PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS

I/A Series® Software

PSS 21S-2B2 B4

FoxAlert Alarm Manager

Current Alarms Display

Most Recent Alarms Display
Summary Displays By Status
Alarm History Display

An Extensive Collection of Configurable Alarm Displays to Meet Your

Process Alarm Requirements
FoxAlert is an Alarm Manager providing an easy-to-use graphical interface of preconfigured alarm displays
for viewing and quickly responding to process alarm conditions. The alarm display windows present alarm
messages initiated by the control blocks and related to digital input state changes, absolute analog,
deviation, rate of change, device status mismatch, and other alarm conditions.
Accessible from any I/A Series environment, the  An historical list of alarms
Alarm Manager display windows provide:
 The capability to view subsets of alarms based
 Quick, easy access to the most recent alarm on specific user-defined criteria
messages via the Most Recent Alarm display or
 The capability to silence or temporarily mute
Current Alarms display
workstation and annunciator horns
 Alarm status and value information dynamically
 The capability to view alarms from a remote
updated from the control station
workstation
 Color-coded priority and status indicators that
 Secured access to alarming functions dependent
allow you to quickly focus in on critical alarms on user or system responsibility.
 Summary displays for different views of the alarm
database based on alarm status
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This set of resizable alarm displays, providing a  Easy access to Block Detail or user graphic
variety of current and historic views of the process displays in a separate FoxView display manager
alarm database, include: window
 A multi-page list of all the current alarms  A find function to aid in performing acknowledge
and clear functions on specific sets of alarms
 A single page of the most recent, active,
unacknowledged alarms with dynamically  A match/filter function for isolating a set of alarms
updating value and status fields for problem analysis
 Three summary displays specific to alarm status  A sort function to dynamically re-sort alarms on a
also with updating values and statuses: display
• All active, unacknowledged alarms  A View All mode for accessing a snapshot of the

• All unacknowledged alarms that have entire alarm database from any summary display
returned to normal  Workstation/annunciator horn management

• All active, acknowledged alarms which includes:

• Horn silencing
 A list of historized alarms related to the selected
historian database • Temporary horn muting

 An operations display for silencing horns,  Secured access to Alarm Manager features
temporarily muting horns, and changing based on I/A Series environments and their
I/A Series environments. associated access level schemes
These displays allow you to respond to alarm  File utilities to:
conditions, filter and analyze specific alarm data, and
• Save alarm data in file formats suitable for
maintain alarm message files for reporting purposes.
reporting purposes

