This section summarizes those Alarm and Alarms List options that a system administrator can configure on a system-wide basis. Such options, if required to differ from the defaults, should be specified on each server when a ClearSCADA system is first installed. The options are specified using the ClearSCADA Server Configuration Tool.
You can use the ClearSCADA Server Configuration Tool to:
- Specify the Alarms Settings, including:
- Whether alarms are actually enabled on your system
- Whether the ‘Area of Interest’ feature is enabled on your system. (For more information on this feature, see Restrict Alarm and Event Access to Specific Areas of Interest in the ClearSCADA Guide to Core Configuration.)
- Whether an alarm’s ‘visible’ time is used as its alarm active time in Alarms Lists and the Alarm Banner. (For more information, see Understand the Information that is Displayed on an Alarms List or Alarm Banner.)
- Whether any ‘standard comments’ are available to users that can redirect or acknowledge alarms and associate such actions with a comment.
For more information, see Alarms Settings in the ClearSCADA Guide to Server Administration.
- Specify whether the Exclusive Control feature is enabled on your system, and if so, whether a person who has exclusive control can, for example, remove, acknowledge, and/or disable alarms (see Exclusive Control Settings in the ClearSCADA Guide to Server Administration).
- Specify any system-wide, ViewX user, WebX user, or standard pick action menu Permission Restrictions, including whether all users are denied the permission to Acknowledge Alarms, or Remove Alarms. For more information, see Define whether any Permissions are Restricted in the ClearSCADA Guide to Security.
- Specify the WebX settings, including the order in which columns are sorted on the Alarms List whenever it is viewed from a WebX client (see WebX Server Settings in the ClearSCADA Guide to Server Administration).
- Specify whether points have two sets of Alarm Limits, and whether analog points can have separate master station alarm limits (see Alarm Limits in the ClearSCADA Guide to Server Administration). For more information on using this feature, see the relevant Multiple Alarm Limits section within the ClearSCADA Guide to Core Point Configuration.
- Specify whether any point types have additional Point State Alarms. For information on configuring additional alarm states, see Point State Alarms in the ClearSCADA Guide to Server Administration. For more information on using this feature, see Multiple Point State Alarms in the ClearSCADA Guide to Core Point Configuration.
- Specify the alarm and event Severities settings, including:
- The colors used to indicate, for example, unacknowledged alarms on the Alarms List.
- The Alarms List and Alarm Banner background colors (such as the background color used for any alarms that a user can acknowledge)
- Which user-initiated alarm actions (such as ‘Remove Alarm’ and ‘Unacknowledge Alarm’) are allowed on the system.
For more information, see Alarm and Event Severities in the ClearSCADA Guide to Server Administration.
To access a ClearSCADA system, users typically log on via a User Account. Anyone who accesses the system without logging on, is logged on automatically via the Guest or Web User accounts.
Use the Root or System Group Form to define the system-wide settings for the Guest User, including:
- Whether the Allow Group Alarm Operations feature is made available to the Guest User.
- The Default Alarm Filter that defines the alarms to which the Guest User has access.
- If the Area of Interest feature is used on your system, any Area of Interest Filters. This can also affect which alarms are visible to the Guest User.
For information on configuring any of the above, see Define the Global Settings for All Guest and Web User Accounts in the ClearSCADA Guide to Security.
If required, the ability to acknowledge specific alarms can optionally be restricted to a particular User, User Group, or ViewX workstation. Such a restriction is configured on a per-item or per-Group basis. For information, see Set Responsibility Action in the ClearSCADA Guide to Alarm Redirection.
You can optionally use Alarm Banner scripts to add ‘custom’ actions to the Alarm Banner’s context-sensitive menu (see Alarm Banner Scripts in the ClearSCADA Guide to Scripting).