Linking is an I/O device specific operation. When you add an I/O device to Citect SCADA, you can choose to link it to an external data source (see Link an I/O Device to an External Data Source).
The external data source is where the tag data was saved when the actual I/O device was programmed. If you link to the external data source, Citect SCADA automatically creates variable tag records for every tag in the I/O device.
These variable tag records are dynamically linked to the tags in the external data source. Citect SCADA can update whenever one of the external tags is changed.
For example, if you change the address of a tag using a third party I/O device programming package, the external data source is changed. Then, when you compile your project in Citect SCADA, the change is copied from the external database to Citect SCADA's variable tags database.
If a tag is linked and you change a field, your change will not be overwritten when the link is next refreshed. Generally, however, any field which takes its value from the external data source is disabled.
Note: Some properties defined for the external tags will not be relevant to Citect SCADA. Also, some will not be in a format that Citect SCADA can read. Each I/O device has an associated format file in Citect SCADA. It is this file that determines what information is copied to Citect SCADA's variable tags database and how this information is to be converted. In most cases, you will not have to edit this file.
Linked Unity Tags
Note the following for Citect SCADA tags linked to Unity tags:
See Unity Support Matrixes for information about levels of support between Unity and Citect SCADA.
See Also
Published June 2018