TopView® version 6.36.1 Release

TopView® version 6.36.1 Release

September 2021

OPC/SCADA ● OPC A&E ● PI ● SQL Events ● SQL Lookup ● MQTT ● PerfMon

See the release notes for a full list of changes included in this version

Email and SMS: Secure Acknowledge

The default acknowledge code for incoming Email/SMS is ARQx where x is the row number of the alarm.

For each alarm, secure acknowledge will generate a random code of 4-8 characters and will append this code to the ARQx acknowledge code sent in the notification. To acknowledge the alarm, the full acknowledge code must be sent back to TopView.

If secure acknowledge is enabled, the user can set the length of the unique code from 4-8 characters. Each length will determine the number of possible codes that can be generated. The longer the length of the unique code, the more secure the unique code will be.

SCADA Connect: Preview of the SCADA Connect Tag Importer

In previous versions of TopView, SCADA Connect ran as a separate process and synced SCADA alarms to a TopView configuration file. After the sync completed the user could open the modified configuration file in the Configurator. The SCADA Connect Tag Importer preview allows the user to return SCADA tags directly to the current Configurator session and configuration file.

The Configurator’s Tags and Limits screen contains a new [SCADA Connect Tag Importer] button that allows the user to

  • Choose to import SCADA alarm tags to the current configuration or a new configuration
  • Select the SCADA System
  • Perform SCADA Connect’s “Install for HMI” step (performed once per SCADA)
  • Return a list of SCADA alarm tags to the SCADA Connect Tag Importer (HMI Sync)
  • Import all or some of the SCADA alarm tags into the TopView configuration

If any issues are encountered using the preview of the integrated SCADA Connect Tag Importer the user can still run SCADA Connect as a separate process.

Web Configurator

The Web Configurator can allow users to view and edit the TopView configuration file for each TopView Engine. In previous versions a user was given permission to view/edit all configurations. In this release the TopView administrator can set user edit/view access to individual configuration files.

Alarm reports: Filter by priority

Both Scheduled and ad-hoc alarm reports contain a set of filters to filter the alarm events included in the report. Each alarm event contains a priority property number (1-999) but priority was not an available filter for alarm reports in previous versions of TopView.

Priority filter is available in Scheduled Alarm Reports (Configurator) and Ad-hoc alarm reports (interactive Engine, Remote Viewer)

Emergency License

For purchased versions of TopView (non-demo, non-FREE) a [Generate Emergency license] button now appears on the license dialog. This button can be used to temporarily bypass specific license verifications if the TopView license is no longer valid. The most common reason that a license becomes invalid is a hardware failure of the TopView machine followed by restoration of TopView to a new machine.

Configurator: New multi-select options panel for selected tags

A new options panel will appear when the user selects multiple tags from the monitored tag list. This options panel contains some existing actions (available through a right-click menu) as well as some new options not previously available for multiple tags.

Multi-select tag panel options:

  • Remove/delete selected tags from the monitored list
  • Enable or disable alarms
  • Get current tag values
  • Tag Groups: clear primary, clear secondary, set primary/secondary to same

Engine Startup: Additional information now available in Remote Viewer, Configurator, and Admin Tools

The Startup state is usually temporary while the Engine connects to data servers and validates tags. Failed server connection or tag validation may prevent the Engine from proceeding from Startup to Running.

Remote Viewer:

  • Remote Viewer clients are now able to connect to Engines while they are in startup
  • If an Engine is in startup, the Remote Viewer will
    • Display an hourglass icon in the Engine tree for the Engines that are in startup
    • When a startup Engine is selected, Values View/Alarms View will display a message indicating that the Engine is in startup and will display the last error message logged by the Engine during the startup process. This “last error message” will inform the user about any validation issues that are occurring that may be preventing startup from completing.

Configurator and Admin Tools:

If the Engine is in the Startup state and one or more errors have been logged to the application log during Startup, the Configurator and Admin tools will display the most recent error and direct the user to the application log for additional messages. This information will be displayed on the Configurator’s Engine Status screen and at the top of Admin Tools under the selected Engine dropdown.

SQL Server Alarm Log: new column to record the TopView machine name

TopView can optionally use SQL Server to store alarm history.

If TopView failover/redundancy is configured, the primary and failover machine may both write alarm history to SQL Server (depending on which machine is active). In previous versions of TopView there was no record in the Alarms table as to which machine wrote the alarm record.

The Alarms table now contains a column named “Logger” that stores the TopView machine name that created the alarm record.

See the release notes for a full list of changes included in this version