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properly using, calibrating, operating, monitoring and maintaining all Products consistent with all Rockwell Automation
or third-party provided instructions, warnings, recommendations and documentation;
ensuring that only properly trained personnel use, operate and maintain the Products at all times;
staying informed of all Product updates and alerts and implementing all updates and fixes; and
all other factors affecting the Products that are outside of the direct control of Rockwell Automation.
Reproduction of the contents of the Documentation, in whole or in part, without written permission of Rockwell Automation is
prohibited.
Throughout this manual we use the following notes to make you aware of safety considerations:
Identifies information about practices or circumstances
that can cause an explosion in a hazardous environment,
which may lead to personal injury or death, property damage, or economic loss.
Identifies information that is critical for successful application and understanding of the product.
Identifies information about practices or circumstances that can lead to personal injury or death, property
damage, or economic loss. Attentions help you:
identify a hazard
avoid a hazard
recognize the consequence
Labels may be located on or inside the drive to alert people that dangerous voltage may be present.
Labels may be located on or inside the drive to alert people that surfaces may be dangerous temperatures.
Contents
Before you begin ........................................................................................................................................... 4
About this lab .................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Tools & prerequisites ........................................................................................................................................................................ 4
Lab 1 - Understanding and Using Exception and Compression ................................................................... 6
Lab 2 - FactoryTalk Historian Tag Types .................................................................................................... 14
Lab 3 - Using Performance Equations and Totalizers ................................................................................ 21
Section 1 Performance Equations ............................................................................................................................................... 21
Section 2 - Totalizers ...................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Lab 4 FTLD Interface Buffering and Redundancy ................................................................................... 35
Section 1 - Interface Buffering ........................................................................................................................................................ 35
Section 2 - Interface Redundancy................................................................................................................................................... 42
Lab 5 - Using and Displaying Audit Information .......................................................................................... 60
Lab 6 - Backfilling Data into a FactoryTalk Historian SE Server................................................................. 68
Lab 7 FactoryTalk Historian SE Archive Management ............................................................................ 88
Lab 8 Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data using VantagePoint Mobile ................................................... 96
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Image configuration/content
One (1) host computer with VMware virtualization software will host three guest operating systems for a total of three virtual
computers in a workgroup. The VMware images are named and basic contents are as follows:
DATA: A Windows 2012 R2 Server computer to act as a data collector using a FactoryTalk Live Data Interface.
SERVER: A Windows 2012 R2 Server computer to act as a FactoryTalk Directory and FactoryTalk Historian Site
Edition and VantagePoint Servers. Internet Information Server (IIS), Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition have
also been pre-installed. RSLogix Emulate 5000 controllers and RSLinx Enterprise are on this image as well.
CLIENT: A Windows 8.1 Enterprise computer to act as a client for FactoryTalk VantagePoint.
Communications Overview:
Host PC
Virtual Ethernet
DATA
(FactoryTalk Live Data
Interface)
SERVER
(FTDirectory,
FTHistorian SE and
FTVantagePoint
Servers, Emulate 5000
and RSLinx)
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CLIENT
(FTVantagePoint Clients)
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Click on this tag in the upper pane to make sure it has focus.
4. Note that this tag currently has default Exception and Compression attributes, unchanged since this tag was
added to Historian from the FactoryTalk Administration Console using Add Individual Historian Points. Verify
these attributes are currently set as follows:
Compressing: On
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6. Verify that the value of this tag is incrementing from 0 to 5 (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) over approximately a one minute
period, then resetting to 0 and incrementing to 5 again, repeatedly. Watch at least one complete cycle.
Click Get events to get the last two hours of data in the archives for this tag. Note default Start time of *-2h (two hours
ago) and End time of * (now).
8. Scroll down the list of Value/Event Time entries. Are you seeing values for this tag of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 over
and over again? Or, are you seeing "filtered" data, "skipping" some of the values such as in the below
example"filtered" by exception and compression? (skipping of values is what you should be seeing at this
time)
9. This behavior is how this tag's values are archived if using "default" exception and compressions settings. For
the purpose of this training, and a more realistic set of data for this step type of tag, we want to be sure that
all changes in this tag's value are archived.
10. Go back to Point Builder for this tag and change attributes as follows:
Exception Deviation: 0
Compression Deviation: 0
Compressing: Off
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11. Click the Save icon and verify receiving "Successfully edited point..." message.
12. Wait two minutes to be sure the FTLD Interface has enough time to put your changes in effect.
13. Did you wait two minutes?? If not, please wait. If so, go back to Data > Archive Editor. Click the Get events
button and scroll to the bottom of your Value - Event Time window. You should be seeing values archived no
longer "skipping" or "filtering" data. Be sure to scroll to the bottomthe results we want to see will only be
during the last few minutes, not during the majority of the two hours of data being shown. Your most recent data
should appear as follows (no skipping values):
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4. Verify that this tag's value remains "static" (unchanging) for approximately 45 seconds, then changes rapidly for
approximately 15 seconds. The value changes from between 65 to around 395 during this time period. This
behavior should repeat relatively consistently, creating one minute "cycles".
5. In System Management Tools (SMT), do the following steps in this order:
Change Start time to *-1m to get last one minute of data from archives.
Note that in below graphic the window size is reduced so you don't see all values returned, but you should be getting
around 17-25 events every minute from the archive for this tag.
6. Minimize the SMT and start VantagePoint Trend from the taskbar.
7. In the Model, navigate to System > Sources > FactoryTalk > localhost > Historians > Production Historian
> Tags and double-click on or drag the tag ending in SimpleTempZone1 to the plot surface.
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8. In thisTrend you should visually be seeing the behavior you noticed earlier, every 45 seconds the tag ranges
between 65 and 395 over a 15 second period.