FEATURES • Print alarm data from the display

Alarm Manager (AM) features include:  The capability to configure user-defined menus
and buttons and assign protection codes
 Alarm notification from an I/A Series FoxView™
display manager environment as well as  The capability to configure the alarm message
notification of new alarms within the AM window presentation.
 Simultaneous viewing of each of the seven Alarm
Manager displays
MULTIPLE ALARM MANAGERS
Multiple Alarm Managers, like multiple display
 Dynamic updates (received from the control
managers, are optionally available to display on
station software) to the alarm value and alarm
multiple workstations, for example, on both heads of
status on select displays
a dual-headed workstation, on X terminals (Solaris
 Alarm messages queued based on a default or based only), and/or on remote workstations (Solaris
user-configurable sorting method based workstations and Windows based terminal
 Access to additional alarm detail information not server clients). This feature provides the convenience
currently displayed in the alarm message of monitoring and/or maintaining the process from
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multiple locations, such as from a central control  A pull-down menu for accessing other displays
room, from a terminal in the plant area, or from a
 Pop-up menus for quick access to commonly
terminal located on another network logged into the
used functions
I/A Series system.
 A scroll bar, scroll by time command, and Go To
The Alarm Manager allows multiple unique alarm
Page option for moving easily through the alarm
display windows to be simultaneously viewed, thus
list.
providing different perspectives of the alarm
database. Although a preconfigured set of alarm displays is
provided, many aspects of the displays and alarm
ALARM MANAGER DISPLAYS message content are user configurable to
accommodate different process control applications
The Process button in the FoxView display manager
and operational needs. See the section on Alarm and
window indicates the presence of alarms (both
Display Manager Configurator (ADMC).
acknowledged and unacknowledged) and provides
access to Alarm Manager displays. By default, the
Current Alarms Display
Current Alarms Display (CAD) appears and the other
The Current Alarms Display with automatic refresh
displays are easily accessible from the CAD via its
provides a dynamically changing list of all current
default Displays menu:
alarms. Alarms appear, by default, every three
 Most Recent Alarms display (MRA)
seconds according to the specified alarm sort order –
 New Alarms display (NEWALM)
chronological sequence, priority, and/or
 Unacknowledged Alarms display (UNACK)
acknowledged status.
 Acknowledged Alarms display (ACKALM)
Acknowledging an alarm shifts the alarm message to
 Alarm History display (AHD)
a new position in the display list; clearing an alarm
 Operations display (OPR)
removes the alarm from the alarm database and
These easy-to-use displays support the following
subsequently from all alarm displays. Access to
features: process displays in a separate FoxView display
 A pre-configured number of alarms per screen or manager window is available via the Block Detail, Top
page Priority, and User Display buttons.
 Pre-configured alarm message information and The number of alarms in the alarm database is
formatting per alarm type indicated in the status area. The scroll bar, scroll by
time function, and Go to Page function allow you to
 A status area for indication of current Alarm
navigate through the entire alarm database.
Manager and display status, such as horns
muted, match active, display paused, initial call-
Most Recent Alarms Display
up time
As a single page of the most recent unacknowledged
 Single or multi-state buttons for responding to alarms, the Most Recent Alarms Display as shown in
alarm conditions, such as acknowledging or Figure 1 presents new alarms every second. Unlike
clearing alarms, and for accessing additional the CAD, alarm messages are not repositioned when
alarm information and process displays newer alarms appear; the oldest alarms are
 Pull-down menus for edit, view, and file functions overwritten by newer alarms.
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The Alarm Manager dynamically updates the MRA  The Unacknowledged Alarms display shows all
display with changes received from the control unacknowledged alarms that have returned to
station to the alarm parameter values for analog normal.
measurement and output as well as the status of
Once the displays are invoked, the set of alarm
alarms. The position of each alarm message is
messages remains constant; however, like the MRA
maintained until an operator-initiated refresh rereads display, alarm message values and status information
the database, eliminating acknowledged, returned-
continue to update. An operator-initiated refresh
to-normal alarms and alarms cleared from the
rereads the database and presents a new set of
database.
alarms depending on their current status. For
Alarm Summary Displays example, operator-acknowledged alarms on the
The three multi-page alarm summary displays NEWALM or UNACK display appear on a
provide quick, easy access to information in the subsequent callup of the ACKALM display.
alarm database based on alarm status at the time of
For a complete view of the alarm database, use the
display:
View All mode. As with other displays, this alarm
 The New Alarms display provides a list of all database information can be saved to a file or printed
active, unacknowledged alarms. for analysis.
 The Acknowledged Alarms display lists all active,
acknowledged alarms.

Figure 1. Most Recent Alarms Display

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Alarm History Display The user-configurable alarm sort order is by any or all
The multi-page Alarm History Display provides a of the following:
complete list of all the alarm and return-to-normal  Return-to-normal versus in-alarm
messages from a selected Historian. Specific historic  Acknowledge state
alarm information is quickly accessible and displayed  Priority
as a subset of the entire historical database via the  Time
Alarm Manager match/filter feature. See Match and
The displays can be dynamically re-sorted at run
Filtering Features.
time.
The display enables easy access to information from
Additionally, a user-configurable return-to-normal
any Historian on the system via an Historian selection
action allows you to:
box. It also provides access to process displays in a
separate FoxView display manager window.  Retain the return-to-normal alarm in the alarm
database until acknowledged, or
Operations Display
 Remove the return-to-normal alarm from the
From the Operations display, workstation and database regardless of the block
annunciator keyboard horns can easily be silenced or acknowledgment state.
temporarily muted locally or throughout a group of
workstations. Additionally, the Operations display Each alarm message by default provides the
following information as shown in Figure 2:
allows you secured access to all I/A Series
environments having varying degrees of security.  Date and time

