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SIS alarm mask - import/export

I'm trying to make alarms on my SIS DOs that are specific to the "Output Failure" bit of the BLOCK_ERR. I can get at them individually, but this is grass roots, so I'm trying to import alarms from a spreadsheet where I can look at them all at the same time instead of having to click on literally thousands of them individually to check and set various things, including text for alarm help. I haven't figured out how to get/set the Mask on the Alarm Attribute.

The default SIS module alarms can be difficult or cryptic for the operators, so the goal with this is to have very detailed alarms.

- Bryce H. Elliott, P.E.

3 Replies

  • Unfortunately they didn't make sure Bulk Edit could pull this information out. Class Instances can't update the mask so if you are using classes then you will only need to check the Class Configuration and then any item that isn't class based.

    The information is in the FHX if you choose this method for finding instead, I use Notepad++ as I can do Regular expression to make finding things like this easier. You would search for "MASK=(?!65535\b)\d{1,5}\b" (this finds any that isn't looking at all the bits) and this is what it would look like:

    Not ideal but this is the only method to "quickly" go through a database.

  • In reply to Matt Stoner:

    Thanks for the reply, Matt. At least I can stop experimenting and doing searches, since I know it's just not possible to do what I want. I appreciate the idea on the .fhx file, but I don't see that as great for this application. I have a database that came out of alarm rationalization. I'm going to import it in pieces via Bulk Edit. I can't see then exporting to .fhx, going through that, modifying it, and reimporting it, hoping I didn't mess anything up in the process. I am willing to modify .fhx files directly, but I'm very cautious and careful about it because it's easy to change things in unexpected ways that may not be discovered until they cause problems later.

    - Bryce H. Elliott, P.E.

  • I just route the SIS DO OUT to a BPCS DCS soft module. I usually only do this if there are limit switches so I can trigger fail alarms if the SP/PV don't match and to display the valves on the graphics. But a side benefit is they get the IOF/PVBAD alarm if the status on the SIS blocks goes bad.