There is support for EPICS aliases. The NAME/NAME$ fields of the PV are used to lookup the "real" name and the PV is archived under that name and an entry is added to the PVAliases table with the alias name. Data retrieval and management are supported under both names. 

For aliased PV's, the PVDetails of the PV should an a line indicating that this PV is an alias for the "real" PV.

To debug this, I'd do a caget <PV>.NAME (or NAME$ if it is a long name) and then see if the PV is archived under that name. Also, in the mgmt arch.log, you should seen an entry that looks like 

Aborting archive request for pv XRT:LIPY:0:HXX:HXM:MMS_01:B_MPSC:LIGHT_TRANS Reason: Aborting this pv XRT:LIPY:0:HXX:HXM:MMS_01:B_MPSC:LIGHT_TRANS (which is an alias) and using the real name XRT:LIPY:0:HXX:HXM:MMS_01:B_MPSC:LIGHT_ instead.

Regards,

Murali