I have mentioned this before that this template should be fixed. But with no inbuilt alternative, it makes it difficult for IA to remove.
Where it really falls over is if you call it in multiple components like within multiple area tabs to show a count of alarms per area, or in device templates. Even calling but a few of these will cause lag in high specd hmis which I experienced early on
It is, until it bites you 
we've all been there haha
Yeah, no doubt 
In regards to my usage, it is called in one spot. A periodic client event script. I have a display path list that can index through the possibilities, or be set by an operator to filter the presentation of alarms and this script writes to client tags the number of unacked alarms (all im interested in). Its not important that these are updated extremely fast...the plc has obviously already handled the task associated with a new alarm. But it makes for easy group identification of alarms associated with display path identifiers as well as using the built in display path filter of alarm journals.
I use UDTs that are parameter generated by passing a tag path and display path filter. The common alarms are already auto configured down to the description pulling from a third parameter thats a device identifier. So I can preconfigure all the alarm descriptions, display paths, etc in the UDT. Just a matter then of using a similar UDT in logix for like device alarm generation.
Hi, I am intrigued about the latest solution, if you do not mind, would you care to explain in more details in how I could do it? I would like to know the best practice for this.
Thanks