TopView® version 7.5.1 Release

TopView® version 7.5.1 Release

July 14, 2025

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

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

Contact Notification Reports: New Feature

Contact Notification Reports allow you to see how Contacts are notified across one or more TopView configurations.

For a TopView configuration, the report will include

  • For each Contact, the Tag Group and Alarm tag notifications assigned to the Contact
  • For each notification assigned to the Contact:
    • The Notification Group name
    • For Tag Group notifications, the name of the Tag Group
    • For Alarm tag notifications, the name of the tag
    • How the Notification Group is assigned in the Tag Group or Tag (e.g. TagGroup_Notification, TagGroup_EscalationTemplate)
    • For Escalation Template notification, the name of the Template
    • How the Contact was specified (e.g. \John\emailWork) and resolved (e.g. john@mycompany.com)

The report is presented in two views (Tree and Table) with the ability to export the table report to a CSV file.

OPC UA Alias Groups

TopView’s OPC UA Alias Groups allow specification of a primary OPC UA server alias and secondary OPC UA server alias acting as a redundant source of data for TopView. If connection to the primary OPC UA server goes down, TopView will connect to a secondary OPC UA server in order to monitor alarms and values.

  • This is a form of “non-transparent redundancy” (UA Part 4: Services – 6.6 Redundancy) in that TopView, as the client, monitors the health of servers within the group. When a breakage in service occurs, TopView will transition over to another healthy server.
  • The redundant servers must have a consistent address space, browse paths, and node IDs (based upon UA Part 4: Services – 6.6.2.2 Redundant Server Set Requirements).

Note: UA Alias Groups are configured in TopView and not derived from the Server Array in the server’s address space.

Notifications Summary Logs: New feature

Notification Summary Logs contain a summary of all notification messages sent by each TopView Engine. Although information about sent notifications is available in various existing logs, TopView did not have a simple summary report of all sent notifications.

  • Notifications Summary Logs are used by the TopView Engine to store a summary of each notification sent including the time completed, recipient, success, reason sent, delivery method, alarm tag (if sent for an alarm), and the name of the detailed notification log file.
  • In addition to alarm-related notifications, the log will also include information for any item sent by a TopView Engine through Email, SMS, Messaging, or Voice calls including Health emails, emailed Snapshot Reports, emailed Alarm Reports, and alarm acknowledge confirmations.
  • TopView Admin Tools allows users to view the Notification Summary Log. The log can be filtered and exported to CSV. For a selected notification event, the user can jump to the Alarm Actions log for an alarm event and open/view the detailed notification log.

TopView Web Configurator

New features:

  • User accounts now have the option to add 2-Factor authentication in the form of a one-time password. 2FA may be configured in the account settings.
  • Engine Health Warnings are now displayed in the Configuration index and on each configuration option page
  • Tags can now be downloaded and uploaded (Exported/Imported) as a CSV file. These files are compatible with the desktop Configurator
  • An inactivity limit can now be applied to web configurator users

SQL Server: support for Azure SQL

TopView supports the optional use of SQL Server for storing alarm history, audit log, and Snapshot Outputs

In previous versions of TopView, on-prem SQL Server installations were supported.
TopView now supports Azure SQL by allowing the user to configure a custom connection string.

SCADA Sync

New features:

  • System Platform: new option to link TopView’s alarm inhibit tag to the System Platform alarm shelved tag
  • iFIX: new option to link TopView’s alarm inhibit tag to the iFIX alarm inhibit tag
  • Default Server Alias name per SCADA is now configurable
  • Convert to tag extensions: Expanded support for converting imported tags using the tag name extension: limit tag, alarm inhibit tag, priority tag

Alternate Word Replacement (Alarm messages, Text-to-speech/TTS)

Word Replacement instructs TopView to replace words in alarm messages/spoken messages with other words. Example: replace ALM with Alarm.

Word Replacement is a new global setting for replacing words with alternate words to improve the display of alarm messages and the quality of TTS conversions.

Accessing Word Replacement settings in the TopView Configurator:

  • Global Options > General
  • Audible alarms
  • Custom alarm message dialog
  • Voice notification settings
  • Voice dial-in settings

Engine Startup Delay: Verify another process is running first

Some TopView installations need to delay the Engine startup until another process is running (e.g. the data server process)

  • In previous versions of TopView, the only startup delay setting was a time-based delay. While this setting normally worked, the delay occurred for every Engine startup even if the delay was not required.
  • A new configuration option (Configurator > Configuration Settings > General) will prevent the Engine from connecting to the server and completing startup until another process has been running for a configurable period of time.
    • If the other process is not running, the Engine will wait until it is running for the configured period of time.
    • If the other process has already been running for the configured period of time, the Engine will continue startup without a delay.

License improvements for TopView redundancy (shared DataPath)

One option for TopView redundancy is to share the configuration information (DataPath) between the primary and failover machines using a shared network path. Since each machine has a separate TopView license file, redundancy configuration required the user to perform steps to repoint the location of the license settings file on each machine.

TopView now supports a single license file for the primary and failover machines, simplifying the configuration steps for TopView redundancy licensing. The license file can be placed on the shared path and used by both the primary and failover machines.

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