To add a Group to the Service at the Root Level select the Tags Group at the top and perform one of the following:
To add a Group to a Group select the desired Group and perform one of the following:
To interface OAS with another MQTT Client please see the Getting Started MQTT Broker guide.
To send and receive data to a Sparkplug B Edge of Network Nodes see the Getting Started Sparkplug B Host App guide.
To enable OAS as a Sparkplug B EoN Node to interface with Host and Client Applications see the Getting Started Sparkplug B EoN Node guide.
Tags can be defined to connect to MQTT devices and software brokers with the built in MQTT Driver Interface. The following steps can be used to setup direct communications with a MQTT Broker.
Start Configure OAS application from the program group Open Automation Software.
Select Configure-License and verify that MQTT is one of the available Drivers in the lower left of the form. If you do not see the MQTT driver available contact support@oasiot.com to update your license.
Note: You will need to be running Open Automation Software Version 8.26 or greater to support MQTT communications. You can download the latest version at www.openautomationsoftware.com/downloads/open-automation-software/
Select Configure-Drivers.
Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.
Note: Optionally select the Live Data Cloud node if you are hosting Allen Bradley data over the Internet with a standard Internet connection.
Enter a meaningful Driver Interface Name that you will refer to this physical connection when defining Tags with MQTT Source.
Define the properties for the desired physical connection.
Note: You may need to Set Default Network Adapter for Driver Interfaces of the operating system.
Set the driver to MQTT. Enter the IP Address of the broker. The default port is 1883.
Enter the User Name and Password if required.
Keep Alive Time – Default is 60 Seconds.
Reconnect Time – Default 10 Seconds. If the connection to the broker is lost the Reconnect Time determines how long to wait before attempting to reconnect.
Optionally define a secondary failover MQTT Broker if the primary MQTT Broker fails with the property Enable Failover.
If both the primary and secondary broker are offline the Return to Online settings determines the retry frequency.
View Driver Interface Failover for more information and and video demonstrating communications failover.
Select the Add button in the lower part of the form to add the Driver Interface as an available selection when defining Tags in the next step.
Note: If you need to define several Driver Interfaces you can use the CSV Export and CSV Import on the toolbar in the upper right together with Microsoft Excel.
There are 2 ways to publish data from OAS to a MQTT Broker. Both require Tags to be setup first for the data sources you want to transfer.
Note: If you wish to receive data from a MQTT Broker just to Reading Data from MQTT Broker below.
View the following video for a complete demonstration of how to publish data to MQTT Brokers, Azure IoT, and AWS IoT Gateway.
Enable Publish Selected Tags at the bottom of the Driver configuration.
Select to publish data continuously at a specified interval, based on event, or at a specific time of day.
If Event Driven browse for a local or remote OAS tag that will trigger the publish. Select a Boolean tag that will change state from false to true, true to false, or both. Or choose an Integer tag that trigger a publish anytime the value changes other than 0.
Enable Publish Latest Value Only to send only the latest value of each tag when published or disable to send all value changes since the last time a publish occurred.
Enabled Include All Tags Each Publish to send at least the latest value of each tag when published or disable to only send the tags that have changed since the last publish.
Enable Publish All Tags As One Topic to publish all tag values as one topic or disable to send each tag as its own topic.
See examples in Step 6 below for each selectable option.
Specify the Publish Topic Id if choosing to Publish All Tags As One Topic.
Specify the Tag Id, Value Id, an optional Quality Id, and Timestamp Id for each tag value that is sent.
When including the Timestamp Id also specify the timestamp format, use Custom to specify your own date and time format.
Specify local and remote OAS tag variables to include in each publish and specify the Id. Value is the current value from the data source or you can select any of the over 600 tag variables of each tag to publish.
Optionally use CSV Export and CSV Import buttons to set up additional tags to publish using Microsoft Excel.
When selecting remote tags use Basic Networking syntax or Live Data Cloud syntax in the tag path.