9. Minimize Trend and go back to the SMT.
10. Do the following steps in this order:
11. When this tag was originally brought into Historian with the FactoryTalk Administration Console, the default
Exception Deviation was 0.25 and Compression Deviation was 0.5. You should still be seeing these default
settings:
Compression Deviation: 20
13. Note that this setting is in no way "recommended" or necessarily "typical" settings to be used in any other case
except for purposes of this training lab. Your setting should now appear as follows:
14. Click the Save button and look for "Successfully edited" message in the Session Record:
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15. Wait for two minutes and then go to Data > Archive Editor in the SMT and click the Get events button. If you
closed the SMT you will have to again search for the tag ending in *TempZone1. You should now be seeing
only 8-12 events in a one minute period. Earlier you were getting 17-25 events.
16. Return to the VantagePoint Trend that you had minimized earlier and review how that previous trend appeared.
Click the Refresh button and you should get an updated trend that looks similar to what you had seen before.
17. A key outcome of this lab is that you have seen that by increasing the amount of exception and compression you
have cut the amount of data going into the Historian Archive significantly...from approximately 17 values every
minute to only 11. And, the overall trend of the data looks similar. Less data stored with similar trend of data
over time.
18. Be aware, however, that the amount of data being discarded in this case could be significant in some cases and
care needs to be taken not to filter their data with exception and compression "too much".
19. To better visualize the changes that have taken place, right-click on the Trend plot surface and select Properties
> Trace:
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21. See if you can find where the changes you made to your exception/compression took place (you may need to
change the trend to Last 10 minutes). In the below example, you can see that soon before 1:16:39 PM on
8/6/2012 the changes took place, with less points being archived in the same amount of time. See especially
how the filtering reduced the number of points archived during the "ramping down" of the value back to the
minimum? Can you find this point in your data?
22. In Point Builder, set the attribute on the TempZone1 tag back to the following:
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Click Get events to see the last 2 hours of archived data for this tag.
3. This tag is remaining relatively "static" or unchanging for 30-45 seconds, and then is changing rapidly for about
15 seconds. Scroll through the list of Value/Timestamps and see if you can see a time where there is a "gap" in
changing data. The largest gaps should be between when the tag was static at approximately 65 and jumped
in value. In the below example, there is a 3 second "gap" followed by a 43 second "gap". Try to find similar
gap(s) in your data.
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4. The reason this tag is currently giving "gaps" in data is that the data is not changing at this time, or, if it is but
only slightly, it is being filtered with exception and compression. There are applications where it might be
required to archive data at some minimum time interval, whether or not it changes. A Tag Attribute called
Exception Deviation Maximum Time (ExcMax) can be used as the first step to achieve this functionality. Do the
following steps in this order:
5. Click Save icon and look for "Successfully edited point" message.
6. Go to the Classic Tab, and change Location3 from a 1 (Advised Mode) to a 0 (Polled Mode).
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7. Save your change. As Polled Mode, the FTLD Interface is asking RSLinx Enterprise for the value of the tag at
the tag's Scan Rate. This is currently every one second, determined by the 1 in Location4. The Interface then
decides based on the Exception settings, including ExcMax, whether or not to send the value/timestamp to the
Historian Server for possible archival (depending on Compression settings). When in Advised Mode, RSLinx
Enterprise would never send the value to the Interface, "unless" it had changed since the last time it sent the
value/timestamp. So, the Interface would never have a chance to send the value/timestamp to the server when
it wasn't changing.
8. Go back to Data > Archive Editor and click Get Events.
9. Scroll down to the bottom of the data and look for value/timestamps such as the below. Even though the tag's
value did not change, value/timestamps are archived at least every 10 seconds (could be more often). Note that
when a value "outside" the 10 second window is archived, the "previous value" is archived as well. That is why
you should be seeing "pairs" of the same value in the archive, one second apart. The tag was being "polled"
every second, and if it didn't change there was a value archived anyway from "outside" the 10 second window,
and its previous value that would have been "inside" the 10 second window.
Note: It can take up to two minutes for an Interface to put changes in tag configurations into effect. So, if you
do not see data such as the below, wait a minute or so and click Get events again.
10. When done confirming/observing the above results. so that the archiving functionality of this tag performs similar
to "other" Proof_Oven TempZone tags (if/when added), in Point Builder, change the attributes of the BL1
TempZone1 tag back to the following:
Change Compressing to On
Location3 to a 1
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5. Location3 is currently set to 1 which is Advised Mode. Location4 is set to 1 which is identifying a 1 second
scan class for this tag. Change Location3 to a 0 for Polled/Event collection mode.
6. If you save and "only" made the above change, the tag would be in Polled mode, with the Interface polling
RSLinx Enterprise for the value of the tag every second. We actually want this tag to act in Event mode,
updating when some "event" or "trigger" occurs. Do these steps in this order:
In the Exdesc field, enter the following (Note that "EVENT" must be uppercase!):
EVENT='RA Foods:RSLE:BL1.Program:Proof_Oven.SimpleMachineStep' Nonzero
Note in the above there should be spaces between RA and Foods, and between MachineStep' and Nonzero.
Click the Save icon and look for "Successfully edited point" message.
7. Go back to Data > Current Values and add the *Proof_Oven.SimpleMachineStep tag to your display and click
Start Updating. If it was left in the Start Updating mode, after you add this tag you may need to select Stop
Updating and then Start Updating again. You should see that instead of every one second, the value of the
Timer.ACC is now updating only when the MachineStep tag changes to anything "except" a zero.
Note: Besides Nonzero, event modes of Increment, Decrement and Anychange are also available.
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1. On the Client image, got to System Management Tools (should be open from previous steps).
