ViewPoint User's Guide

1.6

30OCT12 S. Johanneck

Rev Date

Modified By

Standard OSI document 1.9.4

Details of Change

Release Number

N. Orndorff

OSI Approval

CLIENT:

MAIN CONTRACTOR:

PROJECT: EVN-NDLC CONTRACT - OSI/NLDC SCADA/EMS

TITLE:

ViewPoint User s Guide OSI-5555-3073 ’

EVN NLDC Reviewer/Approver

EVN NLDC Document Number

OSI ViewPoint User’s Guide Revision 1.6 OSI-5555-3073 U.S. Patent No. 7,961,087 B2

TRADE SECRET This document contains confidential and proprietary information and trade secrets of Open Systems International, Inc. (OSI). The information contained herein shall be used solely by the Licensee’s employees responsible for the operation and maintenance of the OSI product(s), and shall not be disclosed to third parties or indiscriminately distributed within the Licensee’s organization without OSI’s expressed written permission. Use of this document is subject to the license agreement and the confidentiality agreement executed between the Licensee and OSI.

Revision History ViewPoint User’s Guide OSI-5555-3073 Date of Change

Rev. #

Details of Change

Author

Approval

19FEB09

1.0

Initial creation

N. Orndorff

B. Rasefske

07JUL09

1.1

Reorganized the document

N. Orndorff

B. Rasefske

Added Historical Alarms section, Updated screensho ts, M. Dickinson added External Application section. Updated for release version 1.2.0. 20AUG09

1.2

Added Real Time Events section. Updated for release version 1.3.0.

M. Dickinson

B. Rasefske

18DEC09

1.3

Added System Overview and SOE sections, revised Historical section. Updated for release version 1.4.0

M. Dickinson

B. Rasefske

12MAR10

1.4

Added permission information for grid customization. Added Open ViewPoin t command Updated for release version 1.5.0.

M. Dickinson

N. Orndorff

30APR10

1.5

Added Show Detail Display, Show Origin Display, and Show Point Dialog command information

M. Dickinson

N. Orndorff

30OCT12

1.6

Updated for version 1.9.4

S. Johanneck

N. Orndorff

Contents

I

Table of Contents Welcome to ViewPoint ................................................................................................................... VII A Short Introduction to ViewPoint ................................................................................................. VIII Who Should Read This Guide ............................. ................................. .................................. ......... VIII How this Guide is Organized .......................................................................................................... VIII Special Structural Features .............................................................................................................. IX Comments and Questions ................................................................................................................ IX

Chapter 1

Introduction to ViewPoint ..................................................................................... 1.1 1.1

Introduction .............................. ................................. ................................. ........................... 1.2

1.2

ViewPoint Layout ..................................................... .................................. ........................... 1.2 1.2.1 1.2.2 1.2.3 1.2.4 1.2.5

Chapter 2

System Overview ................................................................................................... 2.1 2.1

Introduction .............................. ................................. ................................. ........................... 2.2

2.2

Common Features ............................... ................................. ................................ ................. 2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4

2.3

Item Details ..............................................................................................................2.2 Pause ......................................................................................................................2.3 Email........................................................................................................................2.4 Printing ....................................................................................................................2.5

Historical Mode ..................................................................................................................... 2.5 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.3

Chapter 3

Navigation Panel ......................................................................................................1.3 Data Panel ...............................................................................................................1.3 Menu Bar .................................................................................................................1.3 Toolbar ....................................................................................................................1.3 Status Bar ................................................................................................................1.3

Filters .......................................................................................................................2.6 Tabular View ............................................................................................................2.7 Event Analyzer .........................................................................................................2.7

Alarms.................................................................................................................... 3.1 3.1

Introduction .............................. ................................. ................................. ........................... 3.2 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3

3.2

Alarms .................. ...... ................ ........... ........... ...... ........... ........... ...... ..................... 3.2 Alarm Viewport Widget ........... ........... ...... ................ ........... ...... ..................... ........... 3.2 Alarm Sound ..................................................... ...... ........... ........... ...... ..................... 3.2

Alarms ................................................................................................................................... 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2

Standard Alarm Views ..............................................................................................3.3 Interacting with Alarms .............................................................................................3.3 3.2.2.1 Acknowle dging Alarms ............................................... ...... ........... ..........3.5 3.2.2.2 Page Acknowledge ................................................................................3.5 3.2.2.3 Partially Acknowledged Alarms .............................................................3.6 3.2.2.4 Deleting Alarms .....................................................................................3.6 3.2.2.5 Page Delete ..........................................................................................3.7 3.2.2.6 Partially Deleted Alarms ........................................................................3.7 3.2.2.7 Flagging Alarms ....................................................................................3.8 3.2.2.8 Viewing Alarm Help Files.......................................................................3.8

Confidential & Proprietary Open Systems International, Inc.

II

OSI ViewPoint User’s Guide

3.2.3 3.2.4

3.2.5 3.3

Alarm Viewport ............................... ................................. ................................ .................... 3.11 3.3.1

3.4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Origin List .............................................................................................................. 3.11

Alarm Sounds ................................ ................................. ................................. .................... 3.12 3.4.1 3.4.2 3.4.3 3.4.4

Chapter 4

Annotating Alarms ................................................... ...... ........... ........... ...... ........... ....3.8 Adding Attachments to Alarms ................................................. ........... ................ ... 3.10 3.2.4.1 Adding a New Attach ment ...................................................... ............. 3.10 3.2.4.2 Opening an Attachment .............................. ................................. ........ 3.10 External Application Shortcuts ..................... ................................. ......................... 3.10

Enabling/Disabling Sound ....................................... ................................ ............... 3.12 Alarm Silencing ........... ...... ........... ................ ........... ...... ........... ........... ...... ............. 3.13 Alarm Snoozing ........... ...... ........... ................ ........... ...... ........... ........... ...... ............. 3.13 Alarms and Your Scre ensaver ...... ........... ...... ................ ........... ........... ................ ... 3.14

Events .................................................................................................................... 4.1 4.1

Introduction ...........................................................................................................................4.2

4.2

Details ....................................................................................................................................4.2

4.3

Viewing Event Help Files ......................................................................................................4.3

SOEs ......................................................................................................................5.1 5.1

Introduction ...........................................................................................................................5.2

5.2

Details ....................................................................................................................................5.2

Advanced ViewPoint ............................................................................................. 6.1 6.1

Working in the Data Panel ....................................................................................................6.2 6.1.1

6.1.2 6.1.3 6.1.4

6.1.5 6.2

Choosing Columns ...................................................................................................6.2 6.1.1.1 Adding a Column ................................................... ........... ................ .....6.3 6.1.1.2 Hiding a Column .............................. ................................. .....................6.3 6.1.1.3 Changing the Column Order .................................. ................................ 6.3 6.1.1.4 Changing the Column Width ..................................................................6.4 Viewing Data Details ................................................................................................6.5 Sorting Data .............................................................................................................6.5 Filtering Data ...........................................................................................................6.6 6.1.4.1 Quick Filter ............................................................................................6.7 6.1.4.2 Filter Editor............................................................................................6.8 6.1.4.3 Filter Description Bar .................................. ................................ ......... 6.12 Grouping Data........................................................................................................ 6.12

Understanding Views ................................ ................................. ................................ ......... 6.15 6.2.1 6.2.2 6.2.3 6.2.4

6.2.5

What is a View? ........................................... ................................. ......................... 6.16 Creating a Custom View......................................................................................... 6.16 Saving a Custom View ................................. ................................. ......................... 6.16 Managing Custom Views ............................... ................................. ........................ 6.18 6.2.4.1 Shared Views ............................................. ................................ ......... 6.19 6.2.4.2 My Views .............................. ................................. .............................. 6.19 Modifying a Custom View .............................. ................................. ........................ 6.19

6.3

Pagifying a View .................................. ................................. ................................ ............... 6.20

6.4

OpenView Commands ........................................................................................................ 6.20 6.4.1 6.4.2 6.4.3

Toggle Sound ........................................................................................................ 6.21 Snooze .................................................................................................................. 6.21 Silence .............................. ................................. ................................. ................... 6.21


Contents

6.4.4 6.4.5 6.4.6 6.4.7 6.4.8 6.4.9 6.4.10 6.4.11 6.4.12 6.5

III

Open ViewPoint ................................................ .................................. ................... 6.21 Alarm He lp ........................................................ ...... ........... ........... ...... ................... 6.23 Acknowledge Selected Alarms ............... ........... ...... ........... ........... ...... ................... 6.23 Acknowledge Matching by Source ..................... ...... ........... ........... ...... ................... 6.23 Delete Selected Alarms ................................ ................................ .......................... 6.24 Delete Matching by Source ..................................... ................................ ............... 6.24 Show Detail Display ................................................ ................................ ............... 6.24 Show Origin Display ................................ ................................ ............................... 6.24 Show Point Dialog ............................. ................................. .................................. .. 6.25

Customizing ViewPoint ................................. .................................. ................................ .... 6.25 6.5.1 6.5.2 6.5.3

