Using statistic values in alarms

Introduction

Hello and welcome to a new guide on how to best use Movicon.NExT™.

In this technote you will learn how the alarms of a Movicon.NExT™ project can be linked to a statistical value of the tag.

Alarms and statistic values

We have already seen what tags and their statistical values are in their related videos. Now we will see what an alarm is.
The alarm is the status of a tag after its value reaches a certain condition.
The Movicon.NExT I/O Data Server has a module, the Alarm Manager, which is used to manage the alarms. The latter are configured in the I/O Data Server’s Alarms tab.
As with most SCADA, you can also assign the alarm of a tag to a source assigned to an area in Movicon.NExT. Basically, the alarms are placed in a tree structure according to the following scheme: the Alarm Manager has areas listed underneath it; an area contains one or more sources that in turn have their own alarm definitions.
In addition to assigning an alarm to the tag’s absolute value, Movicon.NExT also allows you to assign an alarm to a tag’s statistic value.

Example

Let us build an example to clarify the scenario. Open the Movicon.NExT editor and create, or load, a project.

Inserting a communication driver

To insert an I/O Driver, the Demo driver for example, do as follows:

• Open the I/O Data Server located in the project resource tree in the Project Explorer Window and select the I/O Driver tab to add the OPC UA Client driver.
• Once the I/O Driver has opened, right click on the workspace, and select the Add New Driver option from the menu that appears.
• Select the Demo driver from the list that shows. Click on the arrow to go ahead and configure it.
• Leave all settings set for default in the Driver's General Settings window and proceed by clicking the arrow to go ahead to the next step.
• Leave all the values set for default in the Driver's Channel properties and go to the next step by clicking the arrow.
• Leave all the driver's Station's properties in the configuration window set for default and proceed to configure the driver by clicking the arrow.
• To conclude the configuration procedure, click on the Finish button to insert the driver on the project’s driver list.

Creating a tag

Now we will create a tag to connect to the driver. To do this:

• Having the I/O Data Server open, go to the Tag List by selecting the corresponding tab.
• Right click on the workspace and select the Add New Tag option from the menu that appears.
• Configure the tag using the properties window in the following way:
• • Name: StatTag
  • Model Type: Variable
  • Data Type: Int32
  • Enable Tag Statistics: checked
  • Retentive: checked
• Confirm the changes by clicking on the Accept Changes icon on the tag's property window toolbar at the top.
• Search for the Physical I/O Address option in the tag's Execution property group and click on the three dots within brackets on the far right to access the tag's Driver address configuration.
• In the popup that shows, you can choose Simulation types from the combobox. In our example, we will select Random as Demo Type.
• Configure the following properties in this way:
• • Min Value: 0
  • Max Value: 100
  • Link Type: Read Only
  • Station: Station0
• Click the OK button to confirm the configuration.
• Confirm the changes by clicking on the Accept Changes button on the tag's Properties window toolbar.

Once the tag has been configured, save the project by clicking on the Save All button on the Movicon.NExT editor's top toolbar.

Creating and associating an alarm

We will now associate the alarm to the StatTag tag's statistic value. To do this:

• Open the I/O Data Server in the project tree within the Project Explorer window.
• Select the Alarms Tab to open it.
• Expand the items in the Alarms tab until you reach the source item.
• Select the source and right click to open the contextual menu and select the Add New Alarm Definition from the menu.
• Configure the new alarm in this way:
• Name: NumUpdateAlarm
• Alarm Type: Trip Alarm
• Statistics Data: Num Updates
• Activation Condition: Greater than
• Activation Value: 100
• Once the alarm has been configured, select and right-click it.
• Click the Assign Tag option and select the StatTag tag from the table that shows.

Creating the screen

We shall now create a screen:

• Look for the Screens resource in the project's tree structure in the Project Explorer window and select it.
• Right-click it and select the New option from the menu which appears. A New Screen popup will appear to set the screen's main properties.
• Configure the screen as follows:
• • Width: 1920
  • Height: 1080
  • Nome: Main
• Click the OK button to confirm the configuration.

Once the screen has been created, we can now change the project's properties by inserting the screen as the project's Main screen to show when the project starts up. To do this:

• Select the name of the project from the application's tree structure.
• Open the Properties window.
• Change the following project properties as follows:
• • Startup Page Type: Main Screen
  • Startup Screen Name: Main

Once you have finished configuring the project startup page, click on the Save All icon the toolbar at the top to save the project.

After opened the Main screen, click on the Toolbox tab on the far left of the editor, next to the Properties window, to open the Toolbox library provided by the software.
Expand the Display folder and select and drag the Display object onto the screen. Select the Display object on screen and open its Properties window.
Go to its Tag property and click on the corresponding button with three dots to configure it.
A window will show allowing you to select a project tag, a local client tag, a system tag, or an item from a third-party OPC UA Server. Select the I/O Data Server tab and select the StatTag tag we previously created.

Repeat this procedure to insert a second Display object and assign the StatTag variable.
In addition, select a statistic value to display by expanding the Advanced property group section and selecting Num Updates from the combobox.

The last object to add to the screen is an alarm viewer. To do this:

• Open the toolbox and expand the Alarm Viewers folder.
• Select and drag the Alarm Window onto the screen.

Once you have finished configuring the screen, click on the Save All icon the toolbar at the top to save the project.

Runtime Test

Launch the project into runtime by clicking on the Start Runtime button to test what you have created.
As soon as the number of the StatTag Tag's updates exceeds 100, a row with the tag's related configured alarm will show in the Alarm Window.