Alarm counters

Leverage alarm counters at runtime and discover how alarm events affect counter values.

Counters object

Counters objects are runtime-only child nodes of RetainedAlarms objects and AllAlarms objects and include variables that summarize alarm states. Counters are unavailable at design time, do not display in project model files or the object browser in
FactoryTalk Optix Studio
.
TIP: At runtime, you can browse and subscribe to Counters with OPC UA. For more information about OPC UA, see OPC UA.
Counters display the number of alarms in each state. Counters update with every inbound alarm event. Alarm state transitions (active, inactive, acknowledged, confirmed) adjust the relevant counters. Only enabled alarms affect counters. Suppressed, shelved, or disabled alarms do not affect any counter.
TIP: When
FactoryTalk Optix Application
 starts, Counters may take some time to update their values.
Shelving, suppressing, or disabling an alarm decreases the counters that reflect the alarm state.
Unshelving, unsuppressing, or enabling an alarm increases the counters that reflect the alarm state at the moment of operation. The state may differ from the state at the moment of shelving, suppressing, or disabling.

Node hierarchy

Alarm nodes organize in a hierarchical structure. The following outline displays how Counters group under alarm collections.
  • RetainedAlarms or AllAlarms
    • Counters
      • ActiveCount
      • ActiveUnackedCount
      • ActiveUnconfirmedCount
      • ActiveAckedCount
      • InactiveUnackedCount

Dynamic links

Dynamic links to these variables display as unresolved in
FactoryTalk Optix Studio
 at design time and resolve in
FactoryTalk Optix Applications
 at runtime.
Reference Counters for RetainedAlarms in dynamic links or NetLogics using these browse paths:
  • RetainedAlarms/Counters/ActiveCount
  • RetainedAlarms/Counters/ActiveUnackedCount
  • RetainedAlarms/Counters/ActiveAckedCount
  • RetainedAlarms/Counters/ActiveUnconfirmedCount
  • RetainedAlarms/Counters/InactiveUnackedCount
Reference Counters for AllAlarms in dynamic links or NetLogics using these browse paths:
  • AllAlarms/Counters/ActiveCount
  • AllAlarms/Counters/ActiveUnackedCount
  • AllAlarms/Counters/ActiveAckedCount
  • AllAlarms/Counters/ActiveUnconfirmedCount
  • AllAlarms/Counters/InactiveUnackedCount
For more information, see Dynamic links and NetLogic.

Counters variables

The following table describes Counters variables available for monitoring alarm states. Use these variables to track the number of specific alarm statuses in your application.
TIP: RetainedAlarms and AllAlarms collections use
Active
 and
Inactive
 for internal variables. Alarm Widgets and variables inside Widgets use
In Alarm
 and
Normal
 for displayed text.
Counters variables
Variable
Data type
Description
ActiveCount
UInt32
Total number of active and not suppressed or shelved alarms, including both unacknowledged and acknowledged alarms.
The value is always greater than or equal to the number of active unconfirmed alarms.
ActiveUnackedCount
UInt32
Number of active unacknowledged alarms.
ActiveAckedCount
UInt32
Number of active acknowledged alarms.
ActiveUnconfirmedCount
UInt32
Number of active unconfirmed alarms. Increments only with alarm confirmation workflow enabled. Always equals 0 with the alarm confirmation workflow disabled.
This value is always less than or equal to the total number of active alarms.
InactiveUnackedCount
UInt32
Number of inactive unacknowledged alarms. These alarms do not affect the total number of active alarms.
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