Select Apply Changes to begin publishing to AWS IoT Gateway. Select Save to save the new driver configuration within the tag file.
Examples of publishing every 2 seconds with each tag value changing every second:
See Getting Started – Data Route to define a Target tag in any source tag.
Select Configure-Tags.
Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.
Note: Optionally select the Live Data Cloud node if you are hosting Allen Bradley data over the Internet with a standard Internet connection.
Select to Add a Tag.
Note: You can also add organizational Groups as many levels deep as you prefer and add tags to groups. To do this first add a Group to Tags Group at the root level, then right click on the Group in the right window to add additional Groups or Tags.
Change the Data Source Tag property to MQTT.
Select the correct Driver Interface from the Driver Interface pull down list.
Enter the topic.
Select the Quality of Service.
Set the Topic Timeout – 0 = Topic will never timeout. Any number greater than 0 will cause the data to be Bad Data Quality if the broker does not publish within the time frame specified.
Select to include Timestamp and or Data Quality to the topic.
This will publish to the specified topic above OAS/Items Sent/Timestamp and or OAS/ItemsSent/Quality.
Configuring the Default Network Adapter
If the communications for the MQTT driver is not working at all you may need to set the default network adapter priority in the operating system.
To setup automated data transfer of any OAS Tag to any MQTT Broker see Getting-Started – Data Route and set the Target Destination to MQTT.
To define multiple tags use the CSV Export and CSV Import on the toolbar in the upper right together with Microsoft Excel.
Note: You can also programmatically define Tags using the free to use OASConfig .NET Standard assembly, OPCSystems .NET Framework 4 assembly, or REST API.
Select the Save button on the toolbar at the top.
Create a directory on the local C: drive with the name OASDemo.
Save the file DemoTags.tags in the directory C:\OASDemo. Of course use the correct path for Linux.
Under Configure – Options set the Default Tag Configuration File so when the computer restarts the tag file will automatically be loaded.
Open Automation Software Tags can be defined to connect directly to Siemens controllers with the built in Siemens Driver Interfaces which support communications over Ethernet to S7-200, S7-300, S7-400, S7-1200, and S7-1500.
The following steps can be used to setup direct communications with Siemens controllers:
Standard Types:
<Memory Area><Data Width><Address> <Memory Area><Data Width><Address>.<Bit>
S7-200 Timer and Counter:
<Memory Type><Address>
Data Block:
DB<Number>.DB<Data Width><Address> DB<Number>.DB<Data Width><Address>.<Bit>
| Memory Area |
Description | Bit Access |
Byte Access |
Word Access |
DWord Access |
| I, E |
Discrete Inputs and Image Register |
R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W |
| Q, A |
Discrete Outputs and Image Register |
R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W |
| M | Internal Memory Bits |
R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W |
| SM | Special memory Bits |
R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W |
| V | Variable Memory |
R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W |
| T | Timer Current and Timer Bit |
R/W (T.Bit) |
no | T.Current R/W |
no |
| C | Counter Current and Counter Bit |
R/W (C.Bit) |
no | C.Current R/W |
no |
| HC | High-speed Counter |
no | no | no | RO |
| AI | Analog Inputs |
no | no | RO | no |
| AQ | Analog Outputs |
no | no | RW | no |
| AC | Accumulator | no | no | no | no |
| L | Local Variable Memory |
no | no | no | no |
| S | SCR | R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W |
S7-300, S7-400
|
Memory |
Description |
Bit |
Byte |
Word |
DWord |
|
I, |
Discrete |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
|
Q, |
Discrete |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
|
M, |
Internal Memory |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
|
PI, |
Peripheral |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
|
PQ, |
Peripheral |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
|
DB |
Datablock |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
S7-1200, S7-1500
|
Memory |
Description |
Bit |
Byte |
Word |
DWord |
|
I, |
Discrete |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
|
Q, |
Discrete |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
|
M, |
Internal Memory |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
|
DB |
Datablock |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
R/W |
Data Width
|
Data |
Description |
Bits |
Supported |
|
X, |
Bit |
1 |
Boolean |
|
B |
Byte |
8 |
SByte, |
|
W |
Word |
16 |
Int16, |
|
D |
DWord |
32 |
Int32, |
Address
Address is controller family and model dependent. Consult controller documentation for valid ranges.
