Filter Alarms and Events Data

About this task

By default, the OPC Classic Alarms and Events collector collects all the alarms and events data sent to it, and archive it. This ensures that all your alarms and events data will be archived, without any special configuration. If you archive all of your alarms and events data, it can impact the amount of storage required for Historian to operate. Therefore, you may want to specify which alarms and events data you want the OPC Classic Alarms and Events collector to collect. Alarms and Events filtering works on an inclusive model. If filtering is not enabled, all the alarms and events data is collected. If filtering is enabled, then data for only the selected alarms and events is collected.

This topic describes how to apply the various types of filters.

Procedure

  1. Access Historian Administrator.
  2. Select Collectors.
  3. Select the OPC Classic Alarms and Events collector instance that you want to configure.
  4. Select Configuration.
  5. In the Filtering section, select Enabled.
  6. Select Filters.
  7. Select the filter criterion as described in the following table.
    Filtering Option Description Procedure
    Severity range Includes alarms between a low and high filter range. For example, filter alarms whose severity range is between 100 and 200.
    1. Select the Filter by Severity Range check box.
    2. Enter a range of values in the Collect From and To boxes.
    Event Type Include events based on a selected type.
    1. Select the Filter by Event Type check box.
    2. Select the type of events you want to filter.
    Area Includes alarms and events based a user-defined process area. This is useful if you only want to collect alarms from specific process areas. This option works only if you have defined areas in the alarms and events server.
    1. Select the Filter by Area check box.
    2. Select Edit.
    3. Select the areas by which you want to filter, and then select Copy. To add an area manually, enter the area you want to filter by in the Area box and select Copy.
    Source Includes alarms and events data based on the alarm source. This is useful if you only want to collect alarms from specific parts of your process.
    1. Select the Filter by Source check box.
    2. Select Edit.
    3. Select the sources using which you want to filter, and then select Copy. To add a source manually, enter the source you want to filter by in the Source box and select Copy.
    Event Category Includes events based on a selected category.
    1. Select the Filter by Event Category check box.
    2. Select Edit.
    3. In the Choose Event Category box, select an event category.
    4. In the Categories Available box, select the categories using which you want to filter data. To add a category manually, enter the category you want to filter by in the Category box, and then select Copy.
    Note: You can filter alarms and events by the event category only if the Filter by Event Type check box is selected for respective event category. For example, if you want to receive only alarms, enable the Collect Condition Events option in Event Type, and add the Event Category tag in the Filter by Event Category section. This is because alarms belong to the Event Category tag, and the Event Category tag belongs to the Event Type condition. For other mappings, refer to iFIX Message Mappings.
  8. Select Update.
    The filtering options you have specified are saved.