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SETTING UP ALARM SCREENS

The following is a typical multi-unit alarm screen. This document will outline various items that
may need to be edited to get these screens working properly.

Setting up the alarm screen properties:

In CimEdit, right click on the alarm portion of the screen and select Cimplicity AMV
Control Object and then properties as shown above. This will allow you to set up both the static
and dynamic fields of the alarm screen as shown below. A typical turbine alarm screen will only
use the dynamic screen. Here one of the main items is that the alarm screen starts in dynamic
display. This is done under the Sort/Display Tab as shown below. Make sure the ‘Start in Static
Display’ is unchecked. The rest we will leave as the default.

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Also it is necessary to attach this screen to the correct project. This is done under the ‘Projects’
Tab. Usually we will just select “Connect to Local Project”. If you want to connect to other
projects enter them here.

Under the fields tab you can select what is displayed as shown below. The typical is the Time,
Date, Project (if you are connecting to another project than the local one), Resource ID (unit that
is giving the alarm), State, Ack State, Alarm ID and the Message.

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Under the buttons tab we will see the standard Cimplicity buttons. To work with the MKVI,
custom buttons are generated. Make sure that none of the buttons have a “X” in the box next to
any of the buttons. Normally one would not edit these. Below is shown how to look at the
buttons. Highlight one of the custom buttons as shown and click on Modify. In this example we
will look at the Silence button.

This is shown below. In the Description it may say MKV but this does not matter and will work
for MKVI also. For HMI servers this should say SILENCE %RES. For HMI Viewers, it is

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necessary to add the server names (computer names, NOT project names) at the end of the string
as seen below. They need to be separated by commas.

When doing multiple Viewers, each HMI server for which you need to silence alarms must be
included as seen below.

For example, suppose the viewer is connected to servers GT1_SVR and GT2_SVR. The
command string would be “SILENCE %RES (GT1_SVR,GT2_SVR)”. Notice that the HMI
servers names are separated by “,” (commas) and make sure to leave no spaces between the
computer names. Notice that none of the standard buttons are checked. These are fairly typical
and should not be edited. There is one special button to mention. This is the ‘Explain’ button as
shown below. It will go to a help file that does not usually exist.

After setting up the alarm screen layout we will look at the alarm object properties. This is
different than what was done above. Right click on the alarm portion of the screen and select
properties. This will bring up the window shown below.

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Under the general tab the object name is very important as this is used in other parts of the
screen. Also under the Control Properties it will show all of the setup that was done previously
in the AMV properties. Do not change anything here. To change the properties go to the AMV
properties as discussed previously.
Now we need to setup buttons for each unit. A customer will typically want to see only one
unit’s alarms at a time. The alarm object uses what Cimplicity calls ‘Methods’. Here we are
going to use an existing screen with existing methods and see how they are used. The first thing
is to set up the different unit’s ‘Filters’. Run the screen in Cimview and Click on the ‘Setup’
button. You will get a window like the below.

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There needs to be a setup for each of the sets of alarms that you want display in this screen. For
example, $ALL will have a setup for all alarms i.e. process alarms, (including diagnostic alarms
that have to be viewed in Toolbox), exciter alarms and process alarms. The set up for each of
these will be the same method. In this example we will look at the GT1 process alarms. Click
on ‘$GT1_PROC’.

More buttons will not be grayed out and are available to choose from. The first thing is to click
on ‘Modify Current’. This will allow you to edit the setup selected. ‘Make Default’ will have
that setup that will be the default anytime the screen is first opened. ‘Delete’ will delete the
current setup selected. ‘Load’ will change the selected setup to be the current setup. ‘Save’ will
save your changes that you made. Don’t forget to do this before you select ‘Done’. OK now
will modify the current selection.

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The first tab is “Classes” of alarms. We can select what is needed for this setup as shown below.

The next tab is Resources. Since this will be GT1 only we select the resources for G1, which
may include the exciter as well as the unit alarms as shown below. The other that may be
selected i.e. is the system alarms. The other ones are for Cimplicity.

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The last tab will set up how you want the alarms filtered, i.e. based on time and/or alarm state as
shown below.

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Once you click OK then click on ‘Save’. If the setup already existed the following window will
pop up. Click yes if you want to save it. Then click ‘Done’ or continue editing as required.
Don’t forget to ‘Save’ each time. Each of the Setups need to have a ‘$’ in the front of the name.

Next we will edit some of the buttons that are on a typical alarm screen.. First we will edit the
GT1 button. As always right click and go to properties. The first tab to look at is the ‘Variables’
tab as shown below. Notice that there is a variable that has a value that was configured when we
were using the ‘Setup’ button previously described. In this example the we will use
“$GT1_ALL”. So when we select this button it will be the alarm screen that will show all of GT
alarms. This variable is used differently here then in other screens. This variable exists in every
button that selects a turbine. The value will change according to the button properties i.e. the
value of ‘Setup’ for GT1 will be “$GT1_ALL” and so on as shown below.

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Next go to the Events tab. There is a procedure there i.e. ‘L1_Gas_Turbine_1’ and when we
click on the “>” and edit to see the next window shown below. This is a two-part procedure.
The first will be set the unit_no variable to define the correct unit number. The second is using a
Method. Notice that the Object Name is ALMVIEW. This is the name of the Alarm AMV
object or the Alarm Viewer object. This was shown in the previous discussions.

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Now we need to look at the Method that is shown. Highlight the “Invoke Method” and
Select ‘ ‘Advanced’ button. This will show the window below,

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The method is called ‘SetProjectSetup’. If we click on the ‘Advanced’ button we will see that
the Method and one can see that a variable gets the value of the ‘SETUP which was defined in
the Variables Tab. This was shown above. These Methods are pre-defined in the Cimplicity
OLE objects. We are using a Cimplicity AMV Control object (Alarm Viewer object) for the
alarm screen. All we do is invoke them as necessary. Next we need to look at the buttons that
select the Process alarms, EX2100 Alarms, or All Unit Alarms.

Next we will look at buttons typically in a frame container. Right click on the buttons in the
lower right side of the screen and go to open frame container as shown below.

Now we can edit the buttons in the frame container. In this example we will look at the ALL
UNIT ALARM button, right click and go to properties. Click on the variables tab.

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This shows that when the button is selected the variable ‘SETUP’ is set to “$GT1_ALL”. It is
shown below. Previously it was discussed that “$GT1_ALL” is defined by using the Setup
button when in CimView. It defines what alarms will be displayed.

The second part of this button is shown under the ‘Events’ tab. When the Action
‘L1_ALL[Procedure]’ is edited it shows what is seen below. Here the Method will go get the
value of the Setup variable and display those alarms. Each button is setup the same with the
Setup variable being set to the respective value and the method will call for the respective
alarms.

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Each frame contains the buttons for a different unit. The variable, for each button, sets the value
required for the variable ‘Setup’ for that unit. Now close the frame container and right click on
the Frame container again but this time select the properties of the frame container. Go to the
‘Frames’ tab and open the outline as shown below. Here it shows that there are buttons for 6
units. We could add more units or delete the ones that are not required by editing the individual
frames. If more units are required then buttons from one frame can be copied and pasted in a
new frame. They can then be edited for the required units. Don’t forget to create ‘Setups’ for
the new unit. Now click on the Expressions button. Here the variable ‘Unit_No’ is used to
navigate the button frame container as shown below.

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