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System Management
The System Management is the central administrative unit for WinCC OA Systems.
Diagnostics
Alert and Event Screen (AEScreen)
The alert and event panel (AEpanel) in WinCC OA is a standard panel and allows displaying alerts and events in table format.
Alarm shelving and suppression
This topic provides an overview of alarm shelving, suppression by design, and out-of-service handling in WinCC OA.

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- Project Administration
  The chapter contains a description of the process monitor as well as the project administration.
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  Used for creating and editing panels, provides tools for creating and configuring graphic objects.
- System Management
  The System Management is the central administrative unit for WinCC OA Systems.
  - System management
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    - Login Statistics
    - Alert and Event Screen (AEScreen)
      The alert and event panel (AEpanel) in WinCC OA is a standard panel and allows displaying alerts and events in table format.
      - Requirements and installation
      - Alert states
      - View of the Alarm and Event Screen
      - Alert table
      - Event table
      - A&E-Row/Screen
      - Column configuration
      - Customization
      - Properties of the alert table
      - Example of how to add a user-defined column
      - openAES()
        Opens the alert and event panel at the desired position and allows executing an action such as print the upper table of the alert and event panel or save the table.
      - Alarm filtering
      - Alarm shelving and suppression
        This topic provides an overview of alarm shelving, suppression by design, and out-of-service handling in WinCC OA.
        Set up alarm shelving and suppression
        Use this procedure to activate the Alarm Shelving feature in a WinCC OA project.
        Alarm shelving
        This topic explains how operators temporarily suppress individual alert instances in WinCC OA without changing the underlying alert handler configuration.
        Alarm suppression by design
        This topic explains how suppression by design prevents an alert handler configuration from generating alerts in WinCC OA.
        Out-of-service mode
        This topic explains how out-of-service mode swaps alert classes to maintenance classes in WinCC OA while keeping alert generation active.
        Alarm shelving API reference
        This reference summarizes the alarm shelving, suppression, and out-of-service API functions that are available through the AlertServiceClient.ctl CTRL library.
        Alarm shelving restrictions and notes
        This reference summarizes current restrictions, supported system scenarios, and operational notes for the IEC 62682 alarm shelving feature.
    - Event Manager Connections
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      A panel for the diagnostics of a WinCC OA system.
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      The Continuous Monitoring feature of WinCC OA provides an interface for external tools to read and validate log and error messages of Security Events that were generated by the WinCC OA.
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  The XML (Extensible Markup Language) panel format allows creating WinCC OA panels.
- Simple Symbols, basics
  The "Simple Symbols" functionality is used to simply assign corresponding symbols to datapoint types and increase the working comfort when working with different symbols.
- ScriptWizard
  Simple wizard for creating graphical user interfaces for users without prior programming knowledge.
- Panel topology/Group alert facility
  Tree structure for process panels with integrated group alert system
- Object-Oriented Panel References
  Reusable objects built with the GEDI tools. Insert them within an existing panel to provide a graphical element.
- Multilingual Projects
  WinCC OA is designed to provide both Native Language Support and Multi Language Support.
- Translator
  The WinCC OA Translator functionality supports you in creating and maintaining multilingual projects. It offers a convenient interface for translation of reusable terms.
- Layout management
  Layouts change the size and position of objects according to parameters previously defined in the GEDI.
- Generic Dialog Framework
  The Generic Dialog Framework is an easy way to generate your own dialogs by adjusting a set of prefabricated panels.
- Simple Configuration
  Simple configuration windows and panels support you in combining events (such as a mouse click) with different actions such as setting datapoint values, showing panels or changing attributes.
Data Management
Classify, structure and archive your data.
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Endless possibilities in data processing for your projects.
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User interfaces, Trends and Reports for every purpose and device.
Southbound Interfaces
The process connection to the actual machines/sensors.
Northbound Interfaces
Your portal to the cloud or supervising systems.
Web Connectivity / Network Interfaces
Data exchange, APIs and web technologies
User Management
All about authorization, authentication and login-customization.
Availability
How to get your system uptime to the maximum.
Reporting
Create state of the art project reports without limits.
Addons
Useful tools and enhancements for special demands.
Reference Tables
Detailed and extensive content for special project adaptation.
Videos & Tutorials
Explore the capabilities of WinCC OA with our carefully selected collection of video tutorials and guides.
eLearning
Build Your Expertise Step by Step
Documentation
Basic information about terms and functions within the documentation.
Support & Services
An experienced team of support agents, consultants and trainers are ready to facilitate active partnerships with our customers, so they can profit from our comprehensive service.
Disclaimer
A brief clarification of liability exclusions or legal notices.

Alarm shelving and suppression

This topic provides an overview of alarm shelving, suppression by design, and out-of-service handling in WinCC OA.

Introduction

WinCC OA provides alarm shelving and suppression capabilities based on IEC 62682 / ISA 18.2 standards.

These mechanisms help operators manage alarm loads during maintenance, commissioning, and routine operations.

Alarm management mechanisms

Alarm shelving: Operator-initiated, temporary suppression of individual alert instances at runtime. Shelved alerts are hidden from the operator but remain active in the system. A configurable timer automatically unshelves alerts after the shelving period expires.
Suppression by design: Engineering-level configuration that prevents an alert handler from generating alerts. It is applied at the datapoint config level. Use this mechanism during commissioning or planned maintenance of specific signal paths.
Out-of-service (maintenance mode): Places a datapoint element into maintenance mode by swapping its alert classes to the dedicated maintenance classes alarm-maint, warning-maint, and info-maint. Alerts continue to be generated, but they are visually distinguished and do not count toward KPIs.

User permissions

Users need permission bit 5 (Acknowledge) to perform shelving, suppression, and out-of-service actions.

The permission is configured through the _System.Auth.AlertService datapoint. It is also available in the System Management permission panel.

When a user does not have bit 5 set, the entire extended alarming functionality is disabled for that user.

All operations are logged as Security Events and include the executing user in the audit trail.

System dashboard

The System Dashboard displays the following KPIs for alarm management:

Count of currently shelved alerts
Count of suppressed alert handlers
Count of datapoint elements in maintenance mode (out-of-service)

These KPIs are updated with a cycle time of 30 seconds.

Overview panels

Shelved Alerts overview: Shows all currently shelved alert instances.
Suppressed Alert Handler overview: Shows all suppressed alert handler configurations.
Out-of-Service overview: Shows all datapoint elements in maintenance mode.

All panels are accessible via buttons in the Alert and Event Screen (AEScreen).

Figure 1. Alarm shelving, suppression, and out-of-service buttons in the Alert Event Screen

In addition, suppression and out-of-service operations are available via the context menu (right-click) on Standard Object Library objects in panels.