 Compound name
ALARM DISPLAY FEATURES
 Block name
Alarm Messages
 Variable text, depending on alarm type
Quickly focusing in on the latest high priority alarms is
essential in resolving alarm conditions. The CAD and • Block descriptor and updating value
MRA displays present the latest alarms. The set of • State text
alarm displays emphasize priority and status by
• Optional text and state text
utilizing:
 Alarm state (alarm priority or return-to-normal
 An alarm sort order (not applicable to the MRA or
indicator)
AHD displays)
 Acknowledge state
 Color-coded (and optionally blinking) alarm
priority numbers
 Status indicators for unacknowledged or
returned-to-normal alarm messages
Figure 2. Example of an Alarm Message
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Indicators, representing the alarm state and Acknowledge and Clear Actions
acknowledge state, appear in the alarm message in You can select alarms individually or as a group for
foreground or background colors depending on the acknowledging and clearing the alarms. You can also
current status: specify the selection criteria for a subset of alarms
 Color-coded alarm priority numbers 1 - 5 using the Find dialog box. Each alarm matching the
 R for an alarm that has returned to normal criteria is highlighted to show selection. A
 U for an unacknowledged alarm. subsequent action, such as acknowledging alarms or
clearing alarms, can then be performed on the
The Alarm Detail button accesses additional alarm
selected alarms.
information displayed in the Detail dialog box as
shown in Figure 3. The capability to configure alarm The Ack Alarm, Ack Page, and Ack Compound
message fields allows you to determine a subset of buttons allow you to acknowledge alarms by
alarm information for the display, yet have access to selection of an individual alarm or a set of alarms.
complete alarm information via the detail dialog box. Ack Alarm and Ack Page acknowledges all alarms in
the block in which the selected alarm(s) occurred.
Ack Compound acknowledges all alarms in all the
blocks of the compound in which the selected
alarm(s) occurred. The Clear Alarm and Clear Page
buttons clear alarms from the alarm database.

Remote Alarm Source

By default, the Alarm Managers on a workstation are
set up to get alarm data from the local alarm
database. However, Alarm Managers can display
alarms from an alarm database on a remote
workstation.
There are several advantages to accessing alarms
from a remote database, including to:
 Allow all alarms to be viewable from any
workstation
 Allow users normally monitoring alarms for one
area of the plant to be able to switch over and
monitor alarms from a different area of the plant
 Allow users to monitor alarms from more than
one area of the plant from a single workstation
 Provide for alarm message redundancy, thus
eliminating single point of failure.
Figure 3. Alarm Message Details Dialog Box
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Match, Filtering, and Sorting Features

The extensive match/filtering/sorting feature provides
the flexibility of viewing any subset of alarms from
those currently displayed. It allows you to define
customized match, filter, and/or sort specifications
that, when applied to the display, allow you, for
example, to:
 Focus on critical alarms

 View only sequence alarms for specific control

compounds
 Filter out nuisance low priority alarms during a
startup condition
 Filter out alarms from particular compounds or
control stations
Figure 4. Match/Filter Specification Dialog Box
 Sort the alarm entries by return-to-normal/in-
alarm, acknowledge state, priority, and/or time. Saving match/filter specifications to a file allows you
to re-apply the match/filtering specifications to the
When viewing an extensive list of historized alarms,
display(s) when needed. Assigning a pre-configured
you can easily view just the alarms that occurred
match/filter specification to a menu or button allows
during a specific timeframe, such as a day or shift, or
you to quickly and easily invoke a specific view of the
those alarms related to a specific block or compound
alarm database. Refer to the Alarm and Display
over a period of time.
Manager Configurator (ADMC) section.
For comprehensive matching and filtering, the
For safety, the status area of the display indicates
match/filter specification fields, as shown in Figure 4,
“Match Active” when a match specification is applied
support:
to the display. This indicates that only a subset of
 Wild-card characters for single and multiple alarms are visible.
characters within entries
Process Display Access
 Multiple entries per field
For additional information or to respond to alarm
 ORing of multiple entries per field
conditions, the following buttons provide access to a
 ANDing among multiple fields. process display corresponding to the highest priority
alarm or to the selected alarm:
 Top Priority
 User Display
 Block Detail.
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A process display appears in the window of the OPERATIONS DISPLAY FEATURES

