When the Area of Interest feature is enabled on a system, the following Area of Interest limitations and restrictions apply:
- Items in the database are initially assigned the system's Default Area of Interest (this is typically the 'World' Area of Interest). To restrict user access to the events or alarms associated with those items, you need to change the items' Area of Interest assignments.
- Each User Account has to be assigned at least one Area of Interest (as such, the 'World' Area of Interest is assigned to new User Accounts by default).
- To restrict a user's access to alarms and events associated with a different Area of Interest, you need to replace or remove the 'World' Area of Interest and assign the User Account the required Area(s) of Interest.
- An individual User Account's Area of Interest Filter must contain unique, rather than duplicate, Areas of Interest. (ClearSCADA generates a diagnostic message when saving the configuration if a User Account's Area of Interest Filter field contains multiple Areas of Interest with the same name.)
- ClearSCADA supports hierarchical Area(s) of Interest, whereby a 'parent' Area of Interest can contain other Areas of Interest (known as its 'children'). The 'World' Area of Interest is the highest in the hierarchy. If you add a 'parent' Area of Interest to a User Account's Area of Interest Filter field, all of that Area of Interest's 'children' are included automatically (although they are not shown in the field). ClearSCADA does not support the separate assignment of both 'parent' and 'child' Areas of Interest to the same User Account. (ClearSCADA generates a diagnostic message when saving the configuration, if both a 'parent' Area of Interest and its 'children' (or 'grandchildren' and so on) appear together in a User Account's Area of Interest Filter field).
- Events associated with User Account activity can optionally be assigned an Area of Interest. If such events are assigned an Area of Interest, that Area of Interest (or it's 'parent' or 'grandparent', and so on) also needs including in the User Account's Area of Interest Filter field. (ClearSCADA generates a diagnostic message when saving the configuration if the relevant Area of Interest is omitted from the User Account's Area of Interest Filter field.)
- When a user logs on via a User Account, they will only have access to alarms and events that are associated with the Area(s) of Interest to which that User Account provides access.
- Ensure that at least one high-level user on your system has access to the 'World' Area of Interest and has permissions to configure other user accounts. Users can only allocate Areas of Interest to which they have access to themselves.