6.5.4

The Customize Dialog ........................................................ ................................ .... 6.25 Customizing the Font .................................. ................................. .......................... 6.26 Customizing the Background.................................................................................. 6.27 6.5.3.1 Background Color........................... .................................. ................... 6.27 6.5.3.2 Alterna ting Rows ........................................................ ...... ................... 6.28 6.5.3.3 Image ............................. ................................. .................................. .. 6.28 Customizing the Border ................................ ................................ .......................... 6.29


IV


Table of Figures Figure 1.1: ViewPoint Layout ............................................................................................................ 1.2 Figure 1.2: Navigation Panel Selection ............................................................................................. 1.3 Figure 2.1: System Overview Options .............................................................................................. 2.2 Figure 2.2: Alarm Details Window .................................................................................................... 2.3 Figure 2.3: Pause Button .................................................................................................................. 2.3 Figure 2.4: Unpause Button .............................................................................................................. 2.3 Figure 2.5: Email Editor .................................................................................................................... 2.4 Figure 2.6: Print Preview .................................................................................................................. 2.5 Figure 2.7: Historical Mode ............................... ................................. ................................ ............... 2.6 Figure 2.8: Event Analyzer in Timeline View ................................ ................................. .................... 2.7 Figure 3.1: Alarm Actions from the Menu.......................................................................................... 3.4 Figure 3.2: Alarm Actions from the Toolbar ...................................................................................... 3.4 Figure 3.3: Alarm Actions from the Alarm Details ............................................................................. 3.4 Figure 3.4: Alarm Actions from the Right-click Menu ........................................................................ 3.5 Figure 3.5: Alarm Acknowledge Options ........................................................................................... 3.5 Figure 3.6: Alarm Delete Options ..................................................................................................... 3.6 Figure 3.7: Alarm Flag Options ......................................................................................................... 3.8 Figure 3.8: Annotations Menu........................................................................................................... 3.9 Figure 3.9: Annotation Editor ............................................................................................................ 3.9 Figure 3.10: Annotations List ............................................................................................................ 3.9 Figure 3.11: Annotation Indication ...................................................................................................3.10 Figure 3.12: Attachments Menu .......................................................................................................3.10 Figure 3.13: Shortcut Menu .............................................................................................................3.11 Figure 3.14: Alarm Viewport ............................................................................................................3.11 Figure 3.15: Disable Sound Button ..................................................................................................3.12 Figure 3.16: Enable Sound Button ...................................................................................................3.12 Figure 3.17: Silence Button .............................................................................................................3.13 Figure 3.18: Snooze Button .............................................................................................................3.13 Figure 4.1: Event Details Window ..................................................................................................... 4.3 Figure 5.1: SOE Details Window ...................................................................................................... 5.2 Figure 6.1: Accessing the Column Chooser from the Toolbar ........................................................... 6.2 Figure 6.2: Accessing the Column Chooser from the Column Header .............................................. 6.2 Figure 6.3: Column Chooser Display ................................................................................................ 6.3 Figure 6.4: Adding a Column ............................................................................................................ 6.3 Figure 6.5: Best Fit Option................................................................................................................ 6.4 Figure 6.6: Best Fit for All Columns .................................................................................................. 6.5 Figure 6.7: Column Sorting Indication Arrow .................................................................................... 6.5 Figure 6.8: Column Header Menu Sort Options ................................................................................ 6.6 Figure 6.9: Clear Sorting from Column Header Menu ....................................................................... 6.6 Figure 6.10: Quick Filter from Toolbar .............................................................................................. 6.7 Figure 6.11: Quick Filter from Menu Bar ........................................................................................... 6.7 Figure 6.12: Quick Filter Example .................................................................................................... 6.8 Figure 6.13: Quick Filter Example 2 ................................................................................................. 6.8 Figure 6.14: Filter Editor Selection ................................................................................................... 6.9 Figure 6.15: Filter Editor Dialog ........................................................................................................ 6.9 Figure 6.16: Filter Operator Menu .................................................................................................... 6.9 Figure 6.17: Filter Field Options ......................................................................................................6.10 Figure 6.18: Filter Comparison Options ...........................................................................................6.11 Figure 6.19: Filter Description Bar ...................................................................................................6.12 Figure 6.20: Recently Applied Filters ...............................................................................................6.12 Figure 6.21: Group By Box from Tool Bar ........................................................................................6.13 Figure 6.22: Group By Box from View Menu ....................................................................................6.13 Figure 6.23: Group By Box from Menu Bar ......................................................................................6.13 Figure 6.24: Group By Box ..............................................................................................................6.14 Figure 6.25: Nested Group By Box ..................................................................................................6.14 Figure 6.26: Group By This Column ................................................................................................6.15


Contents

V

Figure 6.27: Group By Box Options .................................................................................................6.15 Figure 6.28: Save View from File Menu ...........................................................................................6.16 Figure 6.29: Save View from Menu .............................. ................................. ................................. ..6.17 Figure 6.30: View Save As… Dialog ................................................................................................6.17 Figure 6.31: New Folder from File Menu..........................................................................................6.18 Figure 6.32: New Folder from Menu ................................................................................................6.18 Figure 6.33: Rename Folder ............................................................................................................6.19 Figure 6.34: Example Parameters for Comparison Link ...................................................................6.22 Figure 6.35: Configured Dynamic Menu Item ............................... ................................. ...................6.23 Figure 6.36: Customize Menu ..........................................................................................................6.25 Figure 6.37: Customize Dialog ........................................................................................................6.26 Figure 6.38: Font Selection Dialog ..................................................................................................6.27 Figure 6.39: Color Dialog ................................................................................................................6.28 Figure 6.40: Select Image Dialog ....................................................................................................6.29

Table of Tables Table 3.1: Alarm Columns ................................................................................................................ 3.3 Table 3.2: Standard Alarm Views ..................................................................................................... 3.3 Table 3.3: Partially Acknowledged Alarms Example ......................................................................... 3.6 Table 3.4: Partially Deleted Alarms Example .................................................................................... 3.7 Table 3.5: Alarm Sound Examples ..................................................................................................3.12 Table 4.1: Event Columns ................................................................................................................ 4.2 Table 5.1: SOE Columns .................................................................................................................. 5.2 Table 6.1: Boolean Operator Descriptions .......................................................................................6.10 Table 6.2: Example Parameters for Open ViewPoint Command ......................................................6.22


Welcome to ViewPoint

A Short Introduction to ViewPoint Basic purpose of the ViewPoint product

Who Should Read this Guide Description of the intended audience for this user’s guide

How this Guide is Organized How to get the most out of this guide

Special Structural Features Special features in this user’s guide

Comments and Questions A note on comments and questions

VIII


A Short Introduction to ViewPoint Welcome to the Open Systems International, Inc. (OSI) ViewPoint product, your new alarming tool. ViewPoint is designed to make alarm management more convenient for your company. The ViewPoint product allows you to: 

Customize the look of your alarming system



View, sort and filter alarms



Create and manage custom alarm views



Work with real-time and historical alarms and events

Who Should Read This Guide This user’s guide is designed to benefit individuals who have an average degree of proficiency and familiarity with the following tools: 

Standard Windows® functions



Keyboard and mouse



The OSI OpenView™ product



The OSI OpenSCADA product

How this Guide is Organized Chapter 1: Introduction to ViewPoint This chapter introduces the ViewPoint product, including a description of the layout, including the panels and navigational tools.

Chapter 2: System Overview This chapter introduces the System Overview component, which allows you to view alarm, event and SOE data all together. It also introduces concepts that are part of the other components.

Chapter 3: Alarms This chapter introduces the Alarms component, which allows you to interact with alarms, as well as the Alarm Viewport and alarm sound.

Chapter 4: Events This chapter introduces the Events component, which allows you to interact with events.

Chapter 5: SOEs This chapter introduces the SOEs component, which allows you to interact with SOEs.


Welcome to ViewPoint

IX

Chapter 6: Advanced ViewPoint This chapter tells you how to accomplish more with ViewPoint by giving configuration help, describing the tools used to view, sort, and filter data and describing how to save custom views for future use.

Special Structural Features These structural features will help you to get the most out of this guide.

Chapter Previews Each chapter begins with a preview. Read these convenient previews to gain an overall understanding of the content for each chapter.

Note

Notes present additional useful information in order to enhance your understanding of the software. Some notes point to related sections of the guide that help to augment the presented information.

Tip

Tips present short advice on especially quick ways t o perform a task, or useful ideas and techniques that you might not discover on your own.

Try This

Mini-exercises lead you through a series of steps that offer you the opportunity to perform and to practice what you have just read about. WARNING Warnings caution you about the necessity of the careful use of certain product features and/or alert you to some of the few pitfalls you may encounter.

Comments and Questions We appreciate your efforts in helping us continually improve our products and documentation; therefore, if you have comments, questions and/or suggestions regarding either, please contact Open Systems International ’s customer support group as defined by your current support program.