Bit
|
Data |
Description |
Valid |
|
B |
Byte |
0..7 |
|
W |
Word |
0..15 |
|
D |
DWord |
0..31 |
Note: If error code 0x00000005 – Address does not exist or is out of range is returned as a system error uncheck Optimized block access attribute of dbOptimized in the controller program and re-compile and upload to the controller.
Open Automation Software Tags can be defined to connect directly to Siemens controllers with the built in Siemens Driver Interfaces which support communications over Ethernet to S7-200, S7-300, S7-400, S7-1200, and S7-1500.
The following steps can be used to setup direct communications with Siemens controllers.
Start Configure OAS application from the program group Open Automation Software.
Select Configure-License and verify that Siemens is one of the available Drivers in the lower left of the form. If you do not Siemens driver available contact support@oasiot.com to update your license.
Note: You will need to be running Open Automation Software Version 8.0.0.10 or greater to support direct Siemens communications. You can download the latest version from our downloads page.
Select Configure-Drivers.
Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.
Note: Optionally select the Live Data Cloud node if you are hosting Siemens data over the Internet with a standard Internet connection.
Enter a meaningful Driver Interface Name that you will refer to this physical connection when defining Tags with a Siemens Data Source.
Set the Driver to Siemens
Define the properties for the desired physical connection.
Note: You may need to Set Default Network Adapter for Driver Interfaces of the operating system.
Note: When connecting to a S7-200 append the TSAP Local and Remote to the IP Address. Ex: 192.168.1.1.1000,1000.
Here is a link to the Siemens Documentation on TSAP: https://support.industry.siemens.com/tf/ww/en/posts/is-tsap-hard-to-understand/26160/?page=0&pageSize=10#top
Optionally define a secondary failover of controller if the primary controller fails with the property Enable Failover.
If both the primary and secondary controllers are offline the Return to Online settings determines the retry frequency.
View Driver Interface Failover for more information and and video demonstrating communications failover.
Select the Add Driver above the Driver list in the left pane to add the Driver Interface as an available selection when defining Tags in the next step.
Note: If you need to define several Driver Interfaces you can use the CSV Export and CSV Import on the toolbar in the upper right together with Microsoft Excel.
Select Configure-Tags.
Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.
Note: Optionally select the Live Data Cloud node if you are hosting Modbus data over the Internet with a standard Internet connection.
Select to Add a Tag.
Note: You can also add organizational Groups as many levels deep as you prefer and add tags to groups. To do this first add a Group to the root level, then right click on the Group in the right window to add additional Groups or Tags.
Change the Data Source Tag property to Siemens.
Select the correct Driver Interface from the Driver Interface pull down list.
Specify the desired Polling Rate for the Tag.
Specify the Address of the variable to read and write to and Apply Changes.
See Siemens Address Syntax how to define memory addresses.
Note: If error code 0x00000005 – Address does not exist or is out of range is returned as a system error uncheck Optimized block access attribute of dbOptimized in the controller program and re-compile and upload to the controller.
To define multiple tags use the CSV Export and CSV Import on the toolbar in the upper right together with Microsoft Excel.
Note: You can also programmatically define Tags using the free to use OPC Systems component as demonstrated in the Form FormConfigureCSV in the WinForm Example Code application that installs with Open Automation Software in the Program Group Open Automation Software. This component can be used in any .NET application includes Web Services, Windows Services, WPF Applications, and ASP.NET or .NET MVC Web Applications.
Select the Save button on the toolbar at the top.
Create a directory on the local C: drive with the name OASDemo.
Save the file DemoTags.tags in the directory C:OASDemo.
