• Alarm selection area (Alarming > Alarm selection areas; ALARM_ASA_DF EXPRESSION, COMPILE, LISTING, VALID_EXPRESSION): <keyword> <operator> <constant> with spaces around the operator. Keywords ACTOR_ID, AOI, COLLNAM, COND_NAME, EAL_ID, EAL_NAME, EVENT_CAT, INST, ITMID (node,group,number,0,0), ITMNAM, ITMSUB, PRIO, QC, SECTION, SOURCE, SUBC_NAME, UNIT; operators = != < > <= >= | & (by type); strings in double quotes with * / ? wildcards; and / or evaluated left to right (no precedence), parentheses, /* */ comments. section = "A.B" matches items directly in A.B, not in sub-sections. An invalid expression filters out every alarm.
• Load (R1.05 test server, ISS-136): an alarm overview filtered by an ASA on SECTION or UNIT kept the storage process ALH at a full CPU core and made every client's alarm lists time out. On shared or production servers filter overviews by item name or AOI instead.
• Verified: COMPILE 1 on load compiles the expression; the export then shows COMPILE 0, the numbered LISTING with ALC-I-CMP_SUCC and VALID_EXPRESSION 1. Without spaces (SECTION="…") the load reports an error but the record is stored with ALC-E-UNKNOWN_TOK in LISTING and VALID_EXPRESSION 0 — check the listing after loading.

A9. Shelving (§A9)

Shelve standing alarms from the current overview; they move to the shelved overview until unshelved, back to normal (auto-unshelve), or the shelf time expires (marked, not unshelved). Shelf types: Static (re-alarm shows normally) or Dynamic (re-alarm within the max shelf time is shelved again), max shelf time 180–43200 s. Shelf groups: which alarm states (A1–A3) and up to 16 shelf types; assigned to users (Authorisation > Users, Alarming tab). Overview component: Operator can shelve alarms (+ multiple). System-wide shelving: asbman.sup SYS_WIDE_SHELF (installed N). Shelving history needs the audit option.

A10–A12. Link display, notification, reporting

• Alarm link display (Alarming > Alarm link display): entity (item/EAL, wildcards * +)
  • user (wildcards) → display name; first matching entry wins; overview component option Operator can activate alarm related display (shortcut, layout, frame).
• Notification: alnsmtp.sup / alnsms.sup (restart CI Core after changes); Alarm notification users (SMTP or SMS, address, retries, Receive clear, active, weekly schedule), Alarm notification destinations (ASA or all, callback item toggling on success, order All/Sequential, delay, repeat, retries, retry timeout, up to 32 users); Send message for a test (subject "Alarm notification: Manual message"). SMTP without authentication only.
• Reporting: datasets ALARM_CURRENT, ALARM_CHRONO; default reports ALARM_COUNT, ALARM_CURRENT, ALARM_EXT_CURR, ALARM_HISTORY, ALARM_SHELVE (audit option), ALM_ATTS_CUR, ALM_ATRS_HIS (phase 11).

B1. External alarms from OPC UA servers (§B1)

• OPC UA A&C messages with a condition type become external alarms when an EAL is defined (under the root, a section or an object: External alarm > Add; dataset EXTERNAL_ALARM_DF). Others are stored as INFO events. Alarm time = time in the source; acknowledgement is sent to the server and reflected back.
• EAL form: name (≤ 40 bytes without section, not renamable), station, alarm template, condition node ID (namespace ≤ 127, node ID ≤ 383 bytes; not twice; not NonExclusiveLimitAlarmType), OPC visible/read/write, OPC Manual Reset, ack type (none = FULLMANUAL_EAL), collection, first-out (+ First-out EAL), shelve, process areas 1–999, diagnostic, delay/repeat 0–65535 s, severity→priority mapping, areas 1–16.
• Supported like items: ack type (Inactive/Active matrix), diagnostic, collections, first-out, delay, repeat, AOI, sound, ASA (EAL_NAME, EAL_ID), shelving, link display, notification, priority change on ack. No alarm inhibit.
• Overview columns map to OPC UA fields (Message, Severity, AckedState, SourceName, EventType, ConditionName, ClientUserId, EventId, ConditionId, BranchId, ActiveState.TransitionTime).
• Appendix 2: changing delay/repeat/collection/ack type while an alarm stands behaves differently for EALs (timers adjusted, ack state kept, description/AOI changes only for new alarms) than for items (DELAY/REPEAT replaced by ALARM, AUTOMATIC → MANUAL makes the alarm unacknowledged, changes applied at once).

B2. CENTUM VP (Vnet) alarms (§B2)

Alarms from CENTUM VP over Vnet/IP (RGS with VAGW) as EALs; acknowledgement in CI Server is a batch acknowledgement of the function block in CENTUM VP (system alarms only locally); manual reset of system alarms without recovery message; at CI Server start only process alarm messages are restored (time = PC start, unacknowledged); no AOF or operation groups (AOF only as CI attribute). CI Exchange for CENTUM VP generates the EALs (IM36K10L55-01EN.md); review them and configure the overviews afterwards. Not available on the test system.