Add Pens

The Process Analyst allows operators to search the trend tags and alarm tags that are defined on a Citect SCADA trends or alarms server, or the time-series items and attributes published on a Historian Web Server. You can use the search results to add pens to the current trend display.

You use the Add New Pens dialog box to add a new pen to your trend display. To display the Add Pens dialog box, click Add Pens on the main toolbar.

To identify the item you would like a pen represent, you need to initially define a search to determine what is available. You can then select a particular item from the search results.

1. Select the Connection you would like to search. The drop-down menu to the right of the field provides a list of the current server connections, including both Historian and SCADA servers.

If you would like to add a new connection to the list, see Configuring Connection Properties.

2. You can then search the available data on the specified server. This process is different for a SCADA server, and a Historian server.

To search a SCADA server:

1. Select the Type of data you want to search for. The options are Alarms orTrends.
2. Type in a Tag, Cluster or Comment filter to help refine the search results. Be aware that if the type selected is Alarm, the Comment filter will not be available.

The filters have basic wildcard and Boolean search functionality. You can use the keywords AND, OR and NOT with wildcard strings, as well as group Boolean terms using parentheses. Searches are not case sensitive.

For example, entering "L*" in the Tag Filter returns tags beginning with the letter "L" in every cluster. Entering "L* OR H*" will find tags beginning with "L" or "H". More complex examples include "L* OR (H* AND NOT *G). This would return tags that start with "L" or any that start with "H", but do not end in "G".

If you leave a field blank, each item of the selected type will be retrieved.

3. Click Search. The results are returned in the Search results list.

In the case of a SCADA connection, the results are not sorted: the tags appear in the order they were configured in Citect SCADA. The cluster associated with each tag is also displayed. The Process Analyst displays only the tags in clusters that this client has access to. In a system with more than one cluster, if a tag is not configured with a cluster, it is listed once for each cluster.

To search a Historian server:

1. Select the Type of data you want to search for. The options are alarms or trends.
2. Type in a Tag filter to help refine the search results. In the case of a Historian Server, the filter allows you to apply a basic wildcard search against the full path for each attribute, as defined by its location within the Published Items directory.

The following example shows how wildcards can be used to search a path and attribute name.



If you leave the field blank, published attributes of the selected type will be retrieved.

3. When you click Search, the results are returned in the Search results as a list of attributes. Their properties are displayed, and their location within the Published Items directory is defined as a path.
3. The Search Result list displays up to 100 entries at a time. If your search returns more than 100 results, use the First, Prev, Next, and Last buttons to navigate your search results.
4. Select one or more items from the Search Results list. You can use the Ctrl and/or Shift keys to select multiple tags.
5. Select the destination pens to Add Add pens to. Pens can be added to any existing pane, or to a new pane.
6. Select a Pen Type. A trend tag can be represented by an analog or digital pen. An alarm tag can be represented by an alarm pen only.
7. Select how to resolve the pen name:
• Comment- applies the tag comment as the pen name. If the tag does not have a comment specified, a name is automatically generated.
• Tag- applies the tag name as the pen name.
• Auto-applies an automatically generated name to the pen using the format Pen<X> where X is an incremented number, starting with the first available number.
8. Click Add. This moves the selected items in the Search Results list into the Selected Items list. The Selected Items list contains the tags that will be added as pens to the Process Analyst. You can perform multiple searches to add tags into the Selected Items list.

Note: To remove a tag from the Selected Items list, highlight the item you want to move, and then click Remove.

9. To view details about a selected tag, click Show Detail. A Pen Details dialog box appears, showing defined information for the selected tag.
10. Click OK. Your selected tags appear on the trend display as pens.

See Also

Published June 2018