Skip to main content
Skip table of contents

Migrate from legacy alarms to Smart alarms

Last modified:

VCOM's legacy alarms (“Alarming 1.0”) will be discontinued in November 2025. Users still relying on legacy alarms must transition to Smart Alarms before that date.

Already in use by most of our customers, Smart alarms offer many improvements over the legacy system:

(tick) Set up alarms quickly

(tick) Transfer alarm settings to other systems

(tick) Configure thresholds and delays to avoid unnecessary alarms

(tick) Identify issues more quickly

(tick) Customize individual alarms to your needs with user-defined alarms

(tick) Automate ticket creation for alarms of your choice (with Automation module)

(tick) Mute alarms for known issues

(tick) Auto-close inactive alarms

To help you with the transition, this article highlights the major differences between the legacy and Smart alarms.

Tip

Contact our Support team if you have questions or need assistance transitioning to Smart alarms.

Legacy alarms vs. Smart alarms

Legacy alarms vs. Smart alarms

Major differences

General

The Monitoring item in the image-20250514-113210.png System configuration sidebar will be removed.

  • image-20250513-100128.png Bell icons in the system list sidebar now react to smart alarms instead of legacy alarms. To keep the bell green, use the Muting feature.

  • The toggle Exclude from system status in the ticket details will disappear

Alarm setup

The old alarm setup page will no longer be available. Use the new setup for smart alarms under image-20250516-121719.png System configuration > Monitoring > Alarms.

Portlets

The following portlets will no longer be available:

Legacy portlet

Equivalent feature in Smart alarms

Alarms & Tickets

Alarms portlet and Tickets portlet

Ticket overview

Tickets portlet

Alarm information

Alarms portlet

Monitoring status

Alarm configuration page

Inverters showing conspicuous behavior

Alarms portlet

Filters

The following filters are no longer available:

Legacy filter

Equivalent feature in Smart alarms

Systems with data input alarms

Filter by alarm type, level, etc in the alarms portlet

Systems with technical failures

Systems with open faults

Systems with errors since yesterday

From seasonal monitoring profiles to monitoring threshold

Smart Alarms use monitoring thresholds based on irradiance and simulation values, eliminating the need for seasonal monitoring profiles. By setting a sufficiently high threshold, you can prevent false alarms caused by low irradiance.

What happens when I turn off legacy alarms?

The table below outlines legacy alarm features and how they are supported by Smart alarms.

Legacy alarm

Description

Equivalent Smart alarms feature

Comment

Inverter energy comparison

Energy comparison between the inverters that are set up in VCOM. The inverters are compared in pairs.

Misproduction alarm

Total outage alarm

To mirror this legacy alarm behavior, select the calculation method Inverter comparison.

Differentiate between system, inverter, and string combiner box levels.

Total outage alarm: For total outages at system/inverter/stringbox level.

Misproduction alarm: For simple underperformance.

Energy/irradiance

Comparison of AC power and measured irradiance.

Misproduction alarm

Total outage alarm

To mirror this legacy alarm behavior, select the calculation method Machine learning simulation/Physical simulation.

Identify underperformance based on expected values from the simulation.

Data input

An alarm is triggered if no data has been delivered for the last day and if it was not possible to retrieve the data at a later time.

Data outage alarm

Communication loss alarm

Data outage alarm: Detects when individual devices stop communicating.

Communication loss alarm: Indicates whether a data logger – or even the entire system – is offline.

Comparison of meters

Energy comparison of feed-in meters.

Misproduction alarm and Total outage alarm at the system level.

Minimal configuration and immediate benefits.

Comparison of current sensors

  • Comparison of measured electric currents from the string combiner box

  • The measured current sensor values are compared in pairs

String alarm

String outage alarm: Detects power loss at the inverter and string combiner box input levels (whole input).

System alarm

Additional alarms from external sources or system failure messages. For example, deactivation of automatic measured data retrieval (if data is available).

Enabled for every system by default and cannot be disabled.

You can only modify the notification settings.

Device events portlet

Device events portlet: Displays events from external sources. Use the filters to identify the essential alarms.

Additionally, if an alarm is triggered for a device, device events of the same device are shown in the Alarm details (if available).

Performance ratio

On the first of every month, a check is made to determine whether the performance ratio was within the set tolerances in the previous month.

Granularity: daily and monthly values.

Misproduction alarm

Misproduction alarm: Shows the reason for the low performance ratio, rather than only hinting that something is not working as expected.

Granularity: Matches all other types of alarms.

Data logger communication

An alarm will be triggered as soon as a data logger does not have contact with the portal during the configured time period.

This time period is made up of the time until the next expected reporting time point and the tolerated timeout setting.

Communication loss alarm

Communication loss alarm: Indicates whether a data logger – or even the entire system – is offline.

Inverter

Check of data availability and specific yield of inverters in relation to the system.

Data outage alarm Total outage alarm Misproduction alarm

Data outage alarm: Inverter does not respond.

Total outage alarm: Inverter responds, but is not producing.

Misproduction alarm: Inverter is producing, but not as much as it should.

With Alarm prioritization, only one alarm for the top-level component is sent. All connected sub-component alarms are prevented.

Custom alarms

Monitor single data tracks with the custom alarm.

User-defined static alarms

User-defined comparison alarms

Set up custom alarms for single data points (static alarms) or comparing multiple data points (comparison alarms).

Sensor group comparison

Comparative monitoring of sensor groups

User-defined comparison alarms

You can now compare data points from sensors, inverters, string combiner boxes, and calculated values.

String monitoring

The string monitoring facilitates the grouping of string currents and the efficient identification of deviations within a group.

String alarm

String alarm: Detects power loss at the inverter and string combiner box input level.

Switch from legacy alarms to Smart alarms

Prerequisites
  • ​You are using legacy alarms (“Alarming 1.0”)

Steps
  1. ​Navigate to image-20250514-113248.png System configuration > Monitoring > Alarms.

  2. Activate all alarms that fit your system and adjust the detailed configuration if necessary.

  3. Navigate to image-20250514-113248.png System configuration > Monitoring > Notifications.

  4. Set up and adapt your notifications as needed. See Email notifications.

  5. Contact your Sales account manager to turn off legacy alarms.

You can now use Smart alarms for monitoring.

JavaScript errors detected

Please note, these errors can depend on your browser setup.

If this problem persists, please contact our support.