Fields by Which you can Filter an Alarm Summary

When you use the Add Filter window to filter an Alarm Summary, you use the top combo box on the window to specify the database field to which you want to apply a filter (see Add a Filter to a List).

You can filter an Alarm Summary by various database fields, including:

• Ack Comment—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that are associated with a specific acknowledgment comment.
• Ack Time—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that are associated with a specific acknowledgment time, or range of acknowledgment times.
• Ack User—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that are associated with a specific name of the user who acknowledged the alarm.
• Active Time—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that are associated with a specific active time, or range of active times.
• Aggregate Name—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to the aggregate with which the alarms are associated (see Aggregates in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to the Database). Aggregates typically appear as tabs on configuration Forms (for example, the Control aggregate appears as the Control tab).
• Area of Interest—Only displayed if the Area of Interest feature is enabled on your system. Use this field to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that are associated with specific Area(s) of Interest. When using the Reference browse window to specify an Area of Interest, you will be offered those Area(s) of Interest to which your User Account has access. For more information, see Restrict Alarm and Event Access to Specific Areas of Interest in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Configuration.
• Alarm Message (EncodedMessage)—Geo SCADA Expert stores alarm messages internally in raw encoded format. Each message is decoded for display in the Alarm Summary and Alarms List. You can use this field for diagnostic purposes. For example, to ascertain which alarms contain particular message elements, or how message elements conveying variable data are passed between server and client.
• Alarm Source (EncodedSourceMessage)—Geo SCADA Expert stores alarm source information internally in raw encoded format. Each source message is decoded for display in the Alarm Summary and Alarms List. You can use this field for diagnostic purposes. For example, to ascertain which alarms are associated with a particular source, or how source data is passed between server and client.
• Cached—Use to filter the Alarm Summary by cached (True) or historic (False) data. The Alarm Summary combines alarm data from the cache (which contains current data) with historic alarm summary data stored on the system.
• Condition Name—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to alarm condition. The alarm condition identifies the particular occurrence that triggered an alarm, for example, a ‘Point State’ condition name indicates that a change in point state has caused an alarm to be raised.
• Deleted—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to show which historic alarm records have been deleted. The historic records are not removed from the database when they are deleted; instead they are merely marked as deleted, which hides them from view when the default Alarms List filter is used. An alarm's historic records can be deleted, for example, by using the DeleteRecord or DeleteRecords automation methods in the CAlarmSummary database table (for more information about these methods, see the Database Schema).
• Disabled By (DisabledByDesc)—Use to filter the Alarm Summary by the User Type(s) that triggered the disable action. To filter by this field, you would typically use the 'Contains' operator (filter condition) in the Filter Columns window and then enter the required User Type in the filter value field. To enter more than one User Type and 'OR' the entries together, select the '>>' button to the right of the filter condition field to expand the Add Filter window. Enter each required User Type one at a time, remembering to select the 'Add' button after each entry (see Specify a Series of Filter Values in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Lists). You can enter any of these User Types (the strings are case-sensitive):
  • User
  • Logic
  • Schedule
  • Method Call.

  To filter the Alarm Summary to include only alarms that are not disabled, we recommend that you use the DisabledByValue field instead of this one.

  Geo SCADA Expert supports a feature that controls whether the different User Types can disable or enable alarms independently of other User Types (see Define whether User Types can Disable Alarms Independently in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Server Administration).

• Disabled By (DisabledByValue)—Use to filter the Alarm Summary by the User Type(s) that caused the alarms to be disabled. To filter by this field, you enter the required integer value(s) of the 8-bit bitmask that identifies the relevant User Types. For more information about the bits that make up the bitmask, see the Disabled By (DisabledByValue) entry in Understand the Alarm Summary. You might choose to filter the Alarm Summary by this field if you want to view either only alarms that are disabled regardless of User Type, or only alarms that are not disabled.

  To filter the Alarm Summary by this field to show only alarms that are disabled (regardless of User Type), use the Is Greater Than operator (filter condition) in the Filter Columns window and then enter 0 in the filter value field.

  To filter the Alarm Summary to show only alarms that are not disabled, use the Is Equal To operator and enter 0 in the filter value field.

  To filter the Alarm Summary to display alarms that are disabled by a particular User Type, we recommend that you use the DisabledByDesc field instead of this one.

  Geo SCADA Expert supports a feature that controls whether the different User Types can disable or enable alarms independently of other User Types (see Define whether User Types can Disable Alarms Independently in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Server Administration).