FoxView display manager with which the Alarm The default Operations display provides secured
Manager is associated. Therefore, you have the password access to other I/A Series environments
advantage of viewing the process display and the with specific user or system responsibility
alarm displays at the same time. Alternately, process permissions. Authorized users can access
displays can be redirected to another workstation or environments or system responsibilities depending
a specified FoxView display manager depending on on the access levels and protection codes configured
your operational requirements. for each environment as well as for the alarm and
On Solaris based workstations you can access the process displays.
‘Windows Off’ mode. In ‘Windows Off’ mode, each The Horn menu provides workstation/annunciator
CRT supports one open display window – either the horn management. You can:
Alarm Manager window or the FoxView display
 Silence local workstation/annunciator horns
manager window.
 Silence all horns associated with workstations/
File Utilities annunciators in a predefined group (Common
Easy-to-use file utilities allow you to: Alarm Group)

 Save the contents of all alarm display messages  Temporarily shut off the local horns
to a file in normal format (as displayed) or Comma  Temporarily shut off all horns in the Common
Separated Value (CSV) format Alarm Group.
 Print alarm display messages. For safety, notice of temporary horn muting appears
Alarm information in CSV format is easily imported in the status area of each Alarm Manager display.
into spreadsheets such as Lotus or Excel or
databases such as Access for further analysis. ALARM AND DISPLAY MANAGER
CONFIGURATOR (ADMC)
On Solaris based workstations selection of a printer
To meet your process control operational needs, the
and print script allows you to print alarm messages
Alarm and Display Manager Configurator allows you
or a previously saved file in a selected format, such
to customize the various Alarm Manager and display
as:
manager settings and many aspects of the Alarm
 Two columns representing two pages Manager displays, including:
 A header that includes the page number and time  Configure additional Alarm Managers
and date of printing.
 Configure additional display managers
Print scripts are easily edited to meet your report
 Configure workstation properties, such as:
format needs.
On Windows based workstations, printer setup, page • Maximum number of alarms and sort order
setup, and print preview allow you to format, preview, • Horn settings
and print the alarm messages. WYSIWYG printing of
• Color and blink settings for alarm states
the alarms is supported.
 Configure Alarm Managers and display managers
to run on remote terminals
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 Change default startup settings for display  Maximum number of alarms and maximum
manager number of annunciator table assignments
 Change default startup settings for Alarm  “Top Priority” command association and display
Manager update options.
 Change the interface for each alarm display: Display Manager Property Scheme

• Menus and menu commands From the Display Manager Property scheme you can
configure/customize properties such as:
• Buttons (single and multi-state)
 Display manager class (for example, operator or
• Number of alarm message rows and
engineer)
columns
 Initial I/A Series environment in which the
• Pop-up menu contents
FoxView display manager starts up
 Configure indicators in the title bar and status bar  Initial display size and position, and resizing
 Change the alarm message contents and format options.
for each alarm type: Alarm Manager Property Scheme
• Alarm fonts, foreground and background From the Alarm Manager Property scheme you can
colors, alarm state indicators, time and date configure/customize properties such as:
format, field layout
 Alarm Manager class (for example, operator or
• Alarm text fields per alarm type. engineer)
 Initial alarm display type
Alarm Manager User Interface
The Alarm and Display Manager Configurator allows  Action to be taken upon the receipt of a new
you to configure many aspects of the user interface alarm
including the alarm message information and format.  Initial size and position of each alarm display type
Workstation Property Scheme  Specific parameters associated with the display
From the Workstation property scheme you can type, such as alarm pause timeout and alarm
configure station-wide settings, which include: refresh rate for dynamic displays.
 Maximum number of alarms, alarm discard sort User Interface Scheme
order, return-to-normal action, clear alarm, and The flexibility to customize the user interface scheme
alarm recovery options allows you to view alarm information according to
 Horn mute timeout, horn silence, horn resound, your presentation needs. Within the user interface
horn silence key, and horn feedback options scheme you can configure:

 Alarm text update and update priority options  The number of alarm rows and columns on the
display
 Color and blink rate settings for
unacknowledged, acknowledged, and  The content of the menu bar
unacknowledged return-to-normal alarms; and  The menu content or command associated with
alarm selection rectangle color each menu bar field
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 The label on each button and the state, access  A vertical column strip with ten numbered alarms
code, condition, and command associated with it
 A grid with two columns by fifteen rows of alarms
 A pop-up menu for quick access to frequently
 A grid with five columns by ten rows of alarms
used commands
 A grid with one column by ten rows with large
 Title and status bar.
text indicators.
Alarm Format Scheme
See Figures 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Fonts, indicators, color-coding, and content of the
Strip displays are designed to be used with standard
alarm information per alarm class or alarm type are
sized FoxView displays. Quarter-sized alarm displays
easily customized using a wide variety of fonts,
can be used with quarter-sized FoxView displays.
colors, and the cell editor. You can configure the:
 Alarm cell font SPECIAL FEATURES
 Alarm cell color based on, for example, priority, Alarm Manager built-in commands and keywords
alarm type, or status allow you to utilize alarm tasks and information in
other applications. AM built-ins are normally used for
 Font for the alarm state and status indicators
configuring button actions, menu items, and new
 Indicators using, for example, text or symbols alarm actions. Keywords and modifiers are used to
instead of priority numbers and R and U indicate the contents of each alarm type message. At
 Time and date format run time the Alarm Manager replaces the keywords
with text derived from the alarm messages generated
 Cell contents for the generic classes as well as
by the control software.
each alarm type within the following generic
classes: These built-ins and keyword features extend the
functionality of the Alarm Manager. They facilitate a
• Analog
link from the Alarm Manager to your own applications
• Digital to meet your plant-specific needs. For example, the
• Message operator instructions for a selected alarm could be
called up from a user-defined alarm response manual
• Other
application. Or, you could select a point that is in
 Size and layout of alarm fields within the alarm alarm and trend it automatically.
message cell HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS
 Overrides for cell and field font and color. The Alarm Manager runs on I/A Series Solaris based
workstations and I/A Series Windows based
ALTERNATE ALARM DISPLAYS workstations. The Alarm Manager is part of the
In addition to the standard Alarm Manager Displays, standard human interface software included with
Foxboro provides additional schemes to aid in your workstation.
customizing displays. These alternate display
presentations include:
 A horizontal strip with a single alarm

 A horizontal strip with five columns each with a

single alarm
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Figure 5. Examples of Horizontal and Vertical Strip Formats Figure 8. Example of 5-Column 10-Row Format for the Most
with Foxboro Default Size Display Manager Recent Alarms Display

Figure 6. Example of 2-Column 15-Row Format Figure 9. Example of Enlarged Status Indicators
for New Alarms Display and Square Buttons

Figure 7. Example of 5-Column Horizontal Strip Format

for Current Alarms Display
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I/A Series® workstation software is supported only on the workstation hardware and configurations shipped from Foxboro® I/A Series
system manufacturing. I/A Series system software undergoes rigorous qualification testing with specific software and hardware
configurations to ensure it meets the demanding requirements for process automation. Any use of non-supported computers for
I/A Series workstation software is not covered by our standard warrantee or support agreements unless specifically addressed and
documented. Exception to this policy includes support for some I/A Series engineering tools (i.e. IACC, FoxCAE™ tool, etc). Details on
what platforms are approved for use for these tools are documented in their respective Product Specification Sheets.

33 Commercial Street Invensys, Foxboro, and I/A Series are trademarks of Invensys plc, its
Foxboro, MA 02035-2099 subsidiaries, and affiliates.
United States of America All other brand names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
www.foxboro.com
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Outside U.S.: 1-508-549-2424 Copyright 1997-2005 Invensys Systems, Inc.
or contact your local Foxboro All rights reserved
representative.
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