Any body configured 800xA and Matrikon Alarm Manger using 800xA's A&E OPC server?

I can see the Events / Alarms from the inbuilt 800xA A&E server but they do not display Tag description information or Priority Information.

Is there any way I can change this?

Please Advise.

 

We are using Matrikon Alarm Manager with 800xA at multiple sites.

Starting in the library structure, we have two alarm and event loggers configured. One for alarms, a second for events.

Looking first at the alarm logger configuration, it is configured to include all of the database fields that we would ever want. You could essentially include the whole enchilada at this point, since the Matrikon application can do all of the post processing that you need to organize the information. It is in the A&E logger configuration that you can include things such as:

Object (tag) name and description
Alarm priority
AE Class
Alarm message
etc.

This is step 1 of 2 to answer your question <i> "Is there any way I can change this?" </i>

These are defined in the "columns" tab of the configuration window. We have 17 of 42 columns selected on one site I checked.

Note that if you have an 800xA on top of an Advant or Harmony system, those will have additional system specific fields.

Moving on, we also have an event logger configured. It is here that we capture things such as:

Audit trail - operator actions
Audit trail - engineering activity (config changes, forces, downloads, etc.)
System alarms
etc.

To summarize up to this point, we have two loggers, one for alarms, and one for events.

Next we go to the service structure. The "alarm logger service" has one service group for each list (alarm logger and event logger). There is a small amount of configuration to set this up as a "virtual" network printer.

Since it sounds like you are getting some data to Alarm Manager, you should be OK in the service area.

Matrikon points to that virtual network printer. Since printed records from both the alarm logger and event logger are dumped out of the same "printer", Matrikon needs to be configured to handle these, including parsing.

It is quite possible that the 800xA is configured to "print" the alarm priority, but the Alarm Manager data processing is configured to ignore it, for example.

This is step 2 of 2 to answer your question <i>"Is there any way I can change this?"</i>

You need to view the "raw data" coming to the Alarm Manager application to determine where the problem lies.

Matrikon can also be configured to do the following:

1. Create a "standing alarm list" that mimics the DCS by properly associating the alarm acknowledge operator action events with the corresponding alarm.

2. Perform alarm and event analysis reports (i.e. top 10 alarms). Keep in mind that 800xA SV5.1 with the optional alarm management package will do these reports in the DCS. Also to get the complete suite of reports, you will also need to license the audit trail feature in 800xA - although SV5.1 I think now includes operator actions as part of the base load, no license required.

Also, the DCS can be configured with the "alarminsight" aspect that provides the operator with Alarm Manager configuration information.

Finally, to state the obvious, you can certainly call Matrikon for technical support.

John

 

John

Thanks for your reply. We have a similar setup to yours; we are currently using a package called IMAC to capture alarms which get printed via a serial port configured in the alarm logger. We are in the process of upgrading IMAC to Matrikon Alarm Manager Package.
We are trying to move away from using the Alarm logger function and use the inbuilt 800xA A&E server to provide alarm and event information to Matrikon Alarm Manager, this is the part I cannot get to work as not all the information is coming across the OPC link ie Tag description, priority etc.

By the sound of things I might have to go back and use the Alarm logger function. How did you configure the virtual network Printer?

Cheers