Atlas Alarms

Alarm Detection

Atlas scans incoming readings for alarms conditions. Alarm thresholds can be based on fixed values or the results of a calculation and may be set for any channel of any sensor. Watchdog alarms warn if no readings are received.

When Atlas detects an alarm condition, it generates on-screen warnings, registers the alarm in the alarm log, and puts the alarm into the email notification queue.

Plan View Alarms

Alarms are displayed on screen in red or yellow. In the plan view at right, two sensors have changed from green, which is normal, to yellow and red, which indicate alarm conditions.

If a site is very large, it may be necessary to create several plan views. The menu shows the list of these plan views.

Notice the second screen shot. This is a different location at the same site. At this location, all of the sensors are green. Because users looking at this view cannot see the alarms in other views, Atlas highlights the views that have alarms. It is easy to see that two plan views listed in the menu have red alarms.

Notice the gray highlighting of the last view in the list. That is a watchdog alarm, indicating that Atlas has received no data for that plan view. Usually, the watchdog alarm is set on the data logger. If data from that logger does not appear on schedule, Atlas triggers the watchdog alarm warning.

Alarm Notifications

Atlas sends out alarm notifications by email to selected users. The alarm email lists the time, sensor ID, the alarm level, and reading value. To avoid flooding email boxes and cell phone memories with alarms, Atlas sends out just one notification per alarm condition. It also provides filters, as explained below.

Alarm Notification Filters

Users do not always want to be notified every time an alarm is triggered, because the condition may be transient.

Atlas provides filters to consolidate or suppress alarms. In the group filter at right, three sensors have been selected and a value of 2 has been set for total alarms. If two of the sensors enter amber or red condition, then the alarm notification will be sent (only one alarm for the group). Otherwise the notification is suppressed.

The second test is a kind of persistence filter. No alarm notification is sent unless the alarm persists for a certain number of minutes or occurs a certain number of instances.

Alarm Logging

Atlas records every alarm in an alarm table. The table shows the time, value, alarm level, and the name of the person who confirmed the alarm.

Setting Alarms

Alarm thresholds can be set in the sensor table, but it is easier to set thresholds from a plan view. Click on the sensor box to see the alarm dialog.

There are four possible thresholds: a high and low alarm for red and a high and low alarm for amber (yellow). The threshold value can be a fixed number, as shown here or the result of a calculation.

The name of the sensor and its current reading is displayed at the top. The current reading of 141 has exceeded the amber threshold of 120.

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