• Disabled End Time—Use to filter the Alarm Summary by the time (or range of times) that indicate when a disabled alarm will be automatically enabled. This only applies when the Geo SCADA Expert server is configured to use fixed or variable time durations for the Disable Alarms feature (see Define the Disable Alarms Settings).
• Disabled Time—Use to filter the Alarm Summary by the time (or range of times) that indicate when the associated alarm was disabled.
• File Id—Alarm Summary messages are stored in a series of files. Each file has a unique File Id. Use the File Id field for diagnostic purposes, to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that are stored in particular Alarm Summary file(s). The File Id is a string value.
• File Offset—Alarm Summary messages are stored in a series of files, with each message being assigned a unique offset in each file. Use the File Offset field for diagnostic purposes, to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that are stored in a particular location within specific Alarm Summary file(s). The File Offset is a whole number.
• Inactive Time—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that became inactive at a specific time or within a defined time range.
• Location—Use to filter the Alarm Summary by the location of records, either online or from a mounted archive.
• Message—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to its message values. Each alarm has a message value that describes what happened to cause the alarm to be logged. For example, if a change in point value caused an analog point's state to change from its 'Normal' state to a 'Low' state. The Message is a string value.
• Receipt Time—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that were received by the server at a specific time or within a defined time range.
• Severity (SeverityDesc)—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to severity description. Each alarm has a severity description that indicates the importance of the alarm. The default descriptions are Critical, High, Medium, and Low, where, for example, an alarm with a Low severity would not be as important as an alarm with a severity description of High or Critical. The default severity descriptions and levels may have been replaced by a custom range of severities on your system.
• Severity (SeverityValue)—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to the severity of the alarms. Each alarm has a severity value that indicates the importance of the alarm. Use this field to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that have a specific severity value, or have a severity value within a defined range. The default ranges are Low 1-333, Medium 334-666, High 667-999, and Critical 1000. Unlike the Severity (SeverityDesc) field, you use the Severity (SeverityValue) field to filter alarms by severity number, rather than severity description. Be aware that the number ranges and corresponding severity descriptions on your system may differ from those above.
• Source (Id)—Each item in the database has a unique ID number that is used internally to identify that item. Use the Source (Id) field to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that are associated with a source that has a particular ID number. When you select this field, use the browse button adjacent to the filter value field to select the name of the database item for which you want to filter the alarms. Alternatively, use the >> button adjacent to the filter condition field, and specify more than one source.

  Although the name of each database item is displayed in the simplified form of the filter, the SQL behind the filter filters the List by Id rather than by source name (as can be seen by selecting the Advanced button on the Filter Columns window, to view the WHERE Clause that is used for the filter).

• Source (Source)—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to alarm source. Each alarm is associated with a specific ‘source’, which is typically an item in the database. This item is the source of the alarm. As with the Source (Id) field, you use the browse button adjacent to the filter value field to select the name of the database item for which you want to filter the alarms, or use the >> button adjacent to the filter condition field to expand the window and specify more than one source.
• Source Message—This field only applies to text alarms (for which the source is not directly related to an item in the database). Use this field to filter the Alarm Summary according to the source message to which any text alarms relate.
• State (State)—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to alarm state. To filter by this field you specify the value that identifies the alarm state (for example, 4 (for Unacknowledged Uncleared)). Refer to the CAlarm table in the Database Schema for the list of enumeration values associated with this field.
• State (StateDesc)—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to alarm state. To filter by this field you specify the description of the alarm state (for example, Unacknowledged Uncleared).
• Subcondition Name—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to alarm subcondition. The alarm subcondition is the particular class of alarm condition that caused an alarm to be triggered. For example, an analog point's value exceeding the High limit.
• Time—Use to filter the Alarm Summary according to the date and time at which the alarms were recorded. Alarms have both an ‘occurrence time’ and a ‘received time’. Whenever the Geo SCADA Expert server provides the time stamp, these times are one and the same. Whenever Geo SCADA Expert receives a time stamped alarm from an outstation, the Time column displays that record’s ‘occurrence time’ (the time stamp provided by the outstation or scanner).

  Alarms that are generated at the master station (Geo SCADA Expert) are time stamped by the server. If an alarm occurs at the outstation, the time stamp of that alarm depends on the driver. With some drivers, the outstation time stamps the data and then passes that data to Geo SCADA Expert. With other drivers, the time stamp might be generated by the outstation or the server, depending how the data was reported. Outstations on some drivers do not support time stamping of data, and therefore the server time stamps that data when it receives it from the outstation.

  The Time field's raw field name is RecordTime. Use the raw field name when querying Alarm Summary data. ('Time' is a reserved word in SQL and as such cannot be used by some third-party applications.)

• UnAck Time—Use the filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that were unacknowledged at a specific time, or within a defined time range.
• User Location (ClientAddress)—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that were logged as a result of the actions of a user who was logged on to a specified client. When using this field, you need to specify the IP address of the client you require. Specify the IP address as a 32-bit integer.

  This field is primarily for use by applications that are searching the Alarm Summary for specific alarms. (It is more efficient than searching by ClientAddressDesc).

  Be aware that this field has special security. Access to the field's data might be restricted to administrator-level users (see Specify Whether Access to Sensitive Data is Restricted by Privilege in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Configuration).

• User Location (ClientAddressDesc)—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms that were logged as a result of the actions of a user who was logged on to a specified client. When using this field, you need to specify the IP address of the client you require. Specify the IP address in standard dot-decimal notation, for example, 10.1.5.30.

  Be aware that this field has special security. Access to the field's data might be restricted to administrator-level users (see Specify Whether Access to Sensitive Data is Restricted by Privilege in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Configuration).

• Visible Time—Use to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms for which the alarm subcondition became active at a specific time, or within a defined time range. You can also use this field to filter the Alarm Summary to those alarms for which the alarm became visible at a specific time, or within a defined time range, after being suppressed or disabled.

Some other fields perform special functions and are not used for filtering. These include:

• Record ID—This field enables Geo SCADA Expert to retrieve ‘dynasets’ of data. Retrieving dynasets of data minimizes the loading on both the server and client, particularly when requesting large quantities of data.
• Sequence Number—This field is used to sort alarms that have the same time stamp into the correct order. The Sequence Number is included in the Alarm Summary’s ORDER BY clause (as can be ascertained by using the Sort option to display the Sort Order window).