Configuring UCOS Alarms & Logs

Object-oriented techniques allow you to configure alarming and logging with minimal effort.

The key to quickly defining alarming and logging in UCOS is the use of groups.

A logging group consists of a list of logging devices to be associated with that logging group. Each logging device sends data to a printer or disk file.

Next, up to 16 alarm priorities are defined. These specify the name of each priority, the color of alarm messages, whether or not an audible alarm is sounded when the tag goes into alarm, and whether or not acknowledgment is required.

Finally, select the alarm group, alarm priority and/or the logging group to be associated with each tag, as applicable.

At run-time when activity occurs on a tag, that activity is logged via that tag's group to the appropriate workstation, printer, and/or disk file.

As depicted in this figure, each tag can be associated with only one alarm group and/or one logging group (depending on the type of tag). However, each group can be associated with multiple tags and/or destinations.

Each group can log to any number of destinations: alarm groups to workstations and logging groups to printers and/or disk files.

In addition to activity on tags, you can log workstation-specific events in addition to system-wide events, such as changing a setpoint and logging on to a workstation. In this case, the logging device will receive only data that belongs to the workstation it is associated with. That prevents a logging group from being bombarded with data from other workstations in the project.

Each alarm group, alarm priority, logging device, and logging group will be defined only once in a project. However, once the item is defined, you can create alarm and logging associations for thousands of tags simply by selecting a name from a supplied list. UCOS handles the task of matching the proper workstation or logging device with each tag at run-time.

For more information about alarms and logs at run-time, see the OWS Alarms and Logs pages.