FT View SE Comm fail with PLC alarm

I am looking to know how people have implemented communication failure routines with PLCs (Allen B) in their FT View applications. recently took over 3 plant applications that need to be consistent and the apps use different methods of checking. two used derived statements and 1 uses event. Made me think of asking how other people have done this. Thank you

I don't know if it's possible in FTView since i don't use it, but my normal approach for software talking to a PLC is to have the PLC increment a heartbeat, and the PLC monitors it.

A script then checks the PLC tag every second against a memory tag. If its different, copy PLC tag to memory tag. If its not different (i.e. value in PLC not updating) then I increment another memory tag SecondsSinceComms.

Once SecondsSinceComms > whatever you want for a comms fail delay, raise alarm.