Under Configure – Options set the Default Tag Configuration File so when the computer restarts the tag file will automatically be loaded.
Tags can be automatically setup by using the One Click Allen Bradley feature that reads all variables from an online controller or controller file and creates tags based on the variables and data types found. The One Click feature is available both online and offline. We recommend using the online method. Instructions for the online method are below as well as a video. There is a video at the bottom of the page for the offline method.
Import Allen Bradley variables from a controller to Open Automation Software.
Open the OAS Configure application from the program group Open Automation Software in your Start Menu.
Select Configure Drivers from the top Menu.
Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.
Enter a friendly name in the Driver Interface Name box. In the Driver drop down list, select AB Logix. Enter the IP address for your device in the IP Address box.
Click the Add Driver button in the pane on the left. Your new driver will appear in the list under it.
Select Configure Tags from the top Menu. Select your Network Node.
Right Click on the the Tags group at the top of the tag browser on the left and choose Add Group. In the Group Name box that opens, enter AB Tags. Say OK.
Select your new AB tag group from the tree. Click One Click Import from the top menu bar. In the One Click Import box that opens, choose Import Online Ab Variables.
In the Control Logix Tag Browse window that opens, Select your Network Node and then select your AB Driver Interface from the drop down list.
Select the program you want to import from under the Programs list that appears. A list of all the tags in the PLC will appear. You can select individual tags, groups of tag or all of the tags from the list.
Select the AB Tags group from the Tags window on the right. Specify a Poll Rate if desired. Choose Add Selected Tags or Add All Tags.
Note: You can use the CSV Export or CSV Export Selected buttons at this point to export your tags into a CSV file to be used later to import into OAS.
Once you have received the success message, you can close the Online Import window. Refresh your tag browser by re-selecting your network node. Your new tags should now appear under the AB folder you created.
Import Allen Bradley variables from a program file to Open Automation Software.
There is also a custom data type editor to add or remove variables that will be added to the file abdt1.xml in the directory C:\Program Files\Open Automation Software\OAS. If you make changes to this file make sure to backup abdt1.xml before you perform any software update.
Open Automation Software Tags can be defined to connect directly to Allen Bradley controllers with the built in ABLogix and ABClassic Driver Interfaces which support communications over Ethernet to ControlLogix, CompactLogix, GuardLogix, and Micro800 with the ABLogix driver, and MicroLogix, SLC 500, and PLC-5 with the ABClassic driver. The following steps can be used to setup direct communications with Allen Bradley controllers.
Start Configure OAS application from the program group Open Automation Software.
Select Configure-License and verify that ABLogix or ABClassic is one of the available Drivers in the lower left of the form. If you do not see either AB drivers available support@oasiot.com to update your license.
Note: You will need to be running Open Automation Software Version 8 or greater to support direct Allen Bradley communications. You can download the latest version at www.openautomationsoftware.com/downloads/open-automation-software/
Select Configure-Drivers.
Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.
Note: Optionally select the Live Data Cloud node if you are hosting Allen Bradley data over the Internet with a standard Internet connection.
Enter a meaningful Driver Interface Name that you will refer to this physical connection when defining Tags with an AB Data Source.
Define the properties for the desired physical connection.
Note: You may need to Set Default Network Adapter for Driver Interfaces of the operating system.
Note: Specify the Driver to:
ABLogix for ControlLogix, CompactLogix, GuardLogix, and Micro800
ABClassic for MicroLogix, SLC 500, and PLC-5.
Note: To increase the processor overall speed in response in the logix 5000 program right click on the processor in the tree and select properties. In the Advanced Tag you can adjust System Overhead Time Slice. Increasing this value will increase the communications throughput. The Default is 20%:
Optionally define a secondary failover of controller if the primary controller fails with the property Enable Failover.
If both the primary and secondary controllers are offline the Return to Online settings determines the retry frequency.
View Driver Interface Failover for more information and and video demonstrating communications failover.