2. Go to Points > Point Builder and add tag RA Foods:RSLE:BL1.StorageDint1 (be sure you click on to
highlight this tag once you've added it to the tag list).
3. On the Classic Tab, change Location3 to a 2, in order to make this an Output Tag.
4. Back on the General Tab, use the Source tag Search button to select the *Shift_Timer.ACC tag.
7. To see the actual value of the *StorageDint1 output tag in the controller, start FactoryTalk Live Data Test
Client from the taskbar.
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11. Select BL1 > Online, then StorageDint1 and finally click OK.
12. Position the Live Data Test Client over the top of System Management Tools (SMT) such as below. Note that
when the value of the Shift_Timer.ACC changes (Source Tag), very soon after the StorageDint1 tag (Output
Tag) is written to with the same value.
13. When done verifying above, close the SMT and FactoryTalk Live Data Test Client.
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3. Expand the Points category and select the Performance Equations plug-in. Then, click the New button.
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4. Our first Performance Equation is going to be a Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion. On the General tab, do the
following steps:
On the Equation tab, set the Equation to the following (Hint: Use the Tag Search button to fill in the tag name. It will
automatically enclose the tag name in single quotes ('), required syntax at the beginning and end of tag names)
Click the Evaluate button just to make sure you dont get an error. If you do get an error, check your syntax carefully.
Your actual evaluated data value will likely differ:
Change the timestamp assignment option to The timestamp of the triggering event.
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Note: FactoryTalk Historian tag name length is typically limited to 256 characters. However, when a tag
name is used with event-based scheduling with a Totalizer or Performance Equation, the event tags length
cannot exceed 73 characters. This would be when used as part of an event expression in a Totalizer, or
the Event tag in a Performance Equation.
Exception Deviation to 0
Compressing to Off
Note: The above settings are totally dependent on the situation and may be different in real applications. In
this case we are doing a calculation on a source tag that has already gone through exception and
compression before going into the archive. This performance equation is doing a calculation based on that
value and for purposes of this lab we want to archive all results. So, we are using zero exception and no
compression.
8. Click the Save toolbar button and check for a success message in the session record:
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Search for and display the two TempZone1 tags (hint: In the Search dialog, do not specify Point Source of FTLD, as
one tag you are looking for is a Performance Equation with Point Source C. You could use Tag Mask of *TempZone1*
for this Search.).
Select Start Updating (if values dont change, please wait 20-30 seconds).
You should see the TempZone 1 Deg C Performance Equation tag display calculated Celsius values from the source
SimpleTempZone1 tags Fahrenheit values.
1. Go back to Points > Performance Equations and click the New button.
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2. Lets say we need to do maintenance on the Proof Oven when the temperature zones are so many minutes or
hours over a certain temperature. In this case, as a starting point for such a set of calculations, we will create
one Performance Equation to calculate the number of minutes TempZone1 is over 200 degrees in the last hour.
First, do the following steps on the General tab:
Descriptor of Minutes in last hour TempZone1 greater than 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Enter following Equation (Hint: Use Tag Search button to fill in tag name rather than type in!). Note that in the following
equation, the *-1h is the Starttime (1 hour ago) and the * is the Endtime (current time)both of these entries need to be
enclosed in single quotes ('):
Click Evaluate. You should be getting a value similar to the below and no errors.
Note: The TimeGT (time greater than) function includes the Tag Name, Starttime, Endtime and Value to be
greater than in the parentheses that follow. The result is a value in seconds. In the above, we are dividing
by 60 to convert seconds to minutes.
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4. On the Scheduling tab, select Clock scheduling and Scan class of 3 which will cause the equation to be
calculated every 30 seconds.
Note: At this time the Scheduling tab is not identifying what actual time period the 3 in Scan class
represents. Neither would it if you had entered a 1 or 2. You will do something later in this lab that will
have an effect on this display.
Exception Deviation of 0
Compressing Off
6. Click the Save toolbar button and check for a success message in the session record.
7. In the top window, click on the TempZone1 GT 200 row to make sure it has focus.
8. Now, we want to open the Performance Equation Scheduling batch file to see where we could edit, add or
delete scan classes if desired. Go to the SERVER Image.
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10. Click the Create New Interface Instance from .BAT file button.
12. As you can see, this interface is set at default to have three scan classes1, 2, and 3at 1 minute, 2 minutes
and 30 seconds respectively.
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13. Do not make any changes, but note the buttons above the scan class list that would allow you to add, delete
and/or reorder the scan classes.
15. Go back to the CLIENT image that should still have the SMT open on the Performance Equations editor.
16. Close the SMT.
17. Reopen the SMT (have to close and re-open to see this change go into effect) and do the following steps:
Click Search (the binoculars icon) to list existing Performance Equation tags.
On the Scheduling tab, note you now have a drop-down list box to select scan class and the time represented by this
scan class is shown. Compare to what you had seen previously in step 4.
Note: This functionality exists because of what you did in the ICU on the Serveryou created the
Performance Equation (PE) Scheduler Interface Instance. We could have done this before we created the
Clock scheduled tag, but we wanted you to see the before and after. From now on, as you create
additional PE tags, this functionality will continue.
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You may see this tag occasionally changing by a small amount. Remember, we are only calculating this Performance
Equation once every 30 seconds and the oven temperatures are changing pretty consistently over time in our
simulation.
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Section 2 - Totalizers
Part A Summary Calculation Totalizer Example
4. We will create a Totalizer to calculate the Moving Time Weighted Average of the Temperature of TempZone1.
Perhaps in the future all of the zone average temperatures could be calculated and compared for determining
maintenance needs, comparing efficiencies, etc.
Start by doing the following steps on the Name & Type tab:
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5. On Sampling tab, specify Whenever a new source tag event occurs (Natural).
