Each alarm has a status that indicates whether the abnormal condition that triggered the alarm is still in effect and whether the alarm has been acknowledged by a user. The possible alarm statuses are:
- Unacknowledged Uncleared—The condition that triggered the alarm still exists. The alarm entry has not been acknowledged.
Unacknowledged Uncleared alarms are deemed to be the most important alarms as no users have responded to them.
When a Unacknowledged Uncleared alarm occurs, you need to decide whether to acknowledge that alarm, attach an Alarm Response message to the alarm without acknowledging the alarm, or inform others of the alarm’s occurrence (see Perform an Action on an Alarm).
- Acknowledged Uncleared—The condition that triggered the alarm still exists. The alarm entry has been acknowledged, indicating that a user is aware of the alarm. This status typically indicates that the abnormal condition is either being investigated, is scheduled for investigation, or is a known detected fault.
To aid others when acknowledging alarms, you can optionally choose to enter a comment about the acknowledged alarm (see Acknowledge an Alarm with Comment).
Should an alarm be acknowledged unintentionally, you may be able to unacknowledge the alarm (see Unacknowledge an Alarm).
- Unacknowledged Cleared—The condition that triggered the alarm no longer exists, therefore ClearSCADA has cleared that particular item’s alarm flag. The entry that indicates that the alarm has cleared has not been acknowledged.
Once an alarm is both acknowledged and cleared, it is automatically deleted from the Alarms Lists and Alarm Banner.
You can view an alarm’s status on a variety of displays including the Alarm Banner and Alarms Lists. Each item’s Status display shows the alarm status of the most important alarm that is raised for the item—the alarm with the highest severity (see Status Displays in the ClearSCADA Guide to ViewX and WebX Clients).
Color is also used to indicate the alarm status. The default color scheme for alarms is:
- Red (Flashing)—Unacknowledged Uncleared alarm.
- Green (Flashing)—Unacknowledged Cleared alarm.
- Olive-Green—Acknowledged Uncleared alarm.
(Your system may be configured to use a different color scheme.)
The alarm colors are used on the Alarm Banner, Alarms Lists, and Queries Lists (see Lists in the ClearSCADA Guide to ViewX and WebX Clients) and can also be used to indicate alarms on animated Mimics (see Mimics in the ClearSCADA Guide to ViewX and WebX Clients).
Further Information
Status attributes that represent an alarm status display one of a series of Standard Alarm States.
Configure the Alarm Colors: see Alarm and Event Severities in the ClearSCADA Guide to Server Administration.