Select the Add button in the lower part of the form to add the Driver Interface as an available selection when defining Tags in the next step.
Note: If you need to define several Driver Interfaces you can use the CSV Export and CSV Import on the toolbar in the upper right together with Microsoft Excel.
Select Configure-Tags.
Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.
Note: Optionally select the Live Data Cloud node if you are hosting Allen Bradley data over the Internet with a standard Internet connection.
Select to Add a Tag.
Note: You may want to use the One Click Allen Bradley to add tags from the control program automatically. If so view the following:
One Click Allen Bradley Video
How to automatically import Allen Bradley variables to Open Automation Software.
Note: You can also add organizational Groups as many levels deep as you prefer and add tags to groups. To do this first add a Group to the root level, then right click on the Group in the right window to add additional Groups or Tags.
Change the Data Source Tag property to ABLogix or ABClassic.
Select the correct Driver Interface from the Driver Interface pull down list.
Specify the desired Polling Rate for the Tag.
Specify the Address of the variable to read and write to.
Select Apply Changes and verify the Value and data quality is good.
If the communications for the Allen Bradley driver is not working at all you may need to set the default network adapter priority in the operating system.
To define multiple tags use the CSV Export and CSV Import on the toolbar in the upper right together with Microsoft Excel.
Note: You can also programmatically define Tags using the free to use OPC Systems component as demonstrated in the Form FormConfigureCSV in the WinForm Example Code application that installs with Open Automation Software in the Program Group Open Automation Software. This component can be used in any .NET application includes Web Services, Windows Services, WPF Applications, and ASP.NET or .NET MVC Web Applications.
Select the Save button on the toolbar at the top.
Create a directory on the local C: drive with the name OASDemo.
Save the file DemoTags.tags in the directory C:OASDemo.
Under Configure – Options set the Default Tag Configuration File so when the computer restarts the tag file will automatically be loaded.
Open Automation Software Tags can be defined to connect directly to Modbus slave devices or host data to Modbus masters with the built in Modbus Driver Interface which supports communications over Ethernet and Serial interfaces for Modbus TCP, Modbus RTU, and Modbus ASCII protocols.
You can view the Getting Started with Modbus Video to familiarize yourself with the following steps to setup Modbus communications.
The following steps can be used to setup direct communications with Modbus devices.
Start Configure OAS application from the program group Open Automation Software.
Select Configure-License and verify that Modbus is one of the available Drivers in the lower left of the form. If you do not see Modbus available contact support@oasiot.com to update your license.
Note: You will need to be running Open Automation Software Version 8 or greater to support direct Modbus communications. You can download the latest version at www.openautomationsoftware.com/downloads/open-automation-software/
Select Configure-Drivers.
Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.
Note: Optionally select the Live Data Cloud node if you are hosting Modbus data over the Internet with a standard Internet connection.
Enter a meaningful Driver Interface Name that you will refer to this physical connection when defining Tags with a Modbus Data Source.
Specify the Connection as Ethernet or Serial.
Specify the Modbus Type as Master or Slave.
Master will be used when communicating to a Modbus device.
Slave will be used when other Modbus masters will be communicating to OAS.
Note: When setting up a Slave interface over Ethernet set the IP Address to the computer IPv4 IP address or network node name if the master is on a remote PC. You can also use 127.0.0.1 or localhost if the Modbus master will be on the same computer.
Define the properties for the desired physical connection.
Note: The Device Address is defined at the Tag level in the next step.
Note: If you are using a Connection of Ethernet you may need to Set Default Network Adapter for Driver Interfaces.
Note: When using Ethernet as a Master you can setup multiple Driver Interfaces to the same IP Address to provide parallel processing when there are a lot of tags defined to the same IP Address and the Modbus device is slow to respond.
Optionally define a secondary failover device if the primary device fails with the property Enable Failover.
If both the primary and secondary device are offline the Return to Online settings determines the retry frequency.
View Driver Interface Failover for more information and and video demonstrating communications failover.
