Final notes on imported R2 alarms

Alarm ack differences between R2 and AX

Be aware of the fundamental difference about “alarm ack permissions” between the AX alarming model and the R2 alarming model:

  • In the AX system, a station user needs “admin write” permissions on the Alarm Class used to route the alarm in order to acknowledge it, regardless of what permissions (if any) that user may have on the source component that generated the alarm.
  • In an R2 system, a station user needs “command, alarm” permissions on the source object that generated the alarm in order to acknowledge it, regardless of what permissions (if any) that user may have on any of the NotificationClass objects.

Keep this in mind when assigning AX user permissions (using categories) to components in the AX station, noting the difference between accessing actions/properties of Obix proxy points vs. acknowledgement of alarms originated from those points.

Alarm handling discontinued from R2 Web Supervisor

Although the ability to see and acknowledge native r2 alarm/alert events from AX is included (as previously described), the source R2 station (Controller) must have its NotificationService config properties set as follows:

  • archiveMode=archive_local_no_SQL
  • alarmArchiveAddress, checkbox cleared

This prevents continuation of any R2 Web Supervisor handling of the station’s alarm/alert events.

Possibility of inadvertent acknowledgements

Acknowledgement from AX can occur on individual events (within the popup window for that alarm source) or on all events if Acknowledge is pressed while that row is highlighted in the Alarm Console—regardless of how many underlying alarms may exist. This may prove problematic in actual job use. Note this especially applies if many R2 alarm-capable objects are not represented as Obix proxy points in the station.

Alternative to importing native R2 alarms

If alarming is critical, for the reasons previously noted you may wish to transition all alarming to “native AX” alarming, instead of using the ObixClient Alarms feature. Do this by creating Obix proxy points for all objects that require alarming (or runtime/COS count events), and then adding to each point the necessary alarm extension(s), configuring them in AX. Note that extensions for R2 “alert” type events (runtime, COS counts) are found in the alarms folder of the kitControl palette.

In this “alarm re-engineering” scenario, you would typically create equivalent AlarmClasses for the NotificationClass objects used in the R2 station, configured with similar priorities and alarm recipient components.