Exception Deviation of 0
Compressing Off
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Search for and monitor the tags SimpleTempZone1 and TempZone1 Average Temp.
1. In the SMT, go to Points > Totalizers and click the New button.
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Count Events
Block equal to 5 (we want the Totalizer we are creating to keep track of the number of cycles the Machine has gone
through, and we will consider reaching Step 5 a cycle)
Note: These settings will cause the Totalizer to accumulate events every hour on the hour, write final
results at the end of the hour, reset and start the count again. Write interim results set to At source time
(ramp) will cause interim counts to be collected as they occur as well, the count not collected just at the end
of each hour.
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5. Save the Totalizer and look for Successfully created totalizer message.
6. Add the Machine Cycles and MachineStep tags to Data > Current Values. Verify Start Updating is
selected (may have to Stop and Start Updating again). You should see that every time the MachineStep
reaches 5, the Machine Cycles tag increments. If the time on your image is nearing the top of an hour, you
should be able to see the Machine Cycles reset. If not happening soon, perhaps you can come back later and
watch it occur.
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3. Go to System > Sources > FactoryTalk > localhost > Historians > Production Historian > Tags and click
and drag the SimpleTempZone1 tag to the trend surface.
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4. Click the Live Mode button and you should see the trend scrolling from right to left, continuously updating.
5. In order to monitor the buffering subsystem, there are queue statistics we can monitor on the computer with
the Interface that is doing the buffering. The FTLD Interface FactoryTalk Historian Server is using is installed on
the DATA image.
6. Switch to the DATA image.
8. From the drop-down Interface selection box, pick the FTLD1 interface.
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10. Notice that this interface is configured to use the PI Buffer Subsystem.
11. Select Buffered Servers and notice this interface is configured to buffer data for the historian server we are
using, named SERVER.
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16. The result of this command should be similar to the following. The first column of numbers is the count at that
moment. The second column is change since last update. Note that you should be accumulating Total Event
Writes and Total Event Reads, but no Current Queue Events at this time.
17. Leave the Command Prompt open and return to the CLIENT image.
18. Verify that your VantagePoint Trend is still displayed and the TempZone1 tag is still changing.
19. Go to the SERVER image.
21. Wait for all of the services to stop and the dialog to close itself before proceeding.
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22. After Historian is fully stopped, go back to the CLIENT image and look at your VantagePoint Trend. When the
Historian Server is shut down, you will see a break and apparent loss of data".
24. Since the Historian Server is not available, the FTLD Interface is buffering data. You should see Current
Queue Events accumulating (may take several updates).
26. Restart the Historian Server by clicking the Windows icon and selecting the Start FactoryTalk Historian SE
tile.
27. While the Server is restarting (may take several minutes), return to the DATA image.
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28. See if you can catch when the server finishes restarting and the pibufss buffer empties. Current Queue
Events value should go to 0 (zero) and the change since last value should be negative. This may take several
minuteseven when the Historian Server is fully running, it may take a couple of minutes for the Interface to
notice and send that buffered data to the server. Please be patient!
30. Your trend should now be updating with values (may need to wait several seconds).
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31. If you see a gap, to fully refresh the trend, turn Live Mode off and back on again. The trend should be
displaying data with no gaps. There was no data loss while the Historian Server was stopped because the
Interface was buffering.
32. Leave VantagePoint Trend open and in Live Mode for the next Lab.
33. Go to the DATA image. Make sure the command window has focus and select Ctrl-C to stop the queue
statistics. Close the command window.
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3. Use the ICU on this image to confirm the interface is running (select FTLD1 Interface from drop-down list and
look for "Running" at the bottom of the dialog)
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7. On the CLIENT image, we want to verify the connection to the Historian Server named SERVER. Launch the
SMT.
9. Check the SERVER checkbox and verify you get SERVER connected message.
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12. Click the Create new Interface Instance from .BAT file toolbar button.
13. Navigate to the LDInterface directory and select the FTLDInt_FTLD.bat.bak file. Click the Open button.
14. You will be prompted to select the Host PI Server. Select SERVER from the drop-down box and click the OK
button.
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15. Note that the Interface ID is set to the default value of 1 and will be the same ID as that of our primary interface
on DATA, Interface ID of 1.
18. Change the radio button to Enable buffering with PI Buffer Subsystem.
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19. Read the messages and click OK (you will not start the service YET!).
20. You should be taken to the Buffered Servers dialog. Select SERVER from the drop-down box. Click the OK
button.
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22. First, click General and then click Service on the left. Click Yes make the PIBufss service a dependency. This
dialog would come up later when you start the interface, but since we are finishing the configuration for Buffering
we prompted it to appear now to get out of the way.
23. Some of the settings made when configuring the FTLD Interface on the DATA image (prior to this lab) was to
delete some unneeded Scan Classes and enable Disconnected Startup. Disconnected Startup is a
recommended feature to allow an Interface to start collecting data when it starts, even if it doesnt have a
connection to a Historian Server (it will collect and buffer). To make this interface match, first go to the
General tab, click on them one at a time and use the Remove selected scan class button to delete scan
classes 0.05, 0.1 and 0.25.
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25. Click on Disconnected Startup category and select Enable disconnected startup (with point caching).
1. We need to create a shared folder to store a handshaking file that the two redundant interfaces will use to
control their redundancy. Go to the SERVER image.
Note: A computer running a Historian Server is NOT a recommended place for this shared "handshaking"
folder. However, since it is the only image that will not be running an Interface, we will use it for training
purposes in this lab.
3. Go to the C: drive, right-click in a blank area and select New > Folder.
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5. Right-click on the new folder and select Share with > Specific people.
