Ignition 8.1
Ignition 7.9
Ignition 7.8
Sepasoft - MES Modules
Cirrus Link - MQTT Modules
Inductive University
Ignition Demo Project
Knowledge Base Articles
Forum
IA Support
SDK Documentation
SDK Examples
You're currently browsing the Ignition 8.0 docs. Click here to view the latest docs.
Tags offer a great amount of power in system design and configuration. The ability to aggregate Tags from a variety of installations means that you can build widely distributed SCADA systems more easily than ever before with a high level of performance and relatively easy configuration. The following are key tools and concepts for understanding Tags in Ignition.
The Tag Browser is the central location for interaction with all types of Tags on your system. It gives you full view of the Tags including the current value, datatype, and any traits. When panels are in their default configuration in the Designer, the Tag Browser appears at the lower left-hand side of the screen.
The Tag Browser is set up in an interactive tree structure with folders that can be expanded or collapsed to view more Tags. Click on the Expand 
icon to expand any folder or the Collapse 
icon to collapse the folder. In the example below, the pH Tag for Tower2 has been expanded.
Clicking on the Search 
icon in the Tag Browser will open up the Designer's global Find/Replace screen. In the the example below, we searched for the Ramp9 Tag and limited the search to the default Tags. Results are shown at the bottom of the screen. For additional information, see Find and Replace.
The Refresh Providers 
icon refreshes all of the Providers in the Tag Browser. This is useful if you or others have modified Tags but do not see an update. In general, this button is not used very often.
The New Tag 
icon opens a context menu showing all the options to add a Tag, Folder, UDT Instance or a UDT Definition. The new object is added under the Folder you have selected or as a sibling to the Tag you have selected. This button is disabled if there is no selection. See Creating Tags for more information.
With the OPC Browser, you can browse to find external PLC or OPC Tags. Click the OPC Server 
icon at the top of the Tag Browser to open the OPC Browser. You can then select Tags and drag them to the Tag Browser to be used in the Ignition system. See Creating Tags for more information.
In the Tag Browser, the Tag Group 
icon opens the Tag Group Editor window. Tag Groups dictate the rate of execution of Tags. This is where you set up your Tag Groups and scan rates. See Tag Groups for more information.
Ignition can export and import Tag configurations to and from the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) file format. Use the Import 
icon or Export 
icon to import and export Tags in this Gateway. See Exporting and Importing Tags for more information.
The Tag Browser displays the Value, Data Type, and Traits columns by default. To toggle any of the options, click on the Column Selector 
icon, then click the checkbox.
In the example below, we changed the Column Selector so that only the Tag values are shown next to the Tag names.
Certain settings or Tag configurations are visually represented next to the Tag in the Tag Browser.
The following icons enable you to note some important settings on the Tag at a glance. A description of the icons are listed below.
| Icon | Setting | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scaling | The Scale Mode property under the Numeric Tag Properties section of the Tag Editor has been set to a value other than "Off." The value on the Tag will be scaled to some degree. |
| Alarming | At least one alarm has been configured on this Tag. |
| Tag History | This Tag has been configured to log data into the Tag Historian system. |
| Tag Event Script | At least one Tag Event Script has been enabled on this Tag. |
Editing Tags is done mostly through the Tag Browser. The Tag Browser allows you to right click on a Tag or folder to perform any of the following functions. Note that different objects will have different options available. The special Data Types folder is slightly different than a regular folder and will have even fewer options. For examples, see Creating Tags.
Function | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edit Tag | Disabled when a Folder is selected. Opens the Tag Editor window so the Tag can be edited. | ||||||||||
| Edit (raw) | Disabled when a Folder is selected. Editing the JSON code of the Tag. | ||||||||||
| Rename | Renames the current selection. | ||||||||||
| Delete | Deletes the current selection. | ||||||||||
| Cut | Cuts the current selection into the clipboard. | ||||||||||
| Copy | Copies the current selection into the clipboard. | ||||||||||
Copy JSON |
The following feature is new in Ignition version 8.0.8
Click here to check out the other new features Copies the JSON for the selected Tags into the system clipboard. In addition, pasting the JSON into a different provider/designer will create or overwrite Tags. | ||||||||||
| Copy Tag Path | Copies the currently selected Tag path into the clipboard. | ||||||||||
| Paste | Pastes the content in the clipboard into