Events

In OPC UA, an event is an umbrella term for an alarm. A state change of an alarm is transferred via an event of a specific type. The WinCC OA UA client is also able to map events to data point elements.

Mapping of events

For events a subscription of the type Events must be created. There only general subscription settings can be set, as the special settings for events (monitored items) do not exist (see Configuration of a Subscription).

In the peripheral address an Event Source is specified for the monitored items. If the subscription is of the type Events, then only Event Sources are offered for selection when browsing items. If the Event Source for the configuration is not known, it is possible to receive all events of the corresponding subscription using the NodeId specified by the config entry eventFallbackAddress. Events for which no explicit Event Source is defined in the address, are mapped to this fallback address.

Events are mapped to data point element of the type string. There are two options for this mapping. The first option is to write the following information separated by the "|" symbol into a string.

The string contains the following information:

  • Node ID of the Event Source

  • Time stamp

  • Event text

  • Severity (urgency of an alarm is mapped to the priority in the alert class)

    The second option is to write the values of the event fields in JSON format to the string. This option can be enabled in

    the event subscription panel. In this mode, all event field values are included in the JSON string. The keys of this string

    are the browse paths of the event type properties. In this mode it is also possible to receive event fields from custom event types.