6. Select Everyone from the drop-down list (you may want to use more restrictive sharing in a real application),
and then click Share.
7. Click Done.
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1. Change to the DATA image which should still have its ICU open.
Select Phase 2.
On this next step, if you get a Windows Security dialog, you can disregard on these images and click Cancel - For
Synchronization File Path, browse to the FTH_Shared folder on Server (Network > SERVER > FTH_Shared) and
click Open. If you get a Windows Security dialog, you can disregard on these images and click Cancel. The file
FTLDInt_FTLD_1.dat will be created in this folder. If for some reason you cannot Browse, type
\\SERVER\FTH_Shared\FTLDInt_FTLD_1.dat into this field.
Carefully confirm all following selections. When confirmed (are you sure?), select Apply.
3. Read this message (we will come back later to finish the configuration) and click OK.
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4. Read and click OK (we will stop and restart the interface later).
6. Make the same Failover selections on this interface as you did on the other. Again, if you try browsing to the
shared folder on the SERVER image and get a Windows Security message, you can Cancel.
7. HOWEVER - Select Failover ID # 2 for this instance and Failover ID # 1 for the other instance - IMPORTANT!
Verify all below selections CAREFULLY!
8. Are you sure the settings match especially Failover ID# for this instance of 2 and other instance of 1?
If so, click Apply on above dialog
9. Read and click OK.
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1. Still on the CLIENT image, right-click on Windows icon and select Control Panel.
4. Select the Log On tab, and specify to use Administrator account with password of rockwell. Click OK.
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8. Go to Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > Services, similar to how you did on the
CLIENT image, and make the same changes to the FTLD1 service on this image. Use Administrator with
password of rockwell. Click OK.
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10. Read and click OK. You will not stop and restart the service YET!
11. Close the Services, Administrative Tools and System and Security dialogs.
2. In the ICU, click the Browse button to select the other instance.
3. Click the FTLDInt1 interface on the CLIENT image and click OK.
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4. In the tag area, below where you identified the UFO Type and Synchronization File Path, right-click on the
tags and select Create UFO_State Digital Set on Server SERVER:
6. Right-click on the tag area again and select Create all points (UFO Phase 2).
7. Click the Apply button at the bottom-right of the dialog box and click OK on the Interface Changes Require
Restart dialog box that will appear.
8. Restart interface service by clicking below icon. Look for Stopping Service, then Starting Service and then
Ready and Running at the bottom-left of the dialog box. Leave the ICU open.
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12. Click the Apply button at the bottom of the dialog box.
16. Expand the Data category and select the Current Values plug-in.
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17. Use the search button to add all of the FTLDInt1_* tags to the current values monitor and click the Start
Updating toolbar button.
ActiveID = 1 Interface Node with Failover ID#1 is currently "Primary" and sending data to Historian Server
18. Leaving the SMT open, go to the CLIENT image and the VantagePoint Trend application, which should still be
running from the previous lab. You may see a gap or loss of data from interface configuration changes and
restarts. If not running, start VantagePoint Trend and create a display with a trend of the tag ending in
SimpleTempZone1.
Note: Since the Interface on the DATA image is currently Primary (you should have seen that with the SMT
on the SERVER image), this tag being trended is coming from the Interface on the DATA image to the
Historian Server.
19. On the DATA image, use the ICU to stop the Interface by clicking Stop interface service.
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20. Back on the CLIENT image, there could be a short delay but then the backup interface should take over. You
may need to stop and start Live Mode, but data collection will continue and no data should be lost.
23. Did the Interfaces switch roles? The Interface on CLIENT (Failover ID #2) is now Primary and the Interface
on DATA (Failover ID #1) is Backup?
24. Experiment with stopping a Primary interface to verify the Secondary Interface takes over, with no data loss.
Just be sure you dont end up with both Interfaces stopped. You WILL FOR SURE lose data then!
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25. When you are finished experimenting, revert back to non-redundant conditions by:
On the CLIENT image, stop the Interface with the ICU, then close the ICU.
Use the ICU on DATA image to de-select Enable UniInt Failover, click Apply and Restart interface service.
26. On all three images, close any open applications (SMT, VantagePoint Trend, ICU, etc).
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Note: This lab uses AuditViewer to display audit information. This tool is not installed automatically, but
included in Redist/AuditViewer folder in Historian 3.0 and newer install media and/or downloaded from
Knowledgebase article 64384 - FactoryTalk Historian Site Edition AuditViewer.
Also note that AuditViewer has already been installed on the SERVER image.
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Note: The Auditing Mask entered value is a bit mask where each bit refers to a specific database. -1
enables the audit of all databases. Masked parameter (Point:1, Digital Sets:2, Attribute Sets:4, Point
Class:16, User:32, Group:64, Trust:128, Module:256, Heading:512, TransferRecord:1024, Campaign:2048,
Batch:4096, UnitBatch:8192, Server:16384, Collective:32768, Identity:65536, Identity Mapping:131072,
Snapshot:268435456, Archive:536870912, DBsecurity:1073741824).
Value units are in bitmask. Parameter takes effect at startup only.
4. Double-click on EnableAudit to display the dialog window. Change the auditing Value to -1 and click OK.
7. Wait for all of the services to stop and the dialog to close itself before proceeding.
8. Once all of the services have stopped and window has closed, select the Windows icon again and click the
Start FactoryTalk Historian SE tile. Wait for all services to start and window to close.
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Part B - Make Changes and Use Audit Viewer to Examine the Activity
With auditing enabled the audit database mechanism reports changes to all subsystems, all data added, edited or removed from
the system including database configuration changes. In this exercise, you are going to substitute a tag value in the archive and
also edit an attribute of a tag and view the change in the FactoryTalk Historian AuditViewer.
