Zones

A zone is a specific protected location or device on an installation's premises — the front door contact, the hallway smoke head, the counter holdup button. When a signal arrives, the zone tells the operator what tripped and where, and its configuration decides whether that signal becomes an alarm, how urgent it is, and which action plan the operator follows. An installation can hold up to 1,000 zones. All of it lives in the Zones tab of Service/Data Entry (#559); creating the installation itself is the Creating Installations module, how a raw signal finds its zone is the Signal Path module, and the zone types you select are administered in Zone Types (#1733) — here you use them, you don't maintain them.

How the module progresses

1. Read an installation's zone list and control which zones the tab shows.
2. Add zones and predict the description and priority each one gets.
3. Steer a zone's signals with Class, Priority, Group and Delay.
4. Hold an alarm open until its zone restores, and let a cancel clear it.
5. Serve zones beyond one CID — shared zones and template zones.
6. Send a master's zone to a sub-zoned installation.
7. Force a zone's status when the signal that should change it will never come.

1. Read the Zones tab

Task: read an installation's zone list, and control which zones the tab shows.

One row per zone. Open an installation in #559 and choose the Zones tab in the lower pane. The columns that carry the configuration you will meet in this module: Zone (the number the panel reports), Area and Code (finer signal addressing, when used), Zone Type, Text (the description the operator reads), Class, Priority, Group, Action Plan, Sched#, Delay, and the Restore and Cancel column groups. Two columns come from Monitoring rather than from data entry — Last Signal Type and Signal Count — and stay empty until an alarm has been received on the installation. When an operator takes an alarm in Dispatch, the zone it came from turns red.

A % in the CID column marks a shared (global) zone — one zone attached to every CID on the installation (section 5). The CID column only appears when the installation has more than one CID or shared zones exist.

Three view toggles. The fields in the tab's upper pane name the current view; three commands switch it:

While you are changing zones, every zone shows regardless of the view; the view filter returns when you finish.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): open MILLER (TRA-00002) and read its zones aloud, one line each: what trips it, what the operator will read in Text, which action plan it drives, and whether a restore is required.

Guided practice: stay on MILLER (TRA-00002), an installation served by a template — its own zones show, the template's do not until you press Toggle Template [F9]. Cycle all three toggles and say, for each, what appeared or disappeared and why. (Open TMPL-CID itself for contrast: a template installation lists all its zones without any toggle.)

Independent practice: using only the Zones tab, answer for the PLATEAU master (TRA-00006): how many zones does it have, are any of them shared, and which ones require a restore?

2. Add a zone

Task: add a zone to an installation and predict the description and priority it will get before you save.

Four fields make a zone. The New Zone screen needs CID (defaults to %, shared — section 5), Zone, Zone Type, and Action Plan — the plan list only offers plans that exist on this installation. Everything else refines the zone.

The zone type does the heavy lifting. Selecting a Zone Type pulls that type's alarm type, default Priority and, for most types, the Text from Zone Types (#1733). You can override the priority per zone. If the Text field is greyed out, the type carries a predefined description — to write your own text you need a type that leaves it open.

Steps:

1. Open the installation in #559 and choose the Zones tab.
2. Choose New Record [F3] — the Zone Details window opens in New mode.
3. Complete CID, Zone, Zone Type, Action Plan.
4. Complete the remaining fields as needed — Protected Area is the operator's plain-language location.
5. Save [ENTER].

Deleting works from the same window: Delete Record on the Zone Details of the zone. Deleting a zone also deletes any delayed alarms held for it, and SBN refuses to delete a zone that a camera on the Cameras tab is linked to.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): on the residential installation you created from your reserved range, enter the standard residential set — 001 FRONT DOOR ENTRY/EXIT (plan 3 BURGLARY), 002 MOTION MAIN FLOOR (plan 3), 003 SMOKE HALLWAY - FIRE (plan 2 FIRE), 004 PANIC FIXED (plan 1 DURESS), 005 REAR DOOR PERIMETER (plan 3). Before each save, say what Text and Priority you expect; check after.