Chapter 1

Introduction to ViewPoint

Introduction A brief look into the ViewPoint layout and navigational tools

1.2


1.1

Introduction Being able to effectively manage alarms can greatly increase the efficiency of your system. ViewPoint’s highly customizable user interface allows you to organize, view and manipulate alarms with ease. Fine-tuning your alarm management system to each user’s preference allows for better control of services, especially during situations that could potentially cause outages. The following sections will briefly introduce you to what you will see when you open ViewPoint.

1.2

ViewPoint Layout In general, a ViewPoint component consists of a navigation panel, data panel, menu bar, toolbar and status bar. For example, Figure 1.1 shows the System Overview component layout. The following subsections outline the major features of each of the different display panels and navigational tools.

Figure 1.1: ViewPoint Layout


Introduction to ViewPoint

1.2.1

1.3

Navigation Panel The navigation panel provides you with quick access to navigation of a ViewPoint component. In most components, this panel determines the data that displays in the data panel. By default, the navigation panel displays. If you would like, you can to hide it. To do this, go to the View menu and click Navigation Panel (see Figure 1.2). This will deselect the option and hide the panel. To display the navigation panel again, select it from the View menu.

Figure 1.2: Navigation Panel Selection

1.2.2

Data Panel In general, the main part of a ViewPoint component is the data panel. This panel is where you will view data and perform most of the user actions specific to the current component. As mentioned in the previous subsection, most often the selection in the navigation panel determines the data shown in the data panel.

1.2.3

Menu Bar The menu bar provides all of the available functions of ViewPoint and the current component. The purpose and use of each of the menu items is discussed in the corresponding component’s chapter.

1.2.4

Toolbar The toolbar provides quick access to many of the functions provided in the options of the menu bar. The purpose and use of each of the menu items is discussed in the corresponding component’s chapter.

1.2.5

Status Bar The status bar at the bottom of the display provides information on the current status of the system, as well as messages from the current component. ViewPoint will also display the communication status with the server (connected or disconnected) in the status bar.


Chapter 2

System Overview

Introducing System Overview A brief intro duction to the features of System Overview

Common Features An in-depth description of the features you will find throughout ViewPoint and their uses.

Historical Mode A guid e to viewing historical data

2.2


2.1

Introduction ViewPoint provides the ability to view alarm, event and SOE data. Each type has its own component configured specifically for its needs. These components are discussed in the next three chapters. While alarms, events and SOEs can be useful on their own, sometimes you will want to view them together. For example, if you are trying to figure out why a control issued by a user never reached a point in the field, you would want to verify the following items: 1.

SCADA generated an event for the user issuing the control.

If there is no such event, the user did not actually issue the control or there was an error issuing the control. 2.

The RTU generated a SOE for the control.

If there is no such event, the RTU never received the control or never performed it. 3.

SCADA generated an alarm due the control either succeeding or failing.

If there is no such alarm, SCADA never received an update for the control. By viewing all three items together and filtering to the correct RTU, you can quickly find the source of the problem. While the alarms, events and SOEs components have their own features, System Overview contains features common to all three. For instance, you will be able to use the pause and email features in System Overview, as well as the three other components. In addition to viewing the three types of items together, you can view them separately within System Overview. This allows you to switch quickly between item types without having to switch components.

Figure 2.1: System Overview Options

2.2

Common Features In each component, you will find the features described below.

2.2.1

Item Details The data panel can present a great deal of information, but it can not show everything. For instance, the System Overview panel has about 20 different columns. These columns may not be applicable to each data type (for instance, SOEs do not have an alarm group), or you may be interested in that data all the time.


System Overview

2.3

In order to allow you to reduce information overload, ViewPoint allows you to view the details of each alarm or event individually. You can bring up this window by clicking the Details button or by selecting View Details. Alarms, events and SOEs all have their own details windows. The details window for alarms is shown below.

Figure 2.2: Alarm Details Window

Note

2.2.2

The Details button may be named differently in the other components.

Pause You may sometimes find it difficult to correctly select an item you want to examine because it moves when you are about to select it. T his can become problematic when acknowledging or deleting alarms because you could potentially acknowledge or delete the wrong alarm. Using pause will help prevent this. Pause simply pauses your display, preventing it from updating for a period of time. Pause does not affect the data processing of your system. New data can enter the system while your view is paused, but you will not see it. As soon as your view is un-paused, any new data will automatically display. To pause your view, click the Pause button or select Actions

Pause.

Figure 2.3: Pause Button The Pause button changes state to indicate that your view is paused. When the button is in this state, you can click it to unpause your view.

Figure 2.4: Unpause Button Pause will automatically time out and unpause after a configurable period. You should contact your system administrator if you have any que stions regarding the pause timeout. You


2.4


can find information on how to configure the pause timeout in the ViewPoint Configuration Guide. If you have PauseSession enabled on your system, pausing in one plugin or in the Alarm Viewport will pause in all other plugins and viewports. Once you unpause or the pause expires, it will expire for all plugins and viewports.

2.2.3

Email This feature of ViewPoint allows you to send the details of data via email. Using the email editor, you can add the email addresses of the recipients. Depending on your system configuration, you may also be able to edit the subject line and body of the email. The information for the alarm, event or SOE is automatically added to the body of the email. You may see additional or different information based on how your system is set up.

Figure 2.5: Email Editor You can select multiple items to include in an email (with a maximum of 100). This is shown in the email body above.

Tip

To send the email to multiple email addresses, you must place a se micolon (;) between the addresses, as shown in Figure 2.5.


System Overview

2.2.4

2.5

Printing Print. This If you need a hard copy of the data you see on the screen, you can select File brings up the famili ar Windows printing prompt. If you want to see what will be printed, you can select File Print Preview. With this dialog, you can view the data as it will print.

Figure 2.6: Print Preview The headers and footers of the pages may show different information based on how your printing settings are configured.

Note

If you are viewing a large a mount of items, it may take awhile to gen erate the print or print preview. You will either have to wait for it to complete or filter your results to reduce the amount of alarms.

2.3

Historical Mode System Overview also contains the ability to view alarms, events and SOEs in your historical database. You can choose the desired timeframe and view the results in a tabular or calendar view. You can activate historical mode by clicking the Historical Mode button in the toolbar. When this is activated, the tabular will change colors and a panel will appear to the left of it. While historical mode is active, you will no longer be able to view data updates in real time.


2.6


Figure 2.7: Historical Mode To populate the tabular and calendar with data, you can select your start and end times for your period via the drop-down boxes to the left. Set Start Time to the start of your period and End Time to the end of your period. Specify any filters you want to use in your query. When you have finished, you can press Run Query to retrieve the data from the historical data source. If you wish to remove the data from the tabular and calendar, you can right click on a record in the tabular display and select Clear Results . Similar to the real-time portion of System Overview, you can view historical alarms, events and SOEs together or separately. This is especially useful for historical mode. For example, if you select alarms, any historical query you run will only return alarms. This helps reduce unnecessary clutter and querying time.

Note

If you have already run a query, switching between the different item types will have the same effect as pressing Clear Results. This applies to switching between real -time and historical mode as well.

2.3.1

Filters Filters reduce the amount of time it takes to complete your query. Only results matching your filter are shown in the tabular display. Filters are located directly below the Start and End time fields. To specify a filter, enter a value into a filter field or use the dropdown list to select a value if one is available. Blank filter fields are not included in the query. When the System Overview node is selected, all filters for Alarms, Events and SOEs are shown. This can be seen in the figure from section 2.3. Even though all filters are shown, filters specific to Alarms and Events will not affect SOEs. Likewise, filters specific to SOEs will not affect Alarms and Events.

Tip

The % symbol acts as a wildcard.


System Overview

2.7

When you need to create a complex filter, click the Advanced Filter button . This will hide the filter fields table and display the filter builder. The filt er builder allows you to specify more than one value per filter field. In addition, you are able to choose how your value is structured compared to the Alarm/Event/SOE value. Some of the options available to you are Begins with, Contains, Is greater than and Is less than. Filters specified before clicking Advanced Filter will be included in the filter builder. You can click Basic Filter to close the filter builder. However, changes made in the filter builder will be lost when you exit the filter builder.

2.3.2

Tabular View The Tabular view presents the data in the same format as the real-time view.

2.3.3

Event Analyzer When viewing the Event Analyzer, you are presented with the main data panel and the filter panel on the right side. The data panel shows the alarms in one of two formats. The week view will show each day under the appropriate Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Sat/Sun column. Any alarms that occur on these days show up as a rectangle in that day. If the rectangle is not big enough to hold all the text for the alarm, you can hover your cursor over it to view the rest of the text. The second view shows one or more days in a timeline form, from 12am to 11pm. Similar to the first view, alarms are presented as rectangles in the appropriate place on the timeline.

Figure 2.8: Event Analyzer in Timeline View Use the filter panel to navigate through the historical data. When the analyzer first appears, the filter panel shows the complete timeframe of the query. You can limit the days shown i f this is too much data. By selecting one day in the filter panel, the data panel will show a timeline view for that day. If you + left-click on additional days, they will be added to the data panel and any existing days will be shrunk down to fit. You can + left-click any selected days to unselect them. If you + left-click on additional days, it will either present these days in a similar fashion or switch to the week view.