1. Open the SMT, expand the Data category and select Archive Editor.
2. From the archive editor, you need to search/select the tag value you wish to view/modify. Use the search button
to select the tag BA:TEMP.1. The archive editor will display data for the time period specified in the lower
window. Note you are displaying the last two hours of values in the archive at default (Start Time of *-2h and
End Time of *).
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3. Scroll down part-way through the data so that you are not looking at the beginning of the last two hours of
data. Otherwise, when you later look for your edits you might have to look further back than the last two hours
you are currently displaying.
From the archive editor select the value you want to change and note its date/timestamp (write it down). Type a
new value (modified value of 99 in below example), press Enter, then click the Save icon
. The modified
value will be displayed and marked as substituted (scroll to your date/timestamp and look for checkmark in
Substituted column after these steps).
Go to Archive Tab.
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5. Save changes by clicking the Save icon and look for success message:
6. From the SMT Tools menu select Audit Viewer to launch the application.
From the AuditViewer, expand the Manage section. Verify the Archive 0 checkbox is checked (if not, check it) and
then click the Manage link
Double-click the Archive 0 icon on the right to display the subsystems file details.
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8. From the subsystem details page scan each of the files in turn by selecting the Scan File button from each of
the three subsystem views. Do all three (only two shown below).
9. Confirm that the records are updated with current date/time (will not match below).
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10. You can also view this in table form. Above the three Subsystems listed select the Table tab.
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Select Search to display and audit records for the time period specified.
Note: If you don't see records, perhaps more than 5 minutes have gone by since your changes. Try Start
Time of *-10m in that case.
12. To view more detailed information, click the + symbols on the entries. This will display detailed information
about the tag attribute old and new value, modified archived values, etc. You should see entries such as:
Configuration (Base) tab:
13. As time allows, make other FactoryTalk Historian edits/changes and detect them with AuditViewer.
14. Close AuditViewer and the SMT.
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2. Click the Windows icon in the lower-left corner and then the FactoryTalk Administration Console tile.
3. After selecting Network directory, right-click on RA Foods and select Add Individual Historian Points.
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In the left pane, navigate to RA Foods > BL1 > Online > Program:Proof_Oven and click on OvenUDT.
7. Click OK again on Add Historian Points dialog and close FactoryTalk Administration Console.
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8. Now we will take a look at a couple of CSV files that will be used to backfill data for this new tag. Do the
following steps:
9. Scroll through this CSV file and note that it contains over 4000 entries (dont bother counting!) of timestamps
(date followed by time) and values between May 1 and May 31, 2012, for a tag by the name of:
RA Foods:RSLE:BL1.Program:Proof_Oven.OvenUDT.TempZone1
This is a CSV (comma delimited) file, with each line formatted as:
Tagname,Timestamp,Value
10. We will use the data in the Data to Backfill.csv file to backfill data in a FactoryTalk Historian archive. Later in
this lab, when you configure a Universal File and Stream Loading (UFL) interface, you will specify this file as the
source of the data. However, we will also need a reference file to show how the data to be backfilled is
formatted. We could use the same file, but a reference file is limited to 50KB in size, so we will use a different
file instead.
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11. Note that this file has only one line in it, and the formatting of the line matches the lines in the Data to
Backfill.csv file. This Backfill File Reference.csv file will be used when configuring an INI file needed for the
UFL interface (you will see all of this as you continue with the lab).
Close both csv files and DO NOT save any changes if asked.
14. The first thing we will do is look to see if there is already data in the Historian archives for this tag within the
timeframe of the data in the CSV file (May 1 31, 2012). There shouldnt be, because you just created that tag!
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Click Search.
Select the tag that has OvenUDT as part of its name and ends in TempZone1.
Click OK.
16. You should now be seeing that last two hours of archived data for this tag, as the default Start Time is *-2h (two
hours ago) and End time is * (now).
Note that in the below example, 173 records were retrieved from within this time period. In your case, depending on
how long ago you added the tag and the FTLD Interface started collecting data for that tag, you are not likely to have
exactly 173 records but probably somewhere between 20 and 200 values. Your Pt Created value and timestamp
should be just from a few minutes ago.
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18. If we are going to backfill data from the CSV file, which contains values and timestamps from May 1 31, 2012,
we need to make sure one or more archives exist that will be able to hold such data. Go to Operation >
Archives. The list of your archive(s) should be similar to the below (date in the file name(s) will likely differ).
You could have more than one archive file (only one shown below), but if you look at the Start and End Time(s),
you currently do not have an archive able to contain data from May of 2012.
19. Since the required archive does not exist, lets create it. Do these steps in this order:
Click the Create a new archive button (dialog shown below will then appear).
Give it a name of BackfilledArchive (nothing special about this name, could be any name you like).
Enter Start time of 5/1/2012 12:00:00 AM (we could pick a date further in the past, like 1/1/2012 if we want to use this
archive for even older data, but for the purpose of this lab we will make it start at 5/1/2012).
Enter End time of 12/31/2012 11:59:59 PM (this archive can now contain data up to the end of 2012 in case we want
to backfill additional data later).
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20. You should see your archive was created to contain data within the timeframe specified. Also, note the
successfully created message.
21. Now we will create two Trusts for the FactoryTalk Historian Server to allow the UFL interface to interact with the
Server/Archives.
Click the Trusts tab (note that you currently may have more than the three trusts shown below)
Click Advanced.
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Enter Trust Name of PI_UFL (could actually name whatever you want).
Enter Application Name of PI_UFL.exe (this is the PI-SDK Application for this interface).
24. You would normally use a different existing Identity, Group or PI User with more restrictive privileges, or even
create a special one for this interface to use (see documentation), but for the purpose of this lab, do the
following:
Select piadmin.
