A method for sorting alarm-messages of a plant having at least one alarm-area each having at least two plant-devices connected by at least one connection, wherein the at least one alarm-area is defined so that the plant-devices and the respective connection provide a directed graph , wherein a directed graph refers to dependencies and relationships between the different plant devices in the plant, wherein the method comprises the following steps: a) providing at least one database containing alarm-data and topology-data ; wherein ▪ the alarm-data describe the relation between plant-devices and an assigned alarm-areas ; ▪ the topology-data describe a directed graph comprising at least one connection with a related flow direction between the respective plant-devices of the assigned alarm-area , wherein the flow direction refers to the direction of the directed graph and is determined in particular from a material flow, an energy flow and/or an information flow between the respective plant-devices; b) retrieving alarm-messages from plant-devices ; c) associating alarm-messages with the respective alarm-area according to the alarm-data ; d) generating a first alarm-order of the alarm-messages of the at least one alarm-area by ▪ sorting the alarm-messages according to the flow direction of the directed graph ; ▪ assigning the sorted alarm-messages to the first alarm-order ; e) storing at least the first-up alarm-message of the first alarm-order , wherein the first-up alarm-message refers to as an alarm-message of the plant-device which is in the first position in the flow-direction of the plant. a) providing at least one database containing alarm-data and topology-data ; wherein ▪ the alarm-data describe the relation between plant-devices and an assigned alarm-areas ; ▪ the topology-data describe a directed graph comprising at least one connection with a related flow direction between the respective plant-devices of the assigned alarm-area , wherein the flow direction refers to the direction of the directed graph and is determined in particular from a material flow, an energy flow and/or an information flow between the respective plant-devices; ▪ the alarm-data describe the relation between plant-devices and an assigned alarm-areas ; ▪ the topology-data describe a directed graph comprising at least one connection with a related flow direction between the respective plant-devices of the assigned alarm-area , wherein the flow direction refers to the direction of the directed graph and is determined in particular from a material flow, an energy flow and/or an information flow between the respective plant-devices; b) retrieving alarm-messages from plant-devices ; c) associating alarm-messages with the respective alarm-area according to the alarm-data ; d) generating a first alarm-order of the alarm-messages of the at least one alarm-area by ▪ sorting the alarm-messages according to the flow direction of the directed graph ; ▪ assigning the sorted alarm-messages to the first alarm-order ; ▪ sorting the alarm-messages according to the flow direction of the directed graph ; ▪ assigning the sorted alarm-messages to the first alarm-order ; e) storing at least the first-up alarm-message of the first alarm-order , wherein the first-up alarm-message refers to as an alarm-message of the plant-device which is in the first position in the flow-direction of the plant. <EOS>