Guided practice: on your commercial installation, add the two zones the commercial set adds — 006 OPEN/CLOSE PANEL ARM/DISARM (plan 4 OPEN/CLOSE) and 007 HOLDUP FRONT COUNTER (plan 1 DURESS) — and explain why the holdup zone's priority came out where it did, and why the open/close zone is not an alarm zone at all.

Independent practice: the customer has added a detached garage with a door contact and a motion detector. Choose zone numbers, types and plans, enter both zones on your residential installation, and verify the Text and Priority read correctly for an operator who has never seen the site.

3. Steer a zone's signals

Task: predict, from Class, Priority, Group and Delay, whether a signal on a zone reaches the Alarm Queue — and how urgently.

Class is the gate. The Class symbol decides what SBN does with the zone's signals:

An alarm signal on a - zone still refreshes the CID's test interval — a panel can prove it is alive on a zone nobody monitors (test supervision is in the Creating Installations module).

Priority is the order. Lower number, more urgent: priority 1 sorts to the top of the Alarm Queue, 99 to the bottom.

Group merges signals. Zones sharing a monitoring Group code feed the same incident — further signals from the group join the existing alarm line instead of raising new ones.

Delay is a pre-queue hold. The Delay seconds hold an alarm out of the Alarm Queue; a restore arriving during the hold cancels it, and the operator sees the alarm only when the delay expires. Entry doors ride out the customer's disarm this way; an AC-loss zone with a long delay rides out short power cuts.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): on your residential installation, give 001 FRONT DOOR ENTRY/EXIT a Delay of 30 and leave 003 SMOKE HALLWAY - FIRE at 0 — then state, in one sentence each, why the door waits and the smoke head never does.

Guided practice: walk your commercial installation's zones and give one line per zone: a signal comes in — queue, log, or gone? Ahead of or behind the others? Alone or joining an incident?

Independent practice: a customer complains: "we disarm every morning and the operators still call about the front door." Name the field you would check first, the value you expect to find, and the value you would set.

4. Require a restore, accept a cancel

Task: configure a zone so its alarm holds open until the zone restores, and pair a cancel zone so a codeword abort clears it.

Restore Required. With the check box selected, an incoming alarm on the zone cannot be cleared until a restore arrives. The Zone / Area / Code fields under Restore name where that restore comes from — Area and Code default from the chosen zone. When no restore signal will ever come, section 7 is the way out.

Restore Delay holds the alarm out of the queue while SBN waits for the restore. The alarm logs immediately; if the restore arrives in time, the operator never sees it. If it does not, a no-restore event — conventionally shown as No Res/Can — lands in the Alarm Queue and Alarm Log, and repeated alarms on the zone restart the timer.

The Cancel fields mirror the Restore fields. A Cancel Zone names the zone whose signal — typically the customer's codeword abort at the keypad — clears the alarm; Cancel Del holds the alarm out of the queue while SBN waits for it, with the same No Res/Can outcome when it never comes.

The Exc boxes force restores or cancels into the queue: with Exc selected, every restore (or cancel) on the zone reaches an operator instead of quietly closing its pair.

Steps:

1. Open the zone in the Zone Details window, Change Record.
2. Select Restore Required (or complete the Cancel fields).
3. Set the Restore/Cancel Zone, and a Delay if the alarm should wait out of the queue.
4. Save [ENTER].

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): on your residential installation, make 003 SMOKE HALLWAY - FIRE restore-required, then say out loud what an operator can and cannot do with a fire alarm on it until the smoke head restores.

Guided practice: add zone 008 CANCEL to the same installation with a cancel-type zone type, then set it as the Cancel Zone of 001 FRONT DOOR ENTRY/EXIT with a short Cancel Del — and narrate the false-alarm morning: door trips, customer types the code, what does the operator see?