Click OK.
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25. Your dialog should now look like this. Click OK.
27. Repeat previous steps to create another trust named PI_UE (could be whatever you want), trusting application
PI_UE (this is the PI-API Application for this interface does not have .exe extension) and PI Identity of piadmin.
PI Identity of piadmin.
Click OK.
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28. You should now have these two Trusts in your Historian Server.
3. Click Browse
4. Go to C:\Program Files (x86) > Rockwell Software > FactoryTalk Historian > PIPC > Interfaces > PI_UFL.
Select PI_UFL.exe.
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Click Add.
You will see a message that the interface is ready to be configured (not shown below) click OK on that message).
6. Click UFL tab and browse button for the Configuration File.
7. You are identifying an INI file that the UFL interface will use to store its configuration. If you had an existing one
you wanted to use, you could select it. We do not, so are going to create a new file and configure it in the next
several steps.
Click Open.
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8. Click the Launch UFLDesigner.exe button to step through configuration of our INI file.
Leave default Plug-in of AsciiFiles.dll selected. This is because we are going to backfill from an ASCII (CSV) text file.
Use browse button and select the reference file of C:\Class Files\Backfill Lab\Backfill File Reference.csv.
Remember from earlier in this lab, this file contains one line of text that matches the formatting in the data file we will
use to backfill from and will be used as a reference as we continue with this configuration.
Click OK.
11. You will see three panes in this editor. Configurations are done in the left-pane, the center-pane displays our
reference file contents, and the right-pane shows the actual INI file contents as it is being created.
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12. In the configuration pane, notice we are on tab 1 General and the Input File Mask is defaulting to the same
Backfill File Reference.csv file that we picked in a previous step. This would be OK if our actual data to import
is the same file we used for a reference. However, reference files have a 50KB maximum size and our file of
data for backfilling is much larger than that, so in the next step we will have to pick the actual data file.
13. Click in the Input File Mask field so that the browse button will appear. Click the browse button.
Click Save.
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16. The top of your configuration pane should now have the Data to Backfill.csv file specified for Input File Mask.
17. This tab is used to define the variables or parts to be extracted from the csv file. Click the green + button to
add the first variable.
18. You will identify the first variable in the data file, which in our case is the tagname.
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For the Date Format, use drop-down list to pick the following. Needs to be EXACT and it is Case Sensitive!!
MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss
When done with above, click blue right-arrow to go to tab 3 Message Types.
21. Click the green + sign to add a Message Type. Leave this configuration as it is. It basically is indicating that
any first character in a line is the beginning of the data for that row. C1==* is interpreted as the first
character in a row (Character 1 or C1) can be anything (wildcard of *) to indicate the start of data for that row.
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23. This tab is used to assign data extraction to specific variables. Click the green + button.
24. The data in our CSV file is delimited, so select Delimited and Next.
25. The data in our CSV file is delimited with commas, so check Comma. Notice in the Data preview window you
can see the data is properly delimited (you can tell by the black vertical lines), separated by the commas
between Tagname, Timestamp and Value.
Click Next.
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One at a time, drag the Tagname, Timestamp and Value variables to the appropriate columns in the Data preview.
When the three variables are in the proper columns as shown below (review carefully!), click Finish.
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29. Read the blue text. Leave the StoreInPI option selected. Similar to the previous steps, drag the three variables
to the appropriate place in the Result field (you will be dragging and dropping on top of).
Tagname to <*Tag>
Timestamp to <*Time>
Value to <*Value>
30. After above step, the Result field should appear as follows:
33. Click the Save icon and then select File > Exit to close the UFLDesigner.
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Specify a 30 second scan class by entering 00:00:30 (in a real application this may differ).
Go to Service tab.
Click Apply.
36. In a few seconds you should see Ready and Running in the lower left-hand corner.
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37. Restore the File Explorer you minimized earlier. When all 4000+ values and timestamps are finished being
transferred to the FactoryTalk Historian Server, the current date, time and a ._OK extension will be appended to
the name of the source data file.
With 5/1/2012 and * as Start and End times, you should now be able to see all of the data youve backfilled into
the Historian archives. We originally had 20-200 or so events for this tag within this time frame. Now, you
should be seeing 4000-5000 eventsthe 4000+ you backfilled, plus the more current values that Historian has
been collecting. Congratulations!!
39. Scroll through and briefly review the data collected from May 1, 2012 to May 31, 2012, now in the Historian
archive. You will have a large gap from May 31, 2012 to whatever the current date is (the date you are doing
this lab), but youve successfully backfilled data into a Historian archive.
40. On the ICU, stop the UFL interface.
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3. In the Model, navigate to System > Sources > FactoryTalk > localhost > Historians > Production Historian
and click on Tags.
Double-click on or drag and drop this tag to the plot surface:
RA Foods:RSLE:BL1.Program:Proof_Oven.SimpleTempZone1
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4. The default relative time period your trend should have used is Last 5 minutes. Change the relative time period
used for the trend to a longer period of time, like Last 30 minutes, Last 1 hour or Last 6 hours until you see
where new, changing data started to be collected, such as the following:
6. Go to Operation > Archives. Based on what other labs you might have done before this one, you could have
either one or two archive files The one that currently has Primary in the Status column should be the default
archive created when this FactoryTalk Historian SE server was installed, using these defaults:
File name including name of server, date and time of midnight - SERVER_2015-03-02_00-00-00
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7. Scroll to the right and notice other information about this archive, such as:
End Time is Current Time, also indicating this is the current archive
Go to Archive tab
9. Note the path in the Value field. This patch indicates where new archive files will automatically be created when
an Archive Shift occurs and is also identifying a prefix that will be used on the file name, piarch_. This path and
prefix could be modified as desired by the user, but for the purpose of this lab please do not make any changes.
