FTView SE PLC to trigger a script

[robertmee]

Man I hear you.

No native numeric entry popup that is even remotely functional.
No ability to filter Alarms by date in Factory Talk Alarm and Events.
No abiility to group alarms in seperate folders in Factory Talk Alarm and Events.
Making a functional Server with multiple clients requires a ridiculous amount workarounds.

Getting domain based security to work means hours of screwing around to get things to behave like you wish based on login credentials.

Only good thing is I have gotten good enough at working around the limitations that I will probably have work for the next decade.

That's a good starting list...Add to it;

No Disable feature on a PB (For this reason I use MSComm Pushbuttons)
No Native Historical Log Viewer...you have to launch the standalone viewer and make registry hacks so it appears in the foreground
Offline/Online Tag Folders ALWAYS need refreshing
Alarm Server routinely stops
Application Manager is a joke - So much so, that a separate utility to stop FT Services was created to 'assist' managing applications
Runtime Client creator often can't find apps...I have to type them in manually
No Recipe Manager like RSView32 had...Recipe for SE is a joke
No means to set poll times other than via Display Settings when using Linx Enterprise
Re-emphasize the Client/Server Architecture makes event handling near impossible...Give us a Client Event handler already

 

[Shawn Tierney]

I may be the odd man out here, but I do enjoy working with ViewSE and have several large plants that have deployed it very successfully.

However, I do wish Rockwell would add more people to the development team so all the features you all have mentioned (none of which are new requests) could be added / addressed.

Quite honestly, I'm sick and tired of the "minimalistic" employment strategies big business seemed to adopt 10 years ago - they seem totally blind to how it's negatively effecting business / manufacturing now and for years to come (imho.)

 

[rdrast]

Sucks that I have to jump through so many hoops to do things I can do natively with Indusoft.

Lack of client dedicated variables is another PIA.

Which leads to yet another problem in the SPOE* that is FTView SE... Your trigger will run on any client attached, even if not appropriate. For my database logging and reporting applications, I set a flag in the VBA for my hidden, always updating window with my trigger bits on it to make sure that my logging programs only run on a single client.

I do it by computer name, but I guess you could use the "Put a file somewhere and look to see if it exists" method.

On another note, that is the way I handle hiding certain things from certain displays; I use a visibility animation based on "FileExist ("Client1.txt")" or whatever.

*SPOE - Steaming Pile of Excrement

 

[Gaz_c]

any chance you could send me this code as i want the same functionality

 

[Gaz_c]

Thanks

My workaround is create a hidden display that is alway open but behind everything.
Put a numeric display tied to the trigger bit and place the commands in the numericdisplay???.change vba code.

Private Sub NumericDisplay1_Change()
If NumericDisplay1.Value = 1 Then
Application.ExecuteCommand ("display popup")

Else
Application.ExecuteCommand ("Abort popup")

End If

End Sub

After many work arounds and pulling out my hair this SCADA project is nearly complete, thanks for this VBA code of which, its a language that is very useful and I've come to the conclusion i need to learn.

The only thing left to complete this project is extracting data from SQL Express into a CSV file. Rockwell tell me transaction manager is the product to do this. The current set up is executing a BCP command in a batch file via VB code written in SCADA, this is ok but it gives out TagTable, FloatTable, StringTable. Now i have to write VB code to sort this data in to a workable file i.e. tag name next to the correct values. To add more to the mix the customer wishes to log these 'float values' every 5 seconds and add a 'LOT' number to each CSV file name, its giving me nightmares.

Any advice would be great

 

[rdrast]

Two things, SQL Express is a database. Just about ANYTHING can access a database today. I would avoid piling on any more Rockwell Garbage just to access it. You might be able to get away with some simple queries directly from Excel, or almost any other software out there to read tags in from the DB in whatever format you desire.

Secondly, the VBA that FTView uses is itself about, oh, 6 or 7 years out of date and completely unsupported by Microsoft (or anyone else for that matter).. I'd think twice about investing too much time in learning that version of VBA.

After many work arounds and pulling out my hair this SCADA project is nearly complete, thanks for this VBA code of which, its a language that is very useful and I've come to the conclusion i need to learn. ...

 

[Gaz_c]

Thanks for the heads up,

Databases are not my thing and Rockwell are telling me to use Transaction manager now to get the PLC data into a format that our customer wants, i'm now finding issues with this P.O.S, every corner i turn with this leads me down a long dark path. I think a SQL database engineer might be the correct way to go with this project

Two things, SQL Express is a database. Just about ANYTHING can access a database today. I would avoid piling on any more Rockwell Garbage just to access it. You might be able to get away with some simple queries directly from Excel, or almost any other software out there to read tags in from the DB in whatever format you desire.

Secondly, the VBA that FTView uses is itself about, oh, 6 or 7 years out of date and completely unsupported by Microsoft (or anyone else for that matter).. I'd think twice about investing too much time in learning that version of VBA.

 

[baldone]

Thanks for the heads up,

Databases are not my thing and Rockwell are telling me to use Transaction manager now to get the PLC data into a format that our customer wants, i'm now finding issues with this P.O.S, every corner i turn with this leads me down a long dark path. I think a SQL database engineer might be the correct way to go with this project

You have barely even scrathed the surface of fun things you will find when you dig deeper.
Try filtering by date and printing records from the Factorytalk Alarms and Events History.

You can filter days only if you write the VBA code but you can not print other than doing screen dumps. So if you need multiple pages you have scroll down and do another screen dump.

Yes you can write VBA code to do SQL querys and probably get it into a listview control but for the high pricetag SE has why should you have to when basically everyone else includes these functions.

If you want the abilities that 99% of the other HMIs have natively you have to buy VantagePoint which is about $8K.

There is no ability to create seperate folders for alarms in the FTAE alarm editor so if you have a large number of alarms they all have to be in one long list.

FTAE is one of the biggest pieces of **** to come out of Rockwell in a long time.

Love AB PLCs but hate their HMIs.