Independent practice: an alarm shows MRC - No Res/Can in the queue. Reconstruct what happened: which fields on the zone were set, which signal never arrived, and within what time it was expected.

5. Serve zones beyond one CID: shared and template zones

Task: predict, for any signal on an installation, which zone answers — its own, a shared zone or a template zone — and, for a template match, which zone supplies the what and which the where.

Three places a zone can come from. A signal on a CID is matched against the installation's own zones for that CID first, then its shared % zones, then the zones of an attached template — at every level of detail, most specific first. So an own zone that carries the same Code as a template zone overrides it for that event, while an own zone with a number only does not compete with a Code-keyed template zone.

Shared zones answer for every CID. A zone whose CID is % is a shared zone: it answers a signal on any CID of the installation that has Shared Zone Pickup (X) in its CID Zoom window; a CID without pickup sees only its own zones. New zones default to CID %, so on a single-CID installation you have been creating shared zones all along — the difference only shows once a second CID reports the same premises. One consequence for data entry: Copy Zone/Plan skips shared zones when you import by CID; import by installation number to bring them along.

**Template zones answer the what; the installation's own zones answer the where.** A Contact ID panel reports an event code — what happened (130 burglary, 110 fire) — and a zone number — where (003, the hallway smoke head). A template installation is a read-only installation whose zones are flagged Template (the Template column shows X); each template zone is keyed on the event Code, with the Zone number set to the any-zone marker (.), and carries the zone type, priority, action plan and Text for that event. The installation's own zones carry the panel's zone numbers, each with a Protected Area (FRONT DOOR, HALLWAY SMOKE HEAD) and no Code. When event 130 arrives on zone 003, the template's 130 zone decides the alarm — type, priority, plan, text — and SBN reads the installation's zone 003 for its Protected Area, so the operator sees BURGLARY and HALLWAY SMOKE HEAD on the same alarm line. Nothing is copied: edit the template once and every installation it serves follows. On a served installation the template's zones stay out of the Zones tab until Toggle Template [F9], and operators handling an alarm never see them.

Where the template comes from. Per CID, first hit wins:

1. The CID grid — the Template field in the CID Zoom window names the template CID. (A CID offers itself in that menu when its own Template check box is selected.)
2. The panel type — in Panel Types (#1742), a panel type with Template Zones selected names its template installation in Default Account; every CID on that panel type is served by it unless its CID grid says otherwise, and a dealer row (Dealer / Default Account) can point the same panel type at a different template per dealer.

Copying from a template is refused. Copy Zone/Plan will not import from a CID whose panel type is flagged Template Zones — a template's job is to be attached, so its zones stay in one maintained place.

The Contact ID set on TMPL-CID. One Code-keyed zone per event the panels report — the Code is the Contact ID event number, and each row names the plan it drives:

Steps (attaching via the CID):

1. Open your installation in #559 and zoom into the CID.
2. In the Template field, select the template CID.
3. Save — the Zones tab shows no new rows; the template now answers the what for every event your own zones carry no Code for.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): open TMPL-CID — as the template itself it lists all its zones, each with an X in the Template column — and read its set against the table above, one line per zone: which Code feeds it, what the operator would read, which plan it drives, and why its Zone column is the any-zone marker.

Guided practice: on your commercial installation, zoom into the CID: read Shared Zone Pickup and say which of your zones would answer a signal from a second CID. Then set TMPL-CID in the CID's Template field, return to the Zones tab and explain: why no rows were added and what Toggle Template [F9] reveals; and for event 130 on zone 007, which zone supplies the what and which the where.

Independent practice: your own zones 001–007 carry Protected Areas and no Codes. Walk the standard events arriving on zone 003 and write down, per event, the zone answering the what and what the operator reads for the where. Then give zone 007 the Code 120 with its own zone type and say which zone answers 120 on 007, which answers 120 on 003, and why. Last, name a Contact ID event the set does not cover — bypass (570) for one — say what happens when a served installation reports it, and how you would cover it without touching the template.