Chapter 3

Alarms

Introducing Alarms A brief intro duction to the features of alarms, including the Alarm Viewport widget and Alarm Sound

Understanding Alarms How to manage alarms, including acknowledging, deleting, flagging, annotating and adding attachments to alarms

Understanding Alarm Sounds How to configure and manage alarms sounds on your system, including enabling, disabling, silencing and snoozing alarms

3.2


3.1

Introduction ViewPoint provides three components with which you can interact with alarms: the Alarms component of the ViewPoint plugin, the Alarm Viewport widget and alarm sound.

3.1.1

Alarms The Alarms component allows you to identify disturbances in the system quickly by providing real-ti me sorting and filtering for alarms. This high-performance feature also allows for alarm management through acknowledging and deleting alarms.

3.1.2

Alarm Viewport Widget The Alarm Viewport widget is a smaller, stripped-down version of the Alarms component, sized to fit easily in the lower dashboard of OpenView. It allows you to maintain a quick snapshot of unacknowledged alarms and gives you some basic alarm management functions when you do not have ViewPoint open.

3.1.3

Alarm Sound Alarm sound gives an audible annunciation to new alarms that enter the system. In conjunction with OpenSCADA alarm classes, this feature provides many options of alerting users of new alarms. Alarm sound also provides features such as silence and snooze to customize your experience.

3.2

Alarms In the Alarms component, you can use the alarms panel to manage the alarms in your system, including acknowledging and deleting alarms. T here are also tools available to help you manage these alarms, including alarm flags, email, annotations, attachments and alarm help files. The following subsections explain each of these functions in more detail. For more information on alarm types and behavior, please see the OpenSCADA User’s Guide. Alarms have a defined set of fields. These fields are listed in Table 3.1. You can view each of the fields in a separate column in the alarms panel.

Name

Description

Annotation/

Indicates an annotation and/or attachment is associated with this alarm

Attachment Help

Indicates a help file is associated with this alarm

Date/Time

The time when the alarm was generated; provided by the SCADA system

Origin

The origin of the alarm; for SCADA points, it is the station of the point

Description

The description of the alarm; for SCADA points, it is the name of the point

Event

The event of the alarm; for SCADA points, it is the alarm class message

Value

The value of the alarm

Flag

Indicates that a user has flagged this alarm; several different colored flags exist


Alarms

3.3

Name

Description

AOR Group

The AOR group of the alarm; t he AOR g roup determines which AORs the a larm gets generated for

Class

The alarm class of the alarm; it determines the characteristics and behavior of the alarm

Event Time

The time when the event occurred; this timestamp is passed into the SCADA system

Group

The alarm group of the alarm; the alarm group determines specific behaviors of the alarm

ID

Internal ID of the alarm; only applicable to the SCADA system

Severity

The severity of the alarm (1 - 8)

Units

The units of the SCADA point with which the alarm is associated

Key

The SCADA key of the SCADA point with which the alarm is associated

Table 3.1: Alarm Columns

3.2.1

Standard Alarm Views The system has seven standard alarm views built in. These alarm views determine the t ype of data presented in the alarms panel. Table 3.2 explains these standard alarm views. For more information on the various alarm types please see the OpenSCADA User’s Guide.

Icon

Name

Description

All

Contains all alarms in your AOR(s)

Summary

Contains alarms in the Unacknowledged, Acknowledged, Active and Suppressed views; deleted alarms are not included

Unacknowledged Contains the unacknowledged alarms in your AOR(s) Acknowledged

Contains the ackn owledged alarms in your AOR(s)

Active

Contains the active alarms in your AOR(s)

Suppressed

Contains the suppressed alarms in your AOR(s)

Deleted

Contains the deleted alarms in your AOR(s)

Table 3.2: Standard Alarm Views Alarm Explorer also automatically creates “unacknowledged origin” views. Under the standard Unacknowledged view, Alarm Explorer will generate a filtered view for each origin for all of the alarms in the Unacknowledged view. This can be helpful when you want to quickly view alarms specific to only one origin.

3.2.2

Interacting with Alarms For each of the actions outlined below, you have four ways to perform the action: 1.

Using the Actions menu:


3.4


Figure 3.1: Alarm Actions from the Menu 2.

From the toolbar:

Figure 3.2: Alarm Actions from the Toolbar 3.

From the Alarm Details dialog:

Figure 3.3: Alarm Actions from the Alarm Details 4.

From the right-click menu:


Alarms

3.5

Figure 3.4: Alarm Actions from the Right-click Menu

3.2.2.1

Acknowledging Alarms To acknowledge an unacknowledged alarm, you first need to select the unacknowledged alarm(s) you want to acknowledge. Then, using one of the methods mentioned at the beginning of this section, you can choose to either acknowledge the selected alarm(s) or acknowledge all alarms that match the selected alarm(s).

Figure 3.5: Alarm Acknowledge Options Acknowledge Matching By Source will acknowledge all unacknowledged alarms in your AOR(s) that are from the same source as the selected alarm. For example, performing this action on an alarm generated from a SCADA point will acknowledge all alarms for that SCADA point.

Note

When acknowledging alarms you can only select up to 500 alarms, unless your system administrator has disabled the LimitMaxAlarm setting. See the ViewPoint Configuration Guide for more details.

Tip

When viewing alarms in the Active view, acknowledging a Return to Normal alarm will acknowledge the previous limit violations for that point as well. Depending on your configuration, this auto-acknowledge will either stop at the previous Return to Normal, or it will acknowledge all previous alarms for that point.

3.2.2.2

Page Acknowledge If your administrator has enabled the AllowPageAcknowledge setting, you may have the option to acknowledge all the alarms on the page. To do so, select the acknowledge page ( ) button in the toolbar. This will acknowledge all the currently visible alarms. T his will only be available for views that have been pagified.


3.6


3.2.2.3

Partially Acknowledged Alarms Depending on your system configuration, an alarm can be partially acknowledged. This means that an alarm has not been acknowledged for all of its AORs. A partially acknowledged alarm will show up in the Acknowledged view, but the Date/Time column will be blinking like an unacknowledged alarm. In the following example, we have User 1 who has permission to AOR 1, User 2 who has permission to AOR 2 and User 3 who has permission to AORs 1, 2 and 3. All alarms are generated with AORs 1, 2 and 3. T he table shows how each user sees the alarm in question.

Action

User 1

User 2

User 3

Description

Alarm 1 generated

Unacknowledged Unacknowledged Unacknowledged Alarm is unacknowledged for all AORs

User 1 Acknowledged acknowledges (Partial) Alarm 1

Unacknowledged Unacknowledged The alarm is only acknowledged for AOR 1, so both User 2 and User 3 see it as unacknowledged

User 2 Acknowledged acknowledges (Partial) Alarm 1

Acknowledged (Partial)

User 2 gains Acknowledged permission to (Partial) AOR 3

Unacknowledged Unacknowledged Now User 2 sees that the alarm is unacknowledged for AOR 3, so they see it as unacknowledged

User 3 Acknowledged acknowledges Alarm 1

Acknowledged

Alarm 2 generated

Unacknowledged The alarm is still unacknowledged for AOR 3, so User 3 see s it as unacknowledged

Acknowledged

Alarm is acknowledged for all AORs

Unacknowledged Unacknowledged Unacknowledged Alarm is unacknowledged for all AORs

User 3 Acknowledged acknowledges Alarm 2

Acknowledged

Acknowledged


Table 3.3: Partially Acknowledged Alarms Example

3.2.2.4

Deleting Alarms To delete an alarm, you first need to select the acknowledged alarm(s) you want to delete. Then, using one of the methods mentioned at the beginning of this section, you can choose to either delete the selected alarm(s) or delete all alarms that match the selected alarm(s).

Figure 3.6: Alarm Delete Options Delete Matching By Source will delete all acknowledged alarms in your AOR(s) from the same source as the selected alarm. For example, performing this action on an alarm generated off a SCADA point will delete all acknowledged alarms for that SCADA point.

Note

When deleting alarms, you can only select up to 500 alarms at a time, unless your system administrator has disabled the LimitMaxAlarm setting. See the ViewPoint Configuration Guide for more details.


Alarms

3.2.2.5

3.7

Page Delete If your administrator has enabled the AllowPageDelete setting, you may have the option to delete all the alarms on the page. To do so, select the delete page ( ) button in the toolbar. This will delete all the currently visible alarms. This will only be available for views that have been pagified.

3.2.2.6

Partially Deleted Alarms Depending on your system configuration, an alarm can be partially deleted. This means that an alarm has not been deleted for all of its AORs. A partially deleted alarm will appear in the Deleted view, but the Date/Time column will keep the alarm's normal color instead of being bright white like with deleted alarms. In the following example, we have User 1 who has permission to AOR 1, User 2 who has permission to AOR 2 and User 3 who has permission to AORs 1, 2 and 3. All alarms are generated with AORs 1, 2 and 3 and as unacknowledged. The table shows how each user sees the alarm in question.

