E-Series tag configuration

Tag Group 

Required: yes

Specify what group the tag belongs to. For example, "slow" or "fast" if using the above strategy.

Read Frequency (Seconds)

Required: yes

How often to read the tag's value in seconds. This value should be the same across all rows that belong to the sameTag Group.

PLC Read Group Count

Required: yes but currently not used for non Allen Bradley PLC's

How many tags to include in a batched read. It is recommended to use a value of 5.

Asset

Required: yes

The asset name this tag will be associated with. In some cases there are what we refer to as "aggregator" PLC's. An aggregator PLC will contain data for multiple assets and the strategy here is to create a "parent" asset which will be associated with this PLC and then use the collected data as inputs for the assets they'd like to collect data on (TBD: more will covered on this in a data flow support article).

Tag Name

Required: yes

The tag name that the customer provided. Examples of the format are "cycling", "50001", "B1.0"

Tag Alias

Required: yes (can be identical to Tag Name)

If the Tag Name does not directly tell us what it is (i.e. MODBUS tags will be numbers, such as 50001), this is helpful for associating the tag with a user friendly name. 

Tag Type

Required: yes

Must be one of: numerical, event, accumulator, bitfield

• numerical: numerical tag such as temperature. Requires Numerical_Calculation, Numerical_SampleNumber and Numerical_Threshold to be populated
• event: discrete tag such as machine running (i.e. will be 0 when not running and 1 when running). Requires Event_OnChange to be populated.
• accumulator: numerical tag that increments such as production count. 
• bitfield: tag that holds true / false values for multiple fields. The E-Series will send separate data points for each field to the API. Requires Bitfield_List to be populated.

Event_OnChange

Required: yes if Tag Type is event

Must be one of: true, false

• true: The current value will be sent to the API only if it is different than the previously read value 
• false: The current value will always be sent to the API

It is recommended to set this to false for any tags that determine the machine status and true for all others.

Note: when editing an existing file, false values may be removed by Microsoft Excel but it will keep true values. For all event tag rows in the file that have a blank Event_OnChange value, input a false value.

Numerical_Calculation

Required: yes if Tag Type is numerical

Must be one of: avg, min, max

• avg: The E-Series will wait until Numerical_SampleNumber values have been read. It will then calculate the average of these values and send the average to the API.
• min: The E-Series will wait until Numerical_SampleNumber values have been read. It will then find the minimum of these values and send the value to the API.
• max: The E-Series will wait until Numerical_SampleNumber values have been read. It will then find the maximum of these values and send the value to the API.

Numerical_SampleNumber

Required: yes if Tag Type is numerical

Must be a number greater than 0.

How many values to read before performing the specified Numerical_Calculation. To simply send the latest value to the API, set this value to 1.

Numerical_Threshold

Required: yes if Tag Type is numerical

Must be a number equal to or greater than 0.

How different the current calculated value must be than the last calculated value to send the current value to the API. For example, if the current calculated value is 5 and the last calculated value is 3 and Numerical_Threshold is 1, the current calculated value of 5 will be sent to the API.