6. Send a master's zone to a sub-zoned installation

Task: add the redirect zone that makes a master's zone process on its sub-zoned installation.

The family is built in Data Entry; the redirect is a zone. Master CID, the Subzone check box and the creation order are the Creating Installations module. On the zone side: a zone on the master whose Text begins with # followed by a sub's CID hands every signal on that zone number to the sub, where it is matched against the sub's own zone list, described, prioritised and alarmed. The redirect is a single hop — and the sub can only describe what it defines, so give the sub a real zone under the same zone number. A greyed-out Text field means the zone type carries predefined text — pick a type that leaves Text open.

Steps:

1. On the master, add a zone with the redirected zone number.
2. Give it a zone type whose Text field is open.
3. Type # plus the sub's CID in Text.
4. On the sub, define the same zone number as a real zone — description, type, priority, plan.
5. Save both.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): on the PLATEAU master (TRA-00006), add a zone on a free zone number with Text # + PLATEAU A's CID; then define the same zone number on PLATEAU A (TRA-00006-01) as a real zone. Trace aloud where a signal on that number now alarms and whose Text the operator reads.

Guided practice: walk the master's full zone list and decide, zone by zone: does this one alarm on the master, or is it redirected — and to which sub?

Independent practice: PLATEAU B (TRA-00006-02) needs one of its zones fed from the master too. Do the whole thing — both ends — using a zone number nobody else has used, and prove your redirect by reading the two zone lists side by side.

7. Force a zone's status

Task: manually restore a zone that requires a restore when the restore signal will never come.

Every zone carries two statuses. The Zone Status Change window shows each zone's Physical Status — A Alarm, R Restore, T Trouble, O Open, C Close — and its Logical Status: A in the Alarm Queue, R restored, N normal, T in the Test Queue. Setting the status by hand is how you restore a restore-required zone whose panel is dead, replaced, or in a technician's hands — the alarm from section 4 that nothing can clear.

Steps:

1. From the Zones tab, choose Change Zone Status [F8] — the Zone Status Change window lists the zones.
2. Select the zone and choose Change [F2].
3. In Set Zone Status, pick the new status.
4. Save [ENTER].

On a template zone, the change applies only to the CID selected in the window.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): on your residential installation, open the Zone Status Change window, read 003 SMOKE HALLWAY - FIRE's physical and logical status, and set the physical status to R.

Guided practice: connect it back: with Restore Required set on that zone since section 4, state exactly what this manual R unblocks for the operator holding the alarm.

Independent practice: a fire destroyed the customer's panel; the operator cannot clear the alarm because the zone never restored. Walk the resolution end to end — the window, the zone, the status you set, and what the operator sees afterwards.

8. Quick reference

Class: blank/+ queue · - thrown away (still refreshes the test interval) · = log only.

Priority: lower number = more urgent; 1 sorts first.

Statuses: physical A/R/T/O/C · logical A (queue) / R (restored) / N (normal) / T (test).

One-liners:

1. % CID = shared zone — answers on any CID with Shared Zone Pickup.
2. Matching order at every level of detail: own zone → shared zone → template zone; an own zone with the same Code overrides the template.
3. Template zones are attached, never copied: CID grid Template field first, else the panel type's Default Account (#1742, dealer row before panel default).
4. Template zone = the what (Code → type, priority, plan, text); own zone = the where (Protected Area).
5. Text #<CID> on a master = sub-zone redirect, one hop.
6. Up to 1,000 zones per installation · the alarming zone turns red in Dispatch · deleting a zone deletes its delayed alarms, and a camera link blocks the delete.

Beyond this module (see the Zones reference): Double Knock zones, linked multi-signal zones, zone sub groups, system zones for system-generated events, fire-test intervals in the Zone Test window, and test-result masks.