Concepts

Tasks

Settings

Adding States and Alarms to a 4D Indicator

There are two types of states for an indicator: normal states and alarm states. Alarm states occur when an indicator has a reading that is outside of the defined normal state for the indicator.

For example, you might have a temperature indicator with the following states and alarms:

States for Engine Coolant Temperature	From	To	Alarm Type
High Critical	101º		Critical
High Alarm	99º	100º	Alarm
High Warning	95º	98º	Warning
Normal	85º	94º
Low Warning	80º	84º	Warning
Low Alarm	77º	79º	Alarm
Low Critical		76º	Critical

If an indicator reading of 75° is recorded, APM triggers the low critical alarm.

If your APM environment is set up to track failures, you can set options to automatically create failure records and downtime incidents when users acknowledge alarms. You can provide default values for the failure mode and PF intervals, and failure severity on generated failure records.

This topic explains how to add states and alarms to an existing 4D indicator. It explains how:

•	To Add States, Value Ranges, and Alarm Types to Indicators

•	To Select Notification Methods for an Alarm State

•	To Select Failure and Downtime Options for an Alarm State

To Add States, Value Ranges, and Alarm Types to Indicators

1.	Open the indicator.

2.	Make sure that editing is enabled.

3.	On the Properties view, select the States tab and then select This indicator has states.

APM adds the default states for the indicator: one normal state and high and low states for each alarm type. The high states apply to ranges above normal, and the low states apply to ranges below normal. For example:

Tip: If APM provides a state that you do not want to use, you can remove it. Right-click the state and select Remove. A confirmation message appears. Click Yes.

4.	Double-click the Normal state. The Indicator State dialog appears. For example:

5.	Change the state’s name as required.

6.	Enter the lower value of the normal range in the From box. You cannot enter a value for the upper limit of the normal range. APM calculates this value once you have defined the rest of the states.

7.	Click OK to save the state and close the dialog.

8.	Double-click the next state. If you wish, you can change the state’s name.

9.

Enter the lower value of the state’s range in the From box. You cannot enter a value for the upper limit of the state’s range. APM calculates this value once you have defined the rest of the states. Note that you cannot enter a lower range for the most severe “low” alarm; the lower range for this state is automatically set to negative infinity.

10.	Check that the state is linked to the correct warning or alarm in the Alarm type list.

You can now define the notification and failure settings for the state, as explained in the next sections. When you save and close the state, go on to the next abnormal state. When you have finished entering ranges for all of the states, APM calculates the other end of the range for each state.

To Select Notification Methods for an Alarm State

1.	Select the Notification tab. APM can send an email and/or a favorite to one or more employees when this indicator is in this alarm state.

2.	Select one of the following options:

•	None: No notification will occur.

•	Email: Notify employee(s) with an email.

•	Add to favorites: Notify employee(s) with a favorite.

•	Both: Notify employee(s) with both an email and a favorite.

3.	Click Browse to select one or more employees.

Note: For this feature to work, the employee must be a domain user with a valid email account. This email account must be added to the employee record in APM.

You can now set failure options for the state or click OK to save the state and close the dialog.

To Select Failure and Downtime Options for an Alarm State

1.	Select the Failures tab. On this tab, you can select options to have failure records and downtime incidents automatically created when users acknowledge alarms with work orders, work requests, monitoring, or by marking the alarms as being fixed during inspection. For example:

2.	To associate one of the asset’s failure modes with the indicator state, click the browse icon, select the failure mode, and click OK in the selector dialog. If failure records are created automatically when an alarm is acknowledged, the records display this failure mode.

3.	The PF interval is used to indicate the remaining time until a potential or partial failure escalates to a full failure. You can do one of the following to set the PF interval on generated failure records for this state:

•	Set the PF interval directly by entering a value and unit of measure in the PF interval boxes. You can do this if a failure mode is not selected or to override the selected failure mode’s PF interval.

•

Use the default behavior and do not enter a PF interval. The selected failure mode’s PF interval is used and the state’s alarm type rules are applied. For example, the alarm type could specify that the failure’s PF interval is set to the failure mode’s PF interval minus the indicator’s frequency. The alarm type settings are shown for information purposes.

4.	To have failure records created automatically, select Create a failure when this alarm is acknowledged. Select the failure severity to assign to the failure record.

5.	You can have APM create a downtime incident at the same time that it generates a failure record. Select Create a downtime incident automatically with the failure.

Note: The site’s Acknowledgment policies determine which acknowledgment methods allow a failure record to be created. For more information, see Setting Acknowledgment Policies.

6.	Click OK to save the indicator state and close the dialog.