Suppressing alarms

Generally you respond immediately to alarms. However, occasionally you might find that you are distracted by a nuisance alarm that you cannot immediately respond to. When this occurs, you can temporarily shelve the alarm or permanently remove it from service. Both types of suppression move the alarm from the Alarm Banner and Alarm List pictures to the Alarm Suppress picture.

Shelving an alarm typically falls under the control of the operator and is done for the purpose of temporarily suppressing the alarm. When you are ready to respond to it, unshelve the alarm in the Alarm Suppress picture and respond. If ignored too long or forgotten, the alarm is automatically unshelved when the shelving timer runs out.

Note

The shelving timer is configured in the Alarm Properties dialog (Advanced tab).

Removing an alarm from service falls under the control of maintenance and is used for the purpose of test or repair activities. An out of service alarm remains out of service until it is manually restored to service. In other words, there is no suppression timer.

When shelving or removing an alarm from service, you can also specify a suppression reason. This can be helpful later for an operator or supervisor to see the reason why the alarm is suppressed. The reason is seen in the Alarms Suppress picture.

Tip

An alarm that has already been shelved and added to the suppressed alarm list can later be removed from service.
An alarm that has already been removed from service and added to the suppressed alarm list can later be shelved.
The suppression reason for an alarm that has already been shelved or removed from service can be updated.