Select the Add button in the lower part of the form to add the Driver Interface as an available selection when defining Tags in the next step.
Note: If you need to define several Driver Interfaces you can use the CSV Export and CSV Import on the toolbar in the upper right together with Microsoft Excel.
Select Configure-Tags.
Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.
Note: Optionally select the Live Data Cloud node if you are hosting Modbus data over the Internet with a standard Internet connection.
Select to Add a Tag.
Note: You can also add organizational Groups as many levels deep as you prefer and add tags to groups. To do this first add a Group to the root level, then right click on the Group in the right window to add additional Groups or Tags.
Change the Data Source Tag property to Modbus.
Specify the desired Polling Rate for the Tag.
Specify the Device Address (set as -1 if it is not to be used on Ethernet)
Select the correct Driver Interface from the Driver Interface pull down list.
Select the correct Memory Type from the Memory Type pull down.
For Input Register and Holding Register Memory Type select the correct Modbus Data Type.
Note: Use the “As Boolean” types to access bits of a 16, 32, or 64 bit Integer.
Specify the Address for the memory location.
Note: Zero Based Addressing will subtract 1 from the address when communicating to the device.
The base of the memory type will be added to the Address.
Example: Communicating to Holding Register 40000 the Memory Type will be Holding Register and the Address would be 1.
Extended addressing is also supported.
To communicate to 410001 set the Memory Type to Holding Register and the address to 10001.
To communicate to 465535 set the address to 65535.
Following are some examples.
To define multiple tags use the CSV Export and CSV Import on the toolbar in the upper right together with Microsoft Excel.
Note: You can also programmatically define Tags and Drivers using the OPCSystems .NET component with the TagCSVImport and DriverInterfaceCSVImport methods or the REST API.
Select the Save button on the toolbar at the top.
Create a directory on the local C: drive with the name OASDemo.
Save the file DemoTags.tags in the directory C:\OASDemo.
Under Configure – Options set the Default Tag Configuration File so when the computer restarts the tag file will automatically be loaded.
Tags can be automatically setup by using the One Click OPC feature that browses OPC Servers automatically and creates tags based on the OPC Items defined in the OPC Server. You can then delete tags from the configuration that you do not want.
View the following 2 minute video on how to use the One Click OPC Feature or follow the steps in the table below.
Start Configure OAS application from the program group Open Automation Software.
Select Configure-Tags.
Select the Local OAS Service by selecting the Select button.
To begin the One Click OPC process select the Group you would like to import to in the Tag configuration. If you want to import to the Root Level, select the Tags Group at the top of the tree.
Then select the One Click Import button on the top menu bar.
Click on the Import OPC DA 2.XX or 3.0 Items Button in the pop up window.
Use the One Click OPC Wizard to browse for a branch as a starting position within an OPC Server or just select the OPC Server name itself to add all items from the selected OPC Server. For the best networking design select OPC Servers from Local even if you are configuring a remote OAS Service.
Select to enable the options to Get Data Type from OPC Server and optionally the Descriptions.
Additionally if you want to specify to Trend all of the points select Trend Points.
Click Add Tags and it will automatically add all of the OPC Items from the OPC Server Branch you have selected and all sub Branches beneath it.
Select the Save button on the toolbar at the top.
Under Configure – Options set the Default Tag Configuration File so when the computer restarts the tag file will automatically be loaded.
In the OAS platform a Tag refers to a unique identifier for a data point within the application. The tag is used to receive and also write the live value from and to the Data Source. For ease of management tags can be organised into groups.
In this section you will learn how to configure the tags used by the OAS application.
To open a new window for Tag modification, select Configure-Tags or Alt-C-T.
Select a OAS Engine to modify (Windows or Linux), the node with the green arrow is the current Service being modified. Refer to Selecting Service for more information on selecting an OAS Engine.
Realtime Tag defined using Configure Tags. Is the object that is used to receive and also write the live value from and to the Data Source.