Action

User 1

Alarm 1 generated

Unacknowledged Unacknowledged

User 3 Acknowle dged acknowledges Alarm 1

User 2

User 3

Description

Unacknowledged Alarm is unacknowledged for all AORs.

Acknowledged

Acknowle dged


User 1 deletes Deleted (Partial) Acknowledged Alarm 1

Acknowledged

The alarm is only deleted for AOR 1, so both User 2 and User 3 still see it as acknowledged

User 2 deletes Deleted (Partial) Deleted (Partial) Alarm 1

Acknowledged

The alarm is still not deleted for AOR 3, so User 3 sees it as acknowledged

User 2 gains permission to AOR 3

Acknowledged

Now User 2 sees that the alarm is not deleted for AOR 3, so they see it as acknowledged

Deleted

Alarm is deleted for all AORs

Deleted (Partial) Acknowledged

User 3 deletes Deleted Alarm 1

Alarm 2 generated

Deleted

Unacknowledged Unacknowledged

Unacknowledged Alarm is unacknowledged for all AORs

User 3 Acknowle dged acknowledges Alarm 2

Acknowledged

Acknowle dged


User 3 deletes Deleted Alarm 2

Deleted

Deleted

Alarm is deleted for all AORs

Table 3.4: Partially Deleted Alarms Example

Note

If an alarm is partially acknowledged and partially deleted, it will appear as partially acknowledged until it is fully acknowledged.


3.8


3.2.2.7

Flagging Alarms Alarm flags give you the opportunity to categorize alarms for quick reference. The flag information on an alarm is available to all users that have permission to view the alarm. You can choose from the six available flags, in addition to having no flag. An alarm can only have one flag at a time.

Figure 3.7: Alarm Flag Options

Note

The labels for flags are configurable on a system-wide basis. Please con tact your system administrator if you have any questions concerning what each flag color and/or label mean. For more information on configuring flag labels, please see the ViewPoint Configuration Guide. To flag an alarm, you first need to select the alarm(s) you wish to flag . Then, using one of the methods mentioned at the beginning of this section, you can select the flag that you would like to place on the alarm.

3.2.2.8

Viewing Alarm Help Files Help files can be set up on your system to help give you more information about an alarm. These help files can be defined by a SCADA key, station, alarm class or index number used to group similar SCADA points. If a help file is available for an alarm, the help file icon

will display.

You can view a help file using one of the methods mentioned at the beginning of this section. The help file will open in the OpenView web browser. For more information on alarm help files please see your system administrator or the OpenSCADA Configuration Guide.

3.2.3

Annotating Alarms An annotation is a short text description or comment you can add to an alarm. To annotate an alarm you first need to open the details window for that alarm. Then you can add an annotation by selecting New from the Annotations menu.


Alarms

3.9

Figure 3.8: Annotations Menu This will open the Annotation Editor. Here you type the text of the annotation and then click OK when you are finished.

Figure 3.9: Annotation Editor Annotations display in the Annotations list on the Alarm Details dialog.

Figure 3.10: Annotations List

Tip

You can right-click in the annotations list to open the Annotations menu.


3.10


Figure 3.11: Annotation Indication

Tip

The attachment icon on the alarms panel is an indicator for both annotations and attachments. You could view this icon to mean t hat more information exists for this alarm. Once an annotation has been added to an alarm, all users that can view the alarm can view, edit or delete the annotation. The username and timestamp on the annotation indicates who the last user was that made an edit to the annotation and at what time.

3.2.4

Adding Attachments to Alarms ViewPoint allows you to attach files to an alarm. This can be helpful in providing more information on a particular alarm. To add an attachment to an alarm, you first need to open the details window for that alarm. Then you can add an attachment by selecting New from the Attachments menu.

Figure 3.12: Attachments Menu

3.2.4.1

Adding a New Attachment After selecting New, the Open File dialog will appear , allowing you to select the file that you wish to attach. When the file is attached, a copy of the file is made and saved with the alarm so any edits done to the original file are not applied to the attached file.

3.2.4.2

Opening an Attachment When you open an alarm attachment, the file open s in the default program for the attachment’s file extension. A read-only copy of the file then opens for viewing. If you want to modify an attached file, you should either modify the original file and attach it again or save the attached file as a new file, edit the new file and then attach the new file to the alarm. In either case, you would probably want to remove the original attached file.

3.2.5

External Application Shortcuts By right-clicking an alarm, you can open external applications based on the alarm’s associated DOFRI. The shortcuts are described below. Point Dialog


Alarms

3.11

If an alarm has an associated SCADA point, you can select Point Dialog from the right-click context menu. This will bring up the point dialog for the point. Detail Display Detail Display from the right-click If an alarm as a valid DOFRI, you can select View context menu. If a display jump is configured for the DOFRI, this will bring up the appropriate display. Origin Display

By selecting View Origin Display from the right-click context menu, you can bring up the appropriate one-line display (if applicable).

Figure 3.13: Shortcut Menu

Note

The detail and origin display jumps must be configured on your system. Please see the ViewPoint Configuration Guide more for information.

3.3

Alarm Viewport The Alarm Viewport is an OpenView widget. It is a stripped down version of the Alarms component. It provides all the functionality of Alarms, except it only displays unacknowledged alarms, can only display up to 100 alarms and does not support deleting alarms; sorting, filtering or grouping columns; or saving custom views.

Figure 3.14: Alarm Viewport

3.3.1

Origin List By clicking the Origins toolbar item, you can show or hide the origin list. T his list shows all the origins with unacknowledged alarms, similar to the ViewPoint plugin. By double-clicking an origin in the list, a new ViewPoint plugin will open that is filtered to alarms from that origin. Right-clicking an origin in the list will present a menu that allows you to jump to the origin display. The origin list updates as new alarms come in and are acknowledged. The list displays origins in order of newest alarm, with the origin with the newest alarm at the top.


3.12


3.4

Alarm Sounds You can configure unacknowledged alarms to play an audible sound when they are generated. This sound is configured using alarm classes through the OpenSCADA product. For more information on alarm classes, please see the OpenSCADA documentation. Unless your administrator has enabled the Annunciation/LimitedAudibleAlarms setting (see the ViewPoint Configuration Guide), filtering or sorting does not affect the sound function, so any unacknowledged alarm in your AOR(S) could cause a sound to play regardless if your current view shows it. When multiple unacknowledged alarms are present, the sound of the newest highest severity alarm will play. The following table explains a few examples. The table assumes alarm 1 is generated first, alarm 2 is generated second and severity 8 is the highest with severity 1 as the lowest.

Alarm 1

Alarm 2

Event

Severity 2

Severity 4

The sound from Alarm 2 plays because it is higher severity

Severity 8

Severity 5

The sound from Alarm 1 plays because it is higher severity

Severity 6

Severity 6

The sound from Alarm 1 plays because it is newer

Table 3.5: Alarm Sound Examples Sounds only apply to unacknowledged alarms. When you acknowledge an alarm, the sound for that alarm will stop playing and ViewPoint will play the next oldest highest severity alarm’s sound.

Note

A soun d could cont inue to play after you have acknowledg ed an alarm due to other unacknowledged ala rms in the system having the same sound.

3.4.1

Enabling/Disabling Sound When you do not want any sounds to play at all, you can disable sound for your login session. To do this you need to click the Disable Sound button.

Figure 3.15: Disable Sound Button Sound will be disabled until you enable sound by pressing the Enable Sound button.

Figure 3.16: Enable Sound Button Sound is automatically enabled on every login so if you had previously disabled sound and then logged out and back in, the sound will be enabled. This is to prevent you from accidentally missing alarms because you forgot you had previously disabled sound.

Upon logging in, sound can be disabled through the Annunciation/DefaultSoundState setting. This is useful


Alarms

Tip

Note

3.4.2

3.13

for users who do not need to hear the alarm sounds, such as corporate users.

When sound is disabled, you will not be able to silence or snooze alarms.

Alarm Silencing An alternative to disabling sound altogether is to use alarm silence. Alarm silence stops the sound from playing for an unacknowledged alarm without having to acknowledge the alarm. This may be helpful when you do not want to hear the sound from the alarm but do not want to acknowledge the alarm yet. To silence an alarm you need to click the Silence button.

Figure 3.17: Silence Button Silence can have one of two different effects on your system, depending on what you have selected when you click the Silence button: 1.

If you have an alarm selected when you click the Silence button, the selected alarm and all older alarms in your AOR(s) will be silenced.

2.

If you do not have an alarm selected when you click the Silence button, all existing alarms in your AOR(s) are silenced.

Once an alarm is silenced, it is silenced permanently; no sound will be played for the alarm. This is true even if you log out and log back in.

Note

3.4.3

Depending on your system configuration, you may have the option of performing a Global Silence. This is the same as a Silence, except that it applies to all clients logged in to the system. Please see theViewPoint Configuration Guide for more information.

