Clear Alarm in InTouch

Hello all.
I'm using an AlarmDBViewCtrl along with a Distributed Alarm in my application. The Distributed Alarm displays the current alarms, while the AlarmDBViewCtrl shows all alarms that have occurred. After an alarm causing factor is gone, the Distributed Alarm merely stops entering new lines into the display.
I would like to clear the alarm, possibly by pressing a button. Is there any way to do this?

The AlarmDBViewCtrl shows alarms in the DB (database)...so you cannot delete.
Maybe you want to try the "Distributed Alarm History" in Wizards>Alarm Displays.
You can configure it for History or Summary.

My Alarm page also has a split screen (I assume like yours...but maybe the same colors are not set) that shows an Alarm History on top and Summary (Current Alarms) on the bottom.
My Alarms are configure for red when active, orange when acknowledged and green on return. I use the AlarmDBViewCtrl wizard to show Alarm History.
This way my Alarm History shows:
time/date stamp when the alarm occurred in red
time/date stamp when the alarm was acknowledged in orange
time/date stamp when the alarm cleared in green

The Alarm Summary window is configured to show alarm in red and it changes to orange when acknowledged. When the alarm clears it is no longer shown in the Summary window.

Maybe this will help..

Hi Nathan. Thanks for your input. I did configure the Distributed Alarm Display Wizard in both of its modes; summary and historical. The summary mode only showed a single alarm record at a time - the most recent one. This isn't exactly what I want to implement.
I looked into suppressing the alarm, which is similar to clearing it. However, when it is unsuppressed, the previous alarm records will be displayed again. Basically suppressing the alarm simply hides the display, and I wish to clear it completely.

I don't believe you can clear (suppress) an alarm and make it disappear from the summary alarm window. Once it has happened it is in history (stored in Alarm Database).
All alarms will show up in the Summary window as they are present... until they are "cleared"...not just 1...how big is your alarm window?
Do you pop up the Alarm window when an alarm occurs?

I use an "Alarms" page that has Historical (previous alarms) in the top half and Summary (current alarms) in the bottom half. In 1024x768...I can see about 10 Alarms at once and more...because it uses arrows for up and down in the list when there are more alarms present than are visible.
AlarmDBViewCtrl wizard is for Alarm History.
Distributed Alarm Display Wizard is for Alarm Summary.

Hi Nathan. Its interesting to see your application because mine is almost exactly the same. I am using both the AlarmDBViewCtrl for all the errors that have occurred, and the Distributed Alarm Display for the current errors. I think I'm seeing 10 - 15 alarms at once as well. The thing is that my alarm display is not receiving errors based on tag values, but rather it is writing into display based on an external text file. Therefore, if I use the alarm display in summary mode, only the most recent line from the text file is displayed.
To answer your other question, no I do not have a pop up window for when an alarm occurs.

I noticed that your application has an "Acknowledge" button at the bottom of your screen. Does it cause the alarm display to clear in any way?

krishna431 said:

Hi Nathan. Its interesting to see your application because mine is almost exactly the same. I am using both the AlarmDBViewCtrl for all the errors that have occurred, and the Distributed Alarm Display for the current errors. I think I'm seeing 10 - 15 alarms at once as well. The thing is that my alarm display is not receiving errors based on tag values, but rather it is writing into display based on an external text file. Therefore, if I use the alarm display in summary mode, only the most recent line from the text file is displayed.
To answer your other question, no I do not have a pop up window for when an alarm occurs.

I noticed that your application has an "Acknowledge" button at the bottom of your screen. Does it cause the alarm display to clear in any way?

Click to expand...

NO...It acknowledges the alarm and changes from red to orange in summary window. And moves the alarm in orange to the history window (to show date and time alarm was acknowledged)


PB Action script..

ON key down

V21-Alarms.Ack=1;
{This is WW command to acknowledge alarms in an "Alarm Group". V21-Alarms is the "Alarm Group" name I use to handle all my alarms (V21 is the equipment number)}

V21-WWAlarmAck = 1;
{This is IO tag to the plc to silence alarm horn on equipment}


On key up

almQuery( "ALMOBJ_1", "\Intouch!V21-Alarms", 0, 999, "ALL", "Summ");
{This refreshes the alarm summary window}

#AlmDbViewCtrl1.Refresh();
{This refreshes the alarm history window}

V21-WWAlarmAck = 0;
{This is to the plc to reset the "1" sent on key down to silence alarm horn on equipment}

Ok I see. Since my application is writing text line by line into the alarm, it is already acknowledged and written into the AlarmDBViewCtrl.
For now I'm using almSuppressAll to block the display.