Accessing Citect SCADA Trend Data Offline

[John Gaunt]

I have many sites using Citect SCADA version 5.5
They now have a management requirement to store process data offline. They will now copy the folder of trend files on a monthly basis to a USB hard disk for storage and offline inspection using an office PC.
Does anybody know of a nice way to access the trend files. I would prefer to not need to install Citect SCADA on the office PC.

 

[John Gaunt]

Surely sombody uses the trend data offline?

 

[davidheath]

Offline trends

With V5.5, I think your only (easy) choice is to export the trend data directly out of the trend pages.

Alternately, you can upgrade to V6 or higher and make use of the Process Analyst which can export directly to .XLS format.

Your other option (depending on how many trend tags you have) is to consider Historian v4.2 which stores historical data in a SQL database.

The trend tag files are a relatively simple format, so you might also be able to write some dissection software that can tear them apart.

Hope that helps...

David.

 

[zankorel]

citect trending is horrible when you try to get the data out of citect.

Assuming that you do not want to buy Historian, your best bet is either

1. do a daily export to a DBF file of each trend you want to archive. use trnexportDBF or CSV
2. do a frequent export to a SQL server. If you do this, you will want to consider using the TableMath function to get an average over a time period, the database will get too big otherwise.

 

[Dua Anjing]

citect trending is horrible when you try to get the data out of citect.

Assuming that you do not want to buy Historian, your best bet is either

1. do a daily export to a DBF file of each trend you want to archive. use trnexportDBF or CSV
2. do a frequent export to a SQL server. If you do this, you will want to consider using the TableMath function to get an average over a time period, the database will get too big otherwise.

That's how I've done it in the past, create an event (or report) that exports required trend data as either dbf or csv.

 

[John Gaunt]

Thanks for the responses.
I include trend statistics in my shift reports extracted from the trend data. Such as MIN MAX Average for the shift for all control loop process variables. The customer thinks they need the actual trends.
For the time being they seem happy to store each month the trend files even though they have no convenient means to access them.
Perhaps eventually they will need to have Citect installed on another PC to access the data as trends.

I was hoping there would be a nice simple option.

 

[zankorel]

I was hoping there would be a nice simple option.

Unfortunately, the commercial reality is that they have ignored trending in citectSCADA for years so that they can sell Historian as a premium product.

Perhaps eventually they will need to have Citect installed on another PC to access the data as trends.

Dont even count on that. i have never had success in actually viewing archived trends in citect.

 

[John Gaunt]

Thanks zankorel
I think I viewed offline archived trends a long time ago. I am pretty sure it was necessary to set the offline PC date to the date the trend data was backed up from the online Citect PC.
My customer is in India so it is not so easy to do anything complicated without visiting their plant.

 

[BobB]

Viewing historical/backed up data is not really that difficult. Just attach thr backed up files and go back to the date to view them.
You do need to have Citect installed to do it though.
For backups I normally use the backup function that is built in - it works very well. First of the month a pop up appears reminding the operator to put a CD in the drive - click and away it goes.
The first time I used this function was to the old optical disks - they were expensive and not all that reliable.

 

[John Gaunt]

Thanks Bob.
I assume you mean to change the PC date in the offline PC as I found I had to do in the past.
I will suggest they find an outdated PC and load it with Citect and just keep that PC for offline viewing of their backup trend files.

 

[BobB]

Yes John - it is the only way I know.

 

[tragically1969]

If you look on the Citect website under mycitect and then the toolbox there is some pretty neat 3rd party applications for looking at the trend files, i have played with a few and they work well

You will need a support agreement in place to get into that area though