Guidelines for assigning alarm severity levels

When assigning alarm severity levels in an alarm template, you should keep these guidelines in mind.

General guidelines

You do not always have to use every possible severity level.
If you do not use dynamic alarm thresholds, in some cases it can be useful to specify a "Normal" alarm threshold, though this is not mandatory. You can for instance specify a "Normal" threshold for an analog parameter to indicate the base expectations for normal values in the oscilloscope or LED bar representing this parameter.
You can assign the same severity level to multiple possible values of the same parameter.

Example: If you have a parameter of which the value can range from 0 to 10, then you could assign the level “Minor” to all values from 0 to 4.
If a parameter has an exception value, and you do not specify the exception value in the alarm template, it will be considered a normal value.
Carefully select your alarm severity levels and always make sure they make sense. After all, alarm messages should be meaningful.
- You should not monitor parameters just because you can.
- Do not set your severity levels too tight. If you do, this could lead to alarm floods in which critical alarms might get overlooked.
- Do not set your severity levels too wide. If you do, some alarms might never get raised.
Constantly evaluate and question the alarm severity levels you have set and, if necessary, adjust them.

In case of analog parameters, different values can be assigned so-called high and low levels.

A parameter like “audio output level” could be assigned the following alarm severity levels.

In the example above, some levels have been left out.

In case of discrete parameters, each value can be assigned a severity level.

A parameter like “fan status” could be assigned the following alarm severity levels.

Parameter value	Alarm severity level
On	Minor
Off	Normal

A parameter like “input level” could be assigned the following alarm severity levels.