TopView® version 6.30 Release

May 2, 2018

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

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

Voice Notification changes and improvements

TopView Voice Notification (“Voice call-out”) delivers spoken alarm messages to one or more recipients.
This release includes the following changes and updates to Voice Notification:

VOIP: backup SIP Server
VOIP: Custom Codecs
Retry for failures after call started (option)
Updated default greeting WAV files
Multiple greeting access codes
Select WAV file played upon alarm acknowledge
Acknowledge All Alarms
Remove call from outgoing queue if alarm returns to normal (RTN)

Output Tag can be defined for each monitored tag/row

This release includes a new “output tag” property for every monitored tag/row. If configured for a tag/row, the TopView Engine will write the current row value to the output tag while the Engine is running.

For monitored items that are not tags in the underlying system, the user may want to write the current value of the item to a tag so that users or the other system have access to this item’s value.
Example: TopView is monitoring alarms in a SCADA System. TopView is also monitoring the TopView Status Tag that counts the number of email notifications sent and would like to write this value “number of email notifications sent ” to a tag on their SCADA system so it can displayed on the HMI.

Email/SMS/Voice Notification Groups: Delay setting enhanced

Global Email-SMS and Voice Notification Global Groups can be configured with a delay between each recipient in the group and an option to remove unsent notifications upon alarm acknowledge and/or return-to-normal. Example: make a voice call to each recipient at 5 minute intervals and remove any unsent messages if the alarm is acknowledged. This feature is often used instead of Escalation Templates for simple escalation configurations.

A few feature for the delay allows the user to specify an initial delay before the first recipient is notified. Example: make a voice call to the first recipient 2 minutes after the alarm and then to each additional recipient at 5 minute intervals and remove any unsent messages if the alarm is acknowledged.

Tag Group AND Gate

In TopView an AND Gate is used to enable state-based alarming – enabling or disabling alarms based on the state of the process, equipment, etc. Example: only alarm if the unit is running. In previous versions of TopView an AND Gate could be specified for each monitored tag. Although multiple tags may use the same AND Gate, the user was required to specify the AND Gate for each tag.

To simplify the configuration of a single AND Gate for multiple tags, an AND Gate can now be configured as part of a Tag Group and inherited by all tags belonging to the Tag Group.

SMS Notification with networked cellular modems: Engine ID and Information Request

TopView SMS Notification supports incoming SMS messages for alarm acknowledge and information request.

If networked cellular modems are used they can be shared by multiple TopView Engines. Therefore incoming messages must include an Engine ID to identify the target Engine for the message.
For networked cellular modems, previous versions supported incoming SMS messages for alarm acknowledge but not information request. For alarm acknowledge the outgoing message contained an acknowledge code and Engine ID which was required in the return SMS message to acknowledge the alarm. The Engine ID was determined by TopView and could change if the Engine was restarted.

This release allows the user to specify an SMS Engine ID for each configuration/Engine. If the user specifies an Engine ID they can also enable incoming SMS messages for Information Request.

New placeholders for custom messages

Previous row and tag value: %pvalue% and %ptagvalue%
TopView contains a %value% and %tagvalue% placeholder to return the current row value and current row tag value (usually equal unless logic function or operation applied to the row).
This release includes two new placeholders, %pvalue% and %ptagvalue%, that return the values of %value% and %tagvalue% during the previous refresh of the TopView Engine.
PIAF : %elementname% and %attname%
TopView for PIAF allows users to monitor PIAF attributes. This release includes two new placeholders for PIAF: %elementname% returns the element name of the current attribute%attname% returns the attribute name of the current attribute (the current attribute is the full path of the attribute)

Use placeholder as alarm limit value

Each alarm condition in TopView is defined through a limit condition (equal to, not equal to, less than, …) and value. The monitored value is compared to the alarm limit value using the condition.
In previous versions of TopView the alarm limit value could be fixed (e.g. 500) or the value of a tag (e.g. ‘tag.setpoint’).

TopView contains a list of placeholders typically used to embed dynamic information in messages. For example, %pvalue% returns the previous value of the current tag/row.
Alarm limit condition values can now be set to a placeholder values in addition to static values and tag values.

Alarm color: new options for persisting

Each tag/row in TopView has an associated alarm color. The color may be set for each alarm condition or controlled by alarm priority.

In previous versions the alarm color is only used when the alarm is active. A new global option allows the user to configure the use of alarm color for each tag/row:

While alarm is active (default and previous behavior)
While alarm is active or unacknowledged
Until the next alarm

The option for persisting alarm color will be used in the interactive TopView EngineTopView Admin tools, Overview screenthe Remote Viewer (desktop client)the Mobile Web AppSnapshot Reports

Acknowledge Input Tag: define multiple values

A TopView alarm can be acknowledged when the value of a tag from the data source (the Acknowledge Input Tag) has a specific value. In previous versions of TopView each Acknowledge Input Tag could define a single value as the acknowledge value.

This release allows the user to define multiple acknowledge values for each Acknowledge Input Tag

JSON output : Alarm Reports and Snapshot Output File

Alarm reports
Ad hoc and Scheduled Alarm Reports allow the user to summarize the alarm events that have occurred over a user-configured period of time.
Previous versions of TopView support 3 formats for the alarm report output: TXT (text), CSV, and HTML.
This release adds the JSON output file format to ad hoc and scheduled alarm reports.
Snapshot Output File
The Snapshot Output file contains the current state of monitored TopView tags.
Previous versions of TopView created a CSV/Text file as the output Snapshot file type.
This release allows the user to select CSV or JSON as the file type.

Configurator: monitored tag list columns

Various properties of each monitored tag are displayed in columns of the monitored tag list.
This release includes the following changes and updates to the monitored tag list columns:

Visible columns and maximum column width were previously available through the Options dropdown above the monitored list. These two items have been moved to a new Columns dropdown above the monitored list.
New column: Disabled
A new column named “Disabled” will display the following information based on the disabled setting of each tag/row:
- Blank = no disable setting
- X = disabled now and no expiration (no snooze/shelve time defined)
- XE = disabled now with an expiration time (currently snoozed/shelved)
- F = not disabled now but will be disabled in the Future (scheduled snooze/shelve start time)
New column: Notification
A new column named “Notification” will display the following information based on the notification settings of each tag/row:
- RowAlarm = alarm notification for an alarm limit of the tag/row
- RowAck = acknowledge notification for the tag/row
- RowRTN = return-to-normal notification for the tag/row
- RowESC = escalation (template) for the tag/row
- GroupAlarm = alarm notification for a Tag Group to which this tag/row belongs GroupACK = acknowledge notification for a Tag Group to which this tag/row belongs
- GroupRTN = return-to-normal notification for a Tag Group to which this tag/row belongs
- GroupESC = escalation (template) for a Tag Group to which this tag/row belongs
New column: AND Gate
A new column named “AND Gate” will display the following information based on the AND Gate settings of each tag/row
- Row = AND Gate specified for the tag/row
- Group(name) = AND Gate specified for Tag Group name to which this tag/row belongs

HTML Snapshot Report – choose columns

HTML Snapshot Reports are reports of the current tag values and/or alarms. The HTML report can be saved, emailed, and requested by email.

In previous versions the columns included on the report:

matched the columns configured for the TopView Engine
could not be sorted

In this release the user can create a custom column list and sort order for each HTML Snapshot Report.