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In CODESYS, the alarm management is a powerful object for creating and managing alarms. You can group alarms and set the acknowledgement behavior individually. The alarm display in the visualization can also be customized.

The “Alarm Table” and “Alarm Banner” visualization elements are available for displaying and processing alarms. The alarm table lists the alarm texts. The alarm banner is a simplified version of the alarm table. It visualizes a single alarm only. However, by adding scroll elements you can allow for switching the display from one active alarm to another active alarm.

⮫ “Alarm Management”

Creating an alarm table

Requirement: In your project, alarms are defined in alarm groups and they are assigned to an alarm class. The following instructions are based on the example that is described in the "Configuring alarm management" chapter.

  1. Open the visualization editor.

  2. Drag the “Alarm Table” element from the “Alarm Manager” group to the visualization editor.

    The “Alarm Table” visualization element is visible in the editor.

  3. In the “Alarm configuration” / “Alarm groups” property, define the alarm groups that you want to visualize. Click into the value field.

    The “Select Alarm Group” dialog opens.

  4. Clear the “All” check box and select the “PartsDeficit” alarm group. Add the group to the selected alarm groups by clicking the _visu_img_add_selected_alarm_group button.

  5. In the “Alarm configuration” / “Alarm classes” property, define the alarm classes that you want to visualize. Click into the value field.

    The “Select Alarm Class” dialog opens.

  6. Clear the “All” check box and select the “PartsDeficit” alarm class. Add the alarm class to the selected alarm classes by clicking the _visu_img_add_selected_alarm_group button.

  7. Add an additional column. Click the “Columns” / “Create New” button.

    CODESYS adds the column “[2]” to the properties. The “Symbol” column is added to the table.

  8. Select data type “State” for column [2].

    The default column heading “State” is shown in the table.

  9. Name the “Column heading” column "Status".

  10. Specify the appearance of the selected table cell. Set the “Selection” / “Selection color” to “Green”.

  11. In the “Control variables” / “Confirm selection” property, specify the variable ‎bQuitAlarm‎ for confirming messages.

  12. Adjust the other properties to your requirements. See the "Alarm table" visualization element for a complete description of the properties.

⮫ “Visualization Element 'Alarm Table'”

Inserting elements for acknowledging alarms

In CODESYS, predefined buttons are available for controlling the alarms in an alarm table.

Requirement: An “Alarm table” element exists in the visualization.

  1. Select the visualization element in the editor.

  2. Click “Visualization  Insert elements for acknowledging alarms”.

    The “Alarm Table Wizard” dialog opens.

  3. Click “OK” to accept all settings.

    Four buttons are added for controlling the alarm table.

    _visu_alarm_table_online

⮫ “Visualization Element 'Alarm Table'”

Creating an alarm banner

Requirement: In your project, alarms are defined in alarm groups and they are assigned to an alarm class. The following statement is based on the example that is described in the "Configuring alarm management" chapter.

The alarm banner displays an active alarm in online mode. If there are multiple active alarms, filtering takes place by means of the filter criteria set in the alarm banner (newest for filter criterion "Priority" and most important for filter criterion "Newest"). See the instructions below for adding scroll elements in order to switch the display between multiple alarms.

  1. Open the visualization editor.

  2. Drag the “Alarm banner” element from the “Alarm manager” group to the visualization editor.

    The “Alarm banner” visualization element is visible in the editor.

  3. In the “Alarm configuration” / “Alarm groups” property, define the alarm groups that you want to visualize. Click into the value field.

    The “Select Alarm Group” dialog opens.

  4. Clear the “All” check box and select the “PartsDeficit” alarm group. Add the group to the selected alarm groups by clicking the _visu_img_add_selected_alarm_group button.

  5. In the “Alarm configuration” / “Alarm classes” property, define the alarm classes that you want to visualize. Click into the value field.

    The “Select Alarm Class” dialog opens.

  6. Clear the “All” check box and select the “PartsDeficit” alarm class. Add the alarm class to the selected alarm classes by clicking the _visu_img_add_selected_alarm_group button.

  7. Set the “Alarm configuration” / “Filter criterion” property to “Newest”.

    In online mode, the newest alarm message is always shown.

  8. Add an additional column. Click the “Columns” / “Create new” button.

    CODESYS adds the column “[2]” to the properties. The “Symbol” column is added to the table.

  9. Select data type “State” for column [2].

    The default column heading “State” is shown in the table.

  10. In the “Confirmation variable” property, specify the variable ‎bQuitAlarm‎ for confirming messages.

⮫ “Visualization Element 'Alarm Banner'”

Adding elements for scrolling the active alarms

Elements can be added to an alarm banner for switching the display between the individual active alarms. You can control the scrolling with visu-local variables or application variables.

  1. Select the added "Alarm banner" visualization element. Click “Insert Elements for Scrolling Alarms” in the context menu.

    The “Alarm Banner Wizard” opens.

  2. Select the element type for the scroll elements: “Button” or “Rectangle”.

  3. Activate the action(s) for which a control should be inserted: “Scroll to next alarm”, “Scroll to previous alarm”.

  4. Specify a Boolean variable that gets the value ‎TRUE‎ when multiple active alarms are present. If you have already configured a project variable in the element properties, then it is also specified here in the wizard. Otherwise CODESYS automatically creates the visu-local variable “xMultipleAlarmsActive”.

  5. In the next step, check the configuration of the element properties of the extended alarm banner.

  6. Select the alarm banner element and look at the section “Handling of multiple active alarms” in the “Properties” view. You have two options:

  7. Option 1: The display should switch automatically. Activate the “Switch automatically” property.

    Now, in “Every N seconds” you define the time interval after which the display in the alarm banner in online mode should switch to the next alarm.

  8. Option 2: The display should be controlled by means of the application. Deactivate the “Switch automatically” property.

    Switching between the active alarms can be controlled by two variables. By default, ‎xNext‎ and ‎xPrev‎ are created for scrolling to the next or previous alarm. You can replace these variables with custom your own defined application variables.

Filter alarm events by the contents of the latch variable

Filtering by the contents of a latch variable can be useful when there are a lot of alarm events displayed. If the latch variable assigned to an alarm in the alarm group definition contains, for example, the error number or the name of a device instance, then you can filter the alarms in the visualization by it.

For this purpose, you configure an input option in the alarm visualization for the contents of the latch variable to be filtered by. For example, insert an input field which writes to the variable that is specified in the “Alarm configuration” - “Filter by latch 1” - “Filter variable” property of the configuration of the “Alarm table” element or “Alarm banner” element.

In addition, you configure an input option for the type of filtering. The type determines whether a numeric value (typed literal, LINT literal) or the string value of the latch variable is used for filtering. Filtering can also be switched off by means of type setting ‎0‎. For example, in the visualization, insert another input field which writes to the variable that is specified in the “Filter type” property of the configuration of the alarm table or alarm banner.

For more information, see the "Alarm Filter Latch Example" sample project in the CODESYS ‎⮫ Store.