TopView® version 6.34.1 Release

TopView® version 6.34.1 Release

June 22, 2020

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

Web Configurator updates

The TopView Web Configurator is a web-based TopView Configuration Tool providing many of the same configuration functions available in the desktop Configurator.

This release includes the following additional functionality:

  • Configuration files
    • Added ability to edit incoming/outgoing email and SMS settings
    • Added ability to modify VOIP callout settings
    • Users can now configure custom fields for monitored tags
  • Global Settings
    • Notification Message Templates can now be created, viewed, and modified
    • Escalation Templates can now be created, viewed, and modified
    • Support has been added for Contact Groups
  • Engine Monitoring
    The following features from TopView Admin Tools have been added to the web application:
    • Support has been added to view runtime engine logs (application logs, alarm logs, notification logs, etc.)
    • It is now possible to monitor the real-time updates from TopView engines running on the server machine.
    • Notification queues can now be cleared from the web. Using this feature requires the web user account to have the highest permission level

Alarm Actions: Viewable from the Engine and Remote Viewer

TopView 6.33 introduced Alarm Actions logs that record an individual alarm’s activity (active, return to normal, acknowledge) and related notifications and actions taken. Alarm Actions were only visible from TopView Admin Tools.

The ability to view Alarm Actions for an alarm is now part of the interactive Engine (non-Service) and Remote Viewer. The toolbars of these applications include a [View selected alarm actions…] button which will display a pop-up window of the detailed alarm actions.

Alarm History Summary: new grouping options

The record for each TopView alarm event includes the details of the event including the tag name, row number (1..n), and optional RowUID. The alarm summary within TopView alarm reports and alarm analytics includes “per-tag” alarm information such as number of alarms and average duration. In previous versions, the “per-tag” information was always gathered for each unique “tag name + row number”. This presented a challenge if the user wanted to make configuration changes that affected existing tag row numbers yet wanted to preserve alarm summary information for a tag over the entire alarm history.

TopView alarm history queries now include an “alarm summary grouping” option that allows the user to choose the method for collecting and summarizing per-tag alarm information.
The available options for alarm summary grouping are:

  • Row number + tag name (default, method used in previous versions)
  • Row number
  • RowUID
  • Tag name
  • Tag name or RowUID (use RowUID if it exists, otherwise use tag name)

A default grouping method can now be set. Implementation of the grouping option is included in

  • Ad-hoc Alarm Reports and Alarm Analytics (interactive TopView Engine and Remote Viewer)
  • Schedule Alarm Reports
  • Ad-hoc alarm reports: Configurator and Admin Tools
  • Alarm History filter (interactive TopView Engine and Remote Viewer)
  • Alarm History: Mobile Web App

Contact Groups

A Contact Group is a single name that represents multiple contacts, similar to a distribution list used in Microsoft Outlook.

Contact Groups in TopView are available for use wherever a Contact can be selected (e.g. Notification Groups). Adding a Contact Group to a Notification Group is the equivalent of adding the individual people contained in the Contact Group.

Incoming email: restrict users who can send email to TopView

TopView supports incoming email for alarm acknowledge and information request (tag/row information, HTML Snapshot).

TopView can now be configured with an incoming email filter to restrict the users who can send email to TopView. The filter can be configured to allow users who have received email or whose email address starts with, ends with, or contains specific characters. Individual email addresses can also be blocked.

The incoming email filter is global to all TopView Engines.

Failover/redundancy: WatchDog generator

TopView failover/redundancy allows a  primary/secondary computer where a WatchDog Engine on the secondary computer monitors the health of Engines on the primary computer.

The recommended method for monitoring the health of the Engines on the primary computer (in the WatchDog) is to use TopView Performance Counters. The TopView failover/redundancy configuration document explains how to manually configure the WatchDog using performance counters but it requires the user to manually perform the individual configuration steps.

This release includes a new tool to automatically generate the WatchDog for one or more Engines on the primary machine using Windows Performance Counters.

Notification Timeline for Email-SMS and Voice Notification Groups

Within each global Email-SMS or Voice Notification Group, a set of Notification Delay settings allow the user to specify that the recipients should be notified over time until the alarm is acknowledged or returns to normal (notification escalation). The Notification Delay settings include an initial delay, a delay between notifying each recipient, and the option to repeat the entire list of recipients.

The configuration screens for Email-SMS and Voice Notification Groups now include a [Timeline] button which will display the time-based details of how TopView Engine will notify the recipients when an alarm occurs. This timeline can also be viewed from the Web Configurator.

SMS Notification: Set SMS format for MTR-LNA7 modem for Verizon

To support incoming SMS messages in the MTR-LNA7 modem with Verizon, the modem may require setting the LTE SMS format to Verizon.

The current SMS format is now displayed on the SMS Notification configuration screen. The user can interactively set the SMS format to Verizon or GSM. If the default SMS format is not the desired format, a new Global Option will periodically set the format to the desired format (Global Options > Notification)

Display resolved alarm limit values (limit tags and placeholders)

Alarm limit values can be dynamic through the use of tags (limit tags) and placeholders.

The pop-up tool tip in the interactive TopView Engine and Remote Viewer displays the current limits as defined (the limit tag or placeholder name).
If the limit values are dynamic, the tool tip now displays the resolved alarm limits with the current limit tag or placeholder value.

Email and SMS Information Request: use Notification Message Template for response

Email and SMS allow optional incoming email/text messages to request information about one or more monitored alarms (alarm state, acknowledge state, …). In previous versions the default information response for email and SMS contained a default set of information/fields about the alarm in a specific format. Incoming SMS users could configure the included fields, but the format of the response could not be customized for either email or SMS.

This release gives the user full control over the format and content of the email or SMS information request response through the assignment of a Notification Message Template. Notification Message Templates are commonly used to configure the content of alarm notification messages by allowing the user to define the format (text/HTML) and content of the message. 

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