Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk View Site Edition Users Guide - Manual (Page 312)

F ACTORY T ALK V IEW S ITE E DITION U SER ’ S G UIDE
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where
 AlarmName indicates the name of the alarm.
In a relative reference, the colons ( : ) preceding the alarm name are optional. For
example, MixingTank1 is a valid relative reference to an alarm named MixingTank1.
For more information about using absolute and relative references in FactoryTalk
View SE applications, see page 6-7.
Using wildcards to specify multiple alarms
In a FactoryTalk alarm function, you can use wildcard characters in the alarm name
portion of the path to the alarm source, to retrieve information about multiple tags at once.
For example, the following expression will return the total number of In Alarm and
Acknowledged alarms, for all alarms in the Logix5000 device referenced by the shortcut
MixerController, in the subarea named MixerLine1, in the area named MixerArea:
AE_InAlmAckedCount (“/MixerArea/MixerLine1::[MixerController]*”)
Using tag placeholders to specify the alarm name
In a FactoryTalk alarm function, you can use tag placeholders in the alarm name portion
of the path to the alarm source.
A tag placeholder is the cross-hatch character (#) followed by a number from 1 to 500.
The tag definition in the following example contains the placeholder #1:
AE_InAlmAckedCount (“/MixerArea/MixerLine1::[CLX]Line1.Mixer_#1”)
At run time, tag placeholders in a graphic display are replaced with the values of tags
specified in parameter files or parameter lists, which are loaded with the display.
For more information, see “Using placeholders to specify tag values” on page 16-35.
What happens if the alarm source becomes unavailable
When a FactoryTalk alarm function in an expression is first initialized, only alarms from
connected alarm servers are counted in the evaluation.
This wildcard character Does this
? Matches any single character.
* Matches any number of characters, including the
backslash (\ ) character.
You cannot use wildcard characters in the area portion of an alarm source path. For example,
you cannot specify /MixerArea/Mixer*:: for the area path, in the previous example.