Win-911

[Tom Mac]

I have been using WIN-911 Alarm Notification software for years with SCADA systems such as Wonderware and FactoryTalk.

WIN-911 revamped their application a couple of years ago. It used to be a simple, bullet-proof application. Since they revamped it, I have had nothing but trouble with it. It will stop working for no apparent reason. Users will need to restart the application's services in order to get it working again.

I have installed the new version at 4 different locations. All exhibit the same kind of unreliability. Is anybody else experiencing the same problems?

 

[harryting]

I hear you. The older V7 stuff was clunky but works.

There's actually two major revision recently, the latest just came out and I haven't tried it yet. I'm not sure you are speaking of this one or the last one where it's browser based interface.

I'm on 4.19.17 right now, which is I tihnk about 2 years old. The major problem I ran into is how they used user permission to run the app. There are user login info hidden everywhere and when my password expires on this IT owned machine (don't install on IT owned machine) it breaks it and had to dig into like 5 places to change login info. I finally got a service account for the app. I had to spent hours on the phone with them to get things working.

Now it's running OK and been thinking about migrating to the newest version which they said would take care of issue I faced. Not sure that's a good idea now.

The whole thing remind of the Allen Bradley Panelview Plus mess. having some enterprise IT guy program your industrial software... seriously, have they learned anything?!

 

[Tom Mac]

I am using basically the same version that you are using. I have two machines on version 4.19.24. The other two are on slightly earlier versions. I learned the hard way about giving WIN-911 its own user account too.
I suppose that you are running Windows 10?
Which issue did they say that the new version will fix?

 

[busarider29]

So what you're implying is that I should be thankful that we went with TopView and not Win-911?

 

[Tom Mac]

Well, I don't want to give WIN-911 a bad name. I don't know if others are having the same problems that I am having. I have never used Topview. Is it sort of the same thing as WIN-911 or SCADAlarm? Does it connect to SCADA databases, and allow you to send SMS Text, email or maybe even to a phone app?

 

[busarider29]

Well, I don't want to give WIN-911 a bad name. I don't know if others are having the same problems that I am having. I have never used Topview. Is it sort of the same thing as WIN-911 or SCADAlarm? Does it connect to SCADA databases, and allow you to send SMS Text, email or maybe even to a phone app?

TopView is a direct competitor to WIN-911. We did our own evaluation of both software about 5 years ago, and then settled on TopView. I don't recall the exact reasoning we chose TopView over WIN-911, but we had our reasons.

Yes, TopView can connect to SCADA DBs, send SMS Text, emails, and it does have a phone app as well. I believe there is additional cost/fees associated with the phone app. All that we have used it for is for sending emails. We were going to do the SMS texting but it involved more than our IT wanted to deal with since they would have to get more involved, dedicated phone modem for it, etc. So we just determined emails would be sufficient. Management's logic was that you get an audible and icon notification already on your phone when you receive a new email, so no compelling reason to have SMS texts messaging too. ��*

Configuring it and getting it setup was a bit of pain. I just handed it off to IT and let them coordinate with TopView support to get it working. The tech support there is excellent. The software is very user intuitive and easy to configure alarm notifications, turn them on/off, add/delete persons to notifiy, set alarm limits, etc...

All in all, we are happy with the software and it does what we want/need.

 

[Tom Mac]

Thanks, I just checked out the website. Sounds a lot like WIN-911. It used to be very easy to install and setup. But, like most applications nowadays, installation has become very complicated. Previous versions use an Access database. Now they use SQL Server, which I suppose is an improvement, but it causes me more headaches.

 

[harryting]

The tech I talked to on the phone during the last install said they are aware of a lot of issues and the new NEW version, I think they called it Win911 2021 should take care of a lot of the issues. I got a project coming up that I'll trying that out.

I haven't heard of TopView, looks interesting. Anyone who have experience with both?

 

[harryting]

So Tom, what specific issue you are facing? Have you tried their techs support?

I don't think SQL is a big problem, after all, many software these days use SQL as their backend DB. I think Win911 just tried to do way too much. Their new Tactic and Strategy scheme is insanely complicated which we don't use but still have to deal with. I had to write up my own Help File in order to work with it.

 

[Tom Mac]

We use WIN-911 for SMS Text and the Mobile App. WIN-911 will be working fine. It may work well for a week or two. Then, it fails to announce alarms. WIN-911 runs on a series of services. Sometimes, one or more of the services have stopped. At other times, the services are still running. But they need to be restarted.
I have worked with Tech Support a couple of times on this issue, but they assure me that WIN-911 is bulletproof. There must be something running on my computer that causes the problems. The last time, the beloved IT department worked their typical magic. We concluded that they were the cause of the problem when they ran some kind of update or utility. But it keeps on happening, and nobody knows why.
I am beginning to hear signs of frustration from some customers. So I am pursuing the issue again with Tech Support. I'll keep you posted on the results.
I agree with you about the Tactics & Strategies. Maybe the new version will fix these issues.

 

[harryting]

Interesting, I had similiar issue for a while but seems to calmed down after I changed the login stuff. Just to rehash that, these are the place login info is stored, you have change all these to your service account.

- All win911 services needs to use the service account.
- also need to change login/pw in IIS's application pool to service account.
 Start IIS Manager
 Under Application Pool listing, look for identity.
 Right click on item and go to Advanced Setting to change pw/login

Also, anytime you admin the Win911 app, log in only as the service account, not your personal account. another thing they had to do is enable the debug log.

Enable detailed debug logging
1. Stop all WIN-911 AppServers (IIS) and WIN-911 Runtime Services (listed above).
2. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\Dispatcher.
3. Open Web.config with Notepad and use the Edit\Find tool to locate string "loggingFlags".
4. Change the loggingFlags value from "Default" to "Debug".
5. Save this file and close Notepad.


of course, keep such software off IT owned asset is the best strategy but may not be possible now days.

 

[Tom Mac]

Ok. Thanks. I will give this a try.

 

[TheWaterboy]

This thread is a year old but I just started my first run in with a Win911 installation and wow am I disappointed. What a flakey piece of junk. It seems to have the fewest complaints when working with Rockwell but this is an GE iFix install and its really a house of cards. iFix itself is no prize anymore but put these two together and frustration is huge.

 

[Cycopal]

We moved from Win911 to TopView. TopView is stable, well supported, and has a bunch of features. We use voice notification, so we moved from dialogic cards to a sip gateway, but that wasnt very complicated. Redundancy was an interesting exercise, but we made it work. All in all the move has improved our system.

The only thing I wish were different with TopView is that it is an OPC connection to SCADA (Wonderware System Platform in our case) rather than a direct connection to System Platform. That means it is sometimes unable to detect an alarm indication that doesn't have a duration longer than TopView's scan time. We probably could have created something that would have mimic'd Win911 more closely, but decided to go with out of the box capability.

 

[diat150]

win 911 was a great piece of software 15-20 years ago.