Alarm Snoozing Alarm snoozing is similar to disabling sound except that it expires after a configured timeout. The snooze function turns off alarm sound for a configured amount of time and then automatically turns it back on. With alarm snooze, if a new unacknowledged alarm enters the system in your AOR(s), snooze is disabled and alarm sound resumes playing. To turn on alarm snooze you need to click the Snooze button.

Figure 3.18: Snooze Button

Note

Depending on your system configuration, you may have the option of performing a g lobal snooze. This is the same as a snooze, except that it applies to all clients logged in to the system.


3.14

3.4.4


Alarms and Your Screensaver You can configure your console to run a screensaver after a period of inactivity. ViewPoint has the ability to interrupt this screensaver when a new alarm is generated. When a new alarm is generated in your AOR(s) while the scr eensaver is enabled, ViewPoint will turn off the screensaver and play the alarm sound. You can configure screensavers to require a password to unlock the console. This will be true if ViewPoint turns off the screensaver as well. You will still need to ent er your password to unlock the console. If you have questions or concerns about the configuration of the screensaver on your console, please see your system administrator.


Chapter 4

Events

Using Events A guide to interacting with e vents

4.2


4.1

Introduction Events are similar to alarms in that they both have the same fields and both support help files. However, events do not have states (Unacknowledged, Acknowledged, Deleted and so on.), flags, annotations or attachments like alarms. Therefore, these actions are not present in the Events component.

4.2

Details Events have a defined set of fields. These fields are listed in Table 4.1. You can view each of the fields in a separate column in the alarms panel.

Name

Description

Help

Indicates a help file is associated with this event

Date/Time

The time when the event was generated; provided by the SCADA system

Origin

The origin of the event; for SCADA points, it is the station of the point

Description

The description of the event; for SCADA points, it is the name of the point

Event

The event of the event; for SCADA points, it is the event class message

Value

The value of the event

AOR Group

The AOR group of the event; the AOR group determines which AORs the event gets generated for

Class

The alarm class of the event; it determines the characteristics and behavior of the event

Event Time

The time when the event occurred; this timestamp is passed into the SCADA system

Group

The alarm group of the event; the alarm group determines specific behaviors of the event

ID

Internal ID of the event; only applicable to the SCADA system

Severity

The severity of the event (1 - 8)

Units

The units of the SCADA point with which the event is associated

Key

The SCADA key of the SCADA point with which the event is associated

Table 4.1: Event Columns To view all of this information at once for an individual event, you can view the event details window.


Events

Figure 4.1: Event Details Window

4.3

Viewing Event Help Files Like alarms, events support help files. This is discussed in Section 3.2.2.8.


4.3

Chapter 5

SOEs

Using SOEs A guide to interacting with SOEs

5.2


5.1

Introduction The SOEs component allows you to view Sequence of Events (SOE) data from FEP. This data contains information from RTUs in the field.

5.2

Details SOEs have a defined set of fields. These fields are list ed in Table 5.1. You can view each of the fields in a separate column in the SOE panel.

Name

Description

Date/Time

The time the event was generated in the field

Station Name The name of the station the event was generated from Point Name

The name of the point the event was generated from

Value

The value of the event

Time Quality

The quality of the timestamp (from FEP)

Scan Quality

The quality of the point (from SCADA)

SCADA Key

The SCADA key of the point the event was generated from

ID

Internal ID of the event; only applicable to ViewPoint

Table 5.1: SOE Columns To view all of this information at once for an individual event, you can view the event details window.

Figure 5.1: SOE Details Window


Chapter 6

Advanced ViewPoint

Working in the Data Panel How to choose, add and hide columns, as well as how to view, sort, filter and group items

Understanding Views How to use standard item views and create and manage your own custom views

OpenView Commands How to interact with ViewPoint via OpenView commands

Customizing ViewPoint How to customize fonts, backgrounds and borders in

ViewPoint

6.2

6.1


Working in the Data Panel ViewPoint components are highly customizable applications designed to allow maximum flexibility for managing data. ViewPoint provides many options for customizing the layout to improve your operational efficiency and accuracy. The following sections describe some of the functions and features available for this panel. Depending on your customization permissions, you may not be able to perform the actions described below.

6.1.1

Choosing Columns By using the Column Chooser, you can add or remove columns from t he data panel. You can access the Column Chooser one of two ways: by clicking on the Column Chooser button in the toolbar or right-clicking on any column header and selecting the Column Chooser.

Figure 6.1: Accessing the Column Chooser from the Toolbar

Figure 6.2: Accessing the Column Chooser from the Column Header After selecting either method, the Column Chooser displays. This shows a list of all of the columns not currently displayed in the data panel.


Advanced ViewPoint

6.3

Figure 6.3: Column Chooser Display

6.1.1.1

Adding a Column To add a hidden column to the display, select the column you want to add from the Column Chooser and drag it onto the column header bar. Drop the new header in the location that you would like to place the column. Close the Column Chooser when you are finished adding columns.

Figure 6.4: Adding a Column

6.1.1.2

Hiding a Column To remove a column from the display, drag the column header off the header row until a large X appears. Once the X appears, you can drop the header to remove the column. It is then added into the Column Chooser so you can add it later, if desired. Alternatively, you can drag the column name back into the Column Chooser display box to remove the column from the data panel.

6.1.1.3

Changing the Column Order To change the ordering of the columns, drag the header of the column you would like to move and drop it in the desired location. Be careful not to drop the column header off the header bar after the X appears, as this will remove it from the display.


6.4


6.1.1.4

Changing the Column Width You may want to change the width of the columns to properly display the data you are interested in. To manually change the column widths, hover over the r ight edge of t he column header until the cursor turns into a double arrow. Now click on the edge and drag the edge to the width that you would like the column to be. Alternatively, you can have the program determine the proper width to set the column to. To do this, right-click on the column header you would like to adjust and select Best Fit from the header menu. The column you selected will resize to fit the data that it contains.

Figure 6.5: Best Fit Option To automatically resize all columns, right-click any column header and choose Best Fit (all columns) from the menu. The columns will resize based on the data in all of the columns.


Advanced ViewPoint

6.5

Figure 6.6: Best Fit for All Columns

6.1.2

Viewing Data Details If you have your data panel configured to hide any column, you can still view that piece of information without having to add the column to your display. T o view all of the available information for a particular item, double-click the item and open the details dialog. This details dialog box displays all of the fields of the item, as well as lists any annotations or attachments. You can also perform any of the available management functions discussed earlier in this guide.

6.1.3

Sorting Data All sorting of data in the data panel is done alphanumerically, either ascending (!”#...123…xyz) or descending (zyx…321…#”!). When a column is sorted ascending, an up arrow is placed next to the column title on the header. Similarly, when a column is sor ted descending, a down arrow is placed on the header (see Figure 6.7). You can sort any column.

Figure 6.7: Column Sorting Indication Arrow There are two methods to actually perform a sort of the data in a column. The first way is to click on the column header. The first click of the column orders the data ascending. To order the data descending, click on the column header a second time. Clicking the column header again will toggle the sorting back to ascending.


6.6


The second method is to right-click on the column header, bringing up the header menu. From the header menu, you can choose to sort either ascending or descending by selecting the corresponding item in the menu.

Figure 6.8: Column Header Menu Sort Options To clear the sorting of a column, right click on the column header and select Clear Sorting from the header menu.

Figure 6.9: Clear Sorting from Column Header Menu

6.1.4

Filtering Data There are two different methods to filter data in the data panel: the Quick Filter or the Filter Builder. The Quick Filter allows you to quickly and easily create simple filters in the data panel itself. The Filter Builder allows you to narrow your s earch by creating more complex filters. You can also combine these two methods to find the information you desire.


Advanced ViewPoint

6.1.4.1

6.7

Quick Filter The Quick Filter is accessible from the toolbar icon or from the View menu on the menu bar.

Figure 6.10: Quick Filter from Toolbar

Figure 6.11: Quick Filter from Menu Bar Selecting Quick Filter displays the Filter Row at the top of t he data panel. Each column has a field in which you can enter your filter criteria. When you enter text or select a filter option from the drop-down menu, the alarms panel will filter simultaneously. With text fields, the filter output updates continuously while you type. You can enter text or select a filter option in as many columns as desired. For example, if you are looking for an alarm from Station001, you can begin typing Station001 (Figure 6.12 and Figure 6.13) and the progression of the filter will show below. After inserting the first letter, all alarms with an origin beginning with S are shown. However, after St is listed, the list is automatically re-filtered to show only alarms with an origin beginning with the same letters. In this case, there are only four remaining, all from Station001.

Tip

Depending on your system configuration, filtering may or may not be case-sensitive. By default, there is no difference in the filter results of St or st.


6.8


Figure 6.12: Quick Filter Example

Figure 6.13: Quick Filter Example 2

Tip

You can also use the asterisk (*) character at the beginning of a quick filter text field as a wild card. This will filter for the text string following the * in any location of the text field, not just the beginning of the string. You can close the Quick Filter using the same methods as opening the row. However, if any filter criteria is in the Quick Filter when it is closed, the filter will remain in effect.