Click Cancel.
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10. Go back to Operation > Archives and click the Force an archive shift button.
Note: It is not recommended to force an archive shift while in production. Archive shifts should be
done automatically by Historian when a current archive is almost full. We are forcing it here for
training purposes.
12. After several seconds, you should see results similar to the following:
The original archive file with SERVER in its name is now identified as Status of Has Data (so you know it is not current
or Primary)
The new file was created in the location and with the prefix of piarch_ as identified in the
Archive_AutoArchiveFileRoot setting you looked at earlier, and is currently Primary
In addition to the prefix of piarch_, the file name contains the date/time and extension of .arc
You should see two entries in the Session Record such as in the below
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14. Go back to the VantagePoint trend and click Refresh. You should see the trend update and shift to the left a bit
(to reflect the data collected since you last updated the trend). But, there is no loss of data or anything like that
due to the data used to display the trend coming from different archive files. No issues with Historian spanning
multiple archives to get data!
15. Now, lets go through a process that a customer might do to remove archives that are no longer needed.
Rather than deleting them, which would lose that data forever, a process to unregister the archives is what they
should do. This would let them move the archives off of the local drive, but the data would still be there so you
could get it back again in case the data is needed sometime in the future. Go back to the SMT and do the
following:
Click on the archive with old data (the one that is NOT Primary)
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18. The archive seems to be gone, doesnt it? Dont get nervousat least in this case, the SMT is just not
showing the archive file as it has been unregistered.
19. Go to VantagePoint trend and click Refresh. Now you might be a little more nervous that your old data is
gone, but dont worry. At the moment, since you have unregistered the archive in Historian, FactoryTalk
Historian is simply not getting the data. Exactly what you told it to do (not get the data) by unregistering it.
21. Go to C:\Program Files\Rockwell Software\FactoryTalk Historian\Server\dat. Scroll down to the bottom and
here you should see the actual arc file that you have unregistered, along with its partner file ending with an
.ann extension. This file would store any annotations related to the data in the arc file.
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23. Lets copy these files to a new location, to simulate maybe moving the old archive to a storage drive for
safekeeping.
24. Go to C:\Class Files, right-click in the blank area and select Paste.
27. Go to C:\Class Files, select the .arc file and click Open.
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28. You should see the file appear and a couple of registration messages in the Session Record.
29. Go back to VantagePoint Trend and click Refresh. All of the data should be displayed again. WOW, that was
easy!!
30. Close SMT, VantagePoint Trend (no need to save trend) and File Explorer if still open.
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1.
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Base Equipment
Base.Extruder.Sample.Extruder
Create
7. At this point youve created an instance of the Extruder type in your VantagePoint Model. Enter name of
MyExtruder1.
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8. As you can see, this sample Extruder type has 8 different properties defined. VantagePoint is able to connect to
a wide variety of data sources, including FactoryTalk Metrics, FactoryTalk EnergyMetrics, FactoryTalk Live Data
(such as direct from ControlLogix controllers), Microsoft SQL Databases as well as FactoryTalk Historian SE or
ME. For the sake of this lab, we will define a couple of the properties as getting their values from existing tags in
FactoryTalk Historian SE.
9. A dialog will appear to let you map tags in VantagePoint to the properties of this Extruder. Do these steps in this
order:
Navigate to System > Sources > FactoryTalk > localhost > Historians > Production Historian and click on Tags
Drag and drop the SimpleTempZone1 tag to the Hydraulic Pressure property
Drag and drop the SimpleMachineStep tag to the Reservoir Level property
When you are sure correct tags are dropped in the correct properties, click Create
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10. You should now see that the MyExtruder1 instance has these two properties defined. The others are greyed
out as they are undefined.
2. In this install of Google Chrome, a Window Resizer app has been installed from the Google Store. Click the
Window Resizer and select iPad size.
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4. This is the FactoryTalk VantagePoint Mobile Site Home page. Click Favorites.
5. At this time you will see that No favorites exist. Click the Back arrow.
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7. Click MyEnterprise.
9. Click MyExtruder1. This is the instance of the Extruder type that you created earlier and then mapped two tags
from FactoryTalk Historian to Hydraulic Pressure and Reservoir Level properties.
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10. You will see No displays found. None have been created yet. Click the Add button (plus sign) at the bottom
to add a new display.
11. Click the Widgets tab, and then click and drag two Gauges, one at a time, to the display surface. You may
have to click and hold the Gauge object for a few seconds to activate it in order to drag and drop it.
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12. Click on the Settings icon in the upper-right corner and click Properties.
13. With Gauge 1 selected on the left, click the model browser button on the right.
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Enter Minimum of 0
Enter Maximum of 5
Click OK
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Click OK checkmark
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20. Lets add a little more to your display. Click the Settings icon and select Split Horizontally.
21. Click, hold and drag-drop a Trend Widget to the new part of the display.
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Click, hold, drag and drop Hydraulic Pressure and Reservoir Level (one at a time) to the trend
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25. Congratulations! You have an awesome mobile display as it would be viewed on your iPad. You can click the
down-arrow icon just above the trend on the far right to either Refresh or click Properties and change the time
period or even change the trend to Live Mode and refresh at some specified rate. Feel free to experiment!
1. Open a new instance of Google Chrome by right-clicking on the Google Chrome icon in the taskbar and
selecting New window.
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2. Use the Window Resizer button to size this instance like an old iPhone or small Android device.
4. This is how the VantagePoint Mobile Site looks on an old iPhone or small Android device. Click Favorites.
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6. Enjoy your display on this smaller mobile device! Due to the smaller size, you will have to scroll up and down to
see everything.
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Notes
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