TopView® version 7.0.1 Release

January 3, 2023

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

TopView Applications are now 64-bit only

Previous versions of TopView allowed some TopView applications to run as 64-bit applications if the hosting Windows OS was 64-bit. The TopView Engine and desktop Configurator always ran as 32-bit applications due to some legacy features that were not supported in 64-bit applications and to allow customer to install and use TopView on a 32-bit Windows OS.

In this release all TopView applications run as 64-bit applications on 64-bit Windows OS

TopView can no longer be installed on a 32-bit Windows OS
The TopView Engine, Configurator, and Web Configurator are now 64-bit applications
Some 32-bit Configurator tasks are now provided by separate 32-bit hosting applications. The user experience is the same as it was in previous versions.
Features no longer available in this release:
- Voice Notification using TAPI
- Modem/Pager Notification using the TAP protocol and data modems

Support for Microsoft Teams added

Microsoft Teams is a collaboration application that supports sending and receiving messages. TopView can now send and receive notification messages to Teams users.

Support for Microsoft Teams is now included within TopView’s “Email-SMS Notification” feature. Teams is classified as a supported method for “Messaging” and can be added in addition to existing SMS methods (e.g., cellular modem SMS)

Outgoing messages are posted to Webhooks created within Teams and require that the TopView machine can access the Webhook URL
Incoming messages for alarm acknowledge are supported by a new TopView Message Receiver Server running on the TopView machine
- If Reply-to-Acknowledge is enabled, outgoing alarm notification messages will contain an Acknowledge button within the received Teams message
- Clicking the Acknowledge button will post an acknowledge message to the TopView Message Receiver
- Incoming “Information Request” (IRQ) messages are not supported

A separate Microsoft Teams configuration document is installed and available through the help menu of the TopView Configurator and the Teams Messaging settings screen (Incoming Messaging, Outgoing Messaging)

Incoming VOIP phone calls (Voice Dial-in)

Voice Dial-in allows users to call into TopView to hear and acknowledge alarms. Voice Dial-in requires a VOIP extension to listen for and to accept an incoming call.
A similar feature called “Remote Dial-in” was previously available for TAPI devices. Voice Dial-in is a replacement of this feature using VOIP instead of TAPI (TAPI is no longer supported)

Schedules – Rotating days/weeks

Schedules define active days of the week, hours per day, and date ranges. Schedules are commonly assigned to notification recipients to define their active work schedule for receiving alarm notification.

Each Schedule can now define a rotating active/inactive period. Rotations can be used to support work schedules of X days on, Y days off. The other Schedule details (days of the week, hours per day, date ranges) are only applied to the active rotation periods.

Web Configurator User Authentication: support for Windows Authentication

Previous versions of the Web Configurator allow local user accounts (user/password login) to assign permissions to Web Configurator users.

Windows Authentication provides the same permissions but allows these permissions to be assigned to Windows users and Windows groups. A user of the Web Configurator will not need to log in but instead will be assigned the designated permissions. Note that both the browser and machine must support browser-based Windows Authentication.

Notification: Support for WhatsApp Messenger (Experimental)

WhatsApp is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform centralized instant messaging service owned my Meta/Facebook.

Experimental support for WhatsApp is now included within TopView’s “Email-SMS Notification” feature as a method of SMS. This is not a supported feature but is available to users who would like to test WhatsApp with TopView.

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