6.1.4.2

Filter Editor The Filter Editor gives you the ability to edit and create more complex and advanced filters than the Quick Filter. To open Filter Editor, right-click on a column header and select Filter Editor.


Advanced ViewPoint

6.9

Figure 6.14: Filter Editor Selection

Figure 6.15: Filter Editor Dialog The Filter Editor displays the filter in a tree format. At the base of the filter tree is the primary Boolean operator. To change it, click on the operator and select the desired operator from the filter operator menu.

Figure 6.16: Filter Operator Menu


6.10


You can use four different Boolean operators to build your filter criteria. These operators determine how the filter combines and uses the conditions you define. To add additional Boolean operations to your filter, select Add Group from the filter operator menu.

Operator

Description

And

If all of the conditions are met, the alarm display s in a larms panel

Or

If any of the conditions are met, the alarm displays in alarms panel

Not And

Inverse of And; if all of the conditions are met, the alarm does not display in alarms panel

Not Or

Inverse of Or; If any of the conditions are met, the alarm does not display in alarms panel

Table 6.1: Boolean Operator Descriptions Once you have chosen an operator, you can add conditions to the operation by clicking the plus sign next to the operator or selecting Add Condition from the filter operation menu. Once you have added conditions to the operation, you can choose the field, comparison and value of the condition. To do thi s, click on the parameter you would like to modify. Clicking on the field or comparison parameters will open a menu displaying all of the available options for you to select. For the value parameter, clicking it will allow you to enter the value you desire.

Figure 6.17: Filter Field Options


Advanced ViewPoint

6.11

Figure 6.18: Filter Comparison Options When you are creating your filter, you can press the Apply button to see the results of your filter in the data panel. Once you have finished creating your filter, press the OK button to close the dialog.

Creating a filter using the Filter Builder Try This

In this example, we are interested in finding the alarms generated when the admin user logged in or out of the system. 1.

In the Alarms component click the column header and select Filter Editor from the menu.

2.

Click the field parameter (Date/Time) and change it to Description by selecting it from the menu.

3.

Click the comparison parameter (Begins with) and change it to Contains by selecting it from the menu.

4.

Click the value parameter () and enter admin and press .

5.

Click the And operator and select Add Group from the menu.

6.

Click the second And operator added in Step 5 and change it to Or by selecting it from the menu.

7.

In the new condition, change the field parameter to Event, the comparison parameter to Contains and the value parameter to Login as explained in Steps 2 through 4.

8.

Click the plus sign next to Or.

9.

In the new condition change the field parameter to Event, the comparison parameter to Contains and the value parameter to Logout as explained in Steps 2 through 4.

10.

Your filter should look like this:


6.12

6.1.4.3


11.

Click Apply.

12.

The alarms panel should n ow only display alarms that match your filter criteria.

Filter Description Bar Whenever you apply a filter to the data panel, the filter displays in the Filter Description Bar at the bottom of the panel.

Figure 6.19: Filter Description Bar In addition to viewing the applied filter, you can perform the following other actions: 







Remove the filter by clicking on the X in the corner. T his will delete the filter. If you would like to view it again, you would have to rebuild it. Turn the filter on or off by checking or un-checking the box at the beginning of the filter string. This will keep the filter but it will not be applied from the data panel. View a list of and select a previously applied filter by selecting the down arrow at the end of the filter string. This opens a menu of the most recent filters you have applied and allows you to quickly switch between them. Open the Filter Builder by clicking the Edit Filter button on the right side of the Filter Description Bar.

Figure 6.20: Recently Applied Filters

6.1.5

Grouping Data Grouping data allows you to visually separate the data into groups based on a common value. Grouping is done on a per column basis.


Advanced ViewPoint

6.13

In order to group data, the Group By Box needs to be displayed on the top of the data panel. To open the Group By Box you can click the Group By Box button in the toolbar, select Group By Box from the View menu, or right-click on the column header and then select the Group By Box in the header menu.

Figure 6.21: Group By Box from Tool Bar

Figure 6.22: Group By Box from View Menu

Figure 6.23: Group By Box from Menu Bar Once the Group By Box is open you are able to group the data by dragging the column header you wish to group by into the Group By Box.


6.14


Figure 6.24: Group By Box You can also nest groupings together to further group data within the higher-level groups. This is done by dragging another column header and dropping it onto the Group By Box. The groups will nest depending on where they are dropped in the Group By Box.

Figure 6.25: Nested Group By Box An alternative way to add columns to the Group By Box is to right-click the column header you wish to group by and select Group By This Column from the menu.


Advanced ViewPoint ViewPoint

6.15

Figure 6.26: Group By This Column When you have grouping you can expand or collapse the data quickly by right -clicking in the Group By Box and selecting either Full Expand or Full Collapse from the menu.

Figure 6.27: Group By Box Options

Tip

You can use the Group By This Column feature even when the Group By Box is not open. When doing this the Group By Box will open and the column will be added to it automatically. You can close the Group By Box using the same methods as opening the box. If a column header is in the Group By Box when it is closed, the grouping remains in effect. To clear a grouping, you can r ight-click on the Group By Box and select Clear Grouping from the resulting menu, drag the column header out of the Group By Box or right-click the column header and select Ungroup.

6.2

Understanding Understanding Views As discussed previously, selecting a view in the navigation panel determines determines what data displays in the data panel. Many components have standard, built-in views defined for the entire system, but they also allow you to create and save custom views.


6.16

6.2.1


What is a View? A view is first based on the type of data you want to view. For example, in the Alarms component, this includes acknowledged, unacknowledged, active, suppressed and deleted alarms. Besides the type of data, a view also consists of any sorting, filtering, grouping and/or column settings.

6.2.2

Creating a Custom View To create a new view, you should first select the standard view you want to base your custom view on. Whichever standard view you choose will determine what types of data display in your custom view. You can then modify the standard view by changing any of the sorting, filtering, grouping and/or column settings. For example, in Alarms if you wanted to view only the highest severity unacknowledged unacknowledged alarms you should first select the standard Unacknowledged Unacknowledged view then apply the severity filter.

Tip

6.2.3

If you have already saved a custom view and would li ke to create another custom view similar to the original one, you can select the original custom view and then make your mod ifications instead of recreating the original custom view from a standard view.

Saving a Custom View After modifying a standard view, you may wish to save it so you can use it again. You can save this custom view one of two ways. You can select Save View from the File menu or you can right-click in the navigation panel and select Save View from the menu.

Figure 6.28: Save View from File Menu


Advanced ViewPoint ViewPoint

6.17

Figure 6.29: Save View from Menu After selecting Save View, you will be prompted with the Save View dialog. Enter a name for the view and select where you want to save it. Please see the following subsection for more information on where to save your custom views.

Figure 6.30: 6.30: View Save As… Dialog


6.18


When you save your custom view, the icon associated with the view indicates which standard view the custom view is based on. This allows you to easily identify what type of data is being displayed in the view without specifically stating it in the view name.

6.2.4

Managing Custom Views As you begin to create and save custom views, it will be helpful for you to properly organize your views. You can do this by creating folders and saving your views in these folders. To create a new folder you can right -click on Shared Views, My Views or an existing folder and select New Folder from the menu. Entering a name for the folder creates a new folder in the selected location.

Figure 6.31: New Folder from File Menu

Figure 6.32: New Folder from Menu You can also manage your folders by renaming and deleting them. To do this, right -click on the folder you would like to modify and select either Rename Folder or Delete Folder from the menu.


Advanced ViewPoint

6.19

Figure 6.33: Rename Folder WARNING Deleting a folder will delete all of the content in that folder.

6.2.4.1

Shared Views Shared Views is a list of custom views available for all users. Any user can see these views, but only users with the proper permissions can modify or delete them.

Tip

6.2.4.2

When saving a shared view it is important to use a descriptive name so that there is no confusion among users regarding the data displayed in the view.

My Views My Views is a list of views that only you have access to. No one else can view, modify or delete these views.

6.2.5

Modifying a Custom View To modify a custom view that you have already saved, you need to select the custom view in the display and then make your modifications. If you want to save these changes to the original custom view, select Save View as mentioned previously. You can also save your modifications as a different custom view. To do this, select Save View As from the File menu or right-click on the navigation panel and select Save View As .


6.20


6.3

Pagifying a View In some instances, you may need to limit amount of information in a view. ViewPoint allows you to do so by limiting the number of items shown in the data panel at one time. Rather than one large scrolling list, the data panel turns into a series of pages. This feature requires the EnablePageViews setting to be enabled. The following example explains how to pagify a view.

Pagify Unacknowledged Alarms Try This

This example assumes you have permission to create custom views. 1.

Select the Unacknowledged view in the Alarms component.

2.

Select File

3.

Right-click the view you just created and choose View Properties….

4.

Check the box next to Maximum Items per Page and press OK. This will create pages with 20 alarms each (or less, for the last page).

Save View As… and save it as a new view to the My Views section.

You should see that there are only 20 alarms shown at one time in the data panel. To go to the next page, select the page down button

. To go to the previous page, select the page up button

the first page, select the top page button

. To go straight to

.

If

you want to change the number of items per page, repeat the steps in the example above and set the value in the number box to the desired value (must be between 1 and 100). If you decide you no longer want pages for a view, you can uncheck the Maximum Items per Page box.

Note

Note

6.4

In most cases, pagifying a view will not affect any other views. However, pagifying (or unpagifying) the Unacknowledged system view will affect the origin subviews.

You can only (un)pagify a view if you can save changes to that view.

OpenView Commands ViewPoint supplies several commands that you can use in conjunction with OpenView. For more information on OpenView commands, please see the OpenView documentation.


Advanced ViewPoint

6.4.1

6.4.2

6.21

Toggle Sound Description

Enables or disables alarm sound. This is the same as pressing the Enable Sound button in the ViewPoint plugin or the Alarm Viewport.

Parameters

SoundMode: Enabled- enables alarm sound; Disabled- disables alarm sound; blank- toggles alarm sound to the opposite state

Recommended “Plugin Target”

Active

Snooze Description

Performs a snooze operation. This is the same as pressing the Snooze button in the ViewPoint plugin or the Alarm Viewport.

Parameters

Global: true to perform a global snooze, false otherwise. Defaults to false

Recommended “Plugin Target” Active

6.4.3

Silence Description

Performs a silence operation on the provided alarms

Parameters

Alarm or Source URLs: the URL of the requested alarms. If this is blank, it will silence all alarms. (If using selection from SystemExplorer , use @URL.) Global: true to perform a global silence, false otherwise. Defaults to false

Recommended Active “Plugin Target”

6.4.4

Open ViewPoint Description

Opens a ViewPoint window with the provided parameters

Parameters

Component: 0 = System Overview, 1 = Alarms, 2 = Events, 3 = SOEs View Path: The path of the view in the left-hand navigation tree to show (for example, All/Summary/Un acknowledged ). To easily find the path of a view, right -click on that view and select View Properties….The path is displayed at the top of the window. Filter : A comma separated list of column f ilters (see below for more details) Sort: A comma separated list of column sorting. A = Ascending, D = Descending (for example, Date/Time=D,Origin=A) URL: See below


Active

You can use this command to open ViewPoint to filtered views. For example, you could configure a dynamic menu item in OpenView (please see the OpenView User’s Guide for details) to show View Station Alarms when you right-click on a station data link. The command parameters would be as follows:


6.22


Parameter

Value

Component 1

Description Opens the Alarms component

View Path

All/Summary/Active Selects the Active view, so any unacknowledged or abnormal alarms will be shown

Filter

Origin=

Filters the Origin column to show only the alarms with an Origin equal to the station name

Sort

Flag=D

Sorts the filtered results in order of their flag (descending)

URL

@URL

Retrieves the information for the selected station. It will also replace any occurrence of with the value of that field in the station. In our example, will be replaced by the name of the selected station.

Table 6.2: Example Parameters for Open ViewPoint Command After setting up your command parameters, you should set the minimum and maximum number of selected objects required to 1. Then, you can tell OpenView which data links this item should be shown for by adding a comparison link. You can switch between Key and Record by clicking directly on the text.

Figure 6.34: Example Parameters for Comparison Link A properly configured menu item is shown below. Note that two comparison links are present: one for records and one for keys. This ensures that you can perform the action from a tabular view and from a one -line view.


Advanced ViewPoint

6.23

Figure 6.35: Configured Dynamic Menu Item

6.4.5

6.4.6

6.4.7

Alarm Help Description

Displays the alarm help associated with the given URL, if any. This command is used by other applications. It is not intended for use by the end-user .

Parameters

URL: the URL of the requested alarm (If using selection from SystemExplorer, use @URL.)


Active

Acknowledge Selected Alarms Description

Acknowle dges the provided alarms. This command is used by other applications. It is not intended for use by the end-user .

Parameters

Alarm or Source URLs: the URL of th e requested alarms (If using selection from SystemExplorer , use @URL. To use all alarms on a one-line display, use @FURL)


Active

Acknowledge Matching by Source Description

Acknowle dges the provided alarms by source. This command is used by ot her applications. It is not intended for use by the end-user .

Parameters

Alarm or Source URLs: the URL of th e requested alarms (If using selection from SystemExplorer , use @URL. To use all alarms on a one-line display, use @FURL) Source Match Type:




Record – Matches alarms by D.O.x.R.x.



Exact – Matches alarms by D.O.F.R.I.

Active


6.24

6.4.8

6.4.9


Delete Selected Alarms Description

Deletes the provided alarms. This command is used by other applications. It is not intended for use by the end-user .

Parameters

Alarm or Source URLs: the URL of the requested alarms (If using selection from SystemExplorer , use @URL. To use all alarms on a one-line display, use @FURL)


Active

Delete Matching by Source Description

Acknowledges the provided alarms by source. This command is used by other applications. It is not intended for use by the end-user .

Parameters

Alarm or Source URLs: the URL of t he re quested alarms (If using selection from SystemExplorer , use @URL. To use all alarms on a one-line display, use @FURL). Source Match Type:


6.4.10

6.4.11



Record – Matches alarms by D.O.x.R.x.



Exact – Matches alarms by D.O.F.R.I.

Active

Show Detail Display Description

Performs a display jump, if configured, for the provided alarm. This command is used by other applications. It is not intended for use by the end-user .

Parameters

Alarm: the URL of the req uested alarm (If using selection from SystemExplorer , use @URL.).


Active

Show Origin Display Description

Performs a oneline search with the provided alarm. This command is used by other applications. It is not intended for use by the end-user .

Parameters



Active


Advanced ViewPoint

6.4.12

6.5

6.25

Show Point Dialog Description

Opens the point dialog for the SCADA point that generated the provided alarm. This command is used by other applications. It is not intended for use by the end-user .

Parameters



Active

Customizing ViewPoint ViewPoint provides several options for customizing each component’s data panel to meet your personal preferences when viewing and managing the data.

6.5.1

The Customize Dialog Customization of the data panel is done using the Customize dialog box. To open it, select it from the View menu.

Figure 6.36: Customize Menu This will open the Customize dialog box as shown in Figure 6.37.


6.26


Figure 6.37: Customize Dialog When making changes to your customization options, you can press the Preview button to see what your selections will look like in the data panel. Pressing the Preview button does not apply your changes. To apply your changes, press the OK button. When you are making changes to your customization options and you decide you would like to start over from the previous configuration, click the Reset button. You can also abort any changes you have made by clicking the Cancel button to exit the Customize dialog. The settings in the Customize dialog are saved for your user and are preserved when you log off and/or switch to a different console.

6.5.2

Customizing the Font To change the font of the data panel, click the Font button from the Customize dialog. This will open the Font Selection dialog (see Figure 6.38), where you can select the font, size and style. After clicking OK , your selected settings will be applied to the sample text of the Customize dialog.


Advanced ViewPoint

6.27

Figure 6.38: Font Selection Dialog

Note

6.5.3

For real-time data, the font color is not customizable in this dialog box. Historical data is the same color and can be customized. For more information on configuring colors for SCADA Alarms and Events, please see the OpenSCADA Configuration Guide.

Customizing the Background You have several options for customizing the background of the data panel. These include changing the background color, contrasting alternating rows, inserti ng a background image and customizing the borders.

6.5.3.1

Background Color To change the background color, click the Background Color button from the Customize dialog. This will open up the Color selection dialog (see Figure 6.39) from which you can pick the color you wish to use. After clicking OK , your selected color will be applied to the sample text displayed. You can also create custom colors to use, which then display in the bottom section of the Color dialog box.


6.28


Figure 6.39: Color Dialog

6.5.3.2

Alternating Rows To add contrast and distinguish data more easily, you can choose to have the background color alternate between rows. To do this, check the Use Alternating Row Colors checkbox from the Customize dialog. This will automatically open the alternate background Color dialog box. You can also click the Alt. Background Color button to open the Color dialog. From the Color selection dialog, pick the alternate background color you wish to use. After clicking OK , your selected color will be applied to the second row of sample text displayed.

Tip

When selecting your background color, be sure to consider all the colors of all o f your configured alarm classes. You want to choose a background color that makes it easy to read the alarm data.

Tip

OSI recommends choosing different background colors for your real-time and historical alarm panels. This way it is easy to remember what type o f alarm data you are viewing.

6.5.3.3

Image Instead of having a solid or alternating background color, you can choose to display an image on the background. To select a background image, check the Use Background Image checkbox from the Customize dialog. This will open up the Image Selection dialog (Figure 6.40). You can pick an image from the System, Common or User folders on the current domain. If the file you are looking for is not in any of these directories, you can import a file by clicking the Import button. After clicking OK in the Image Selection dialog, your selected image will display in the Customize dialog.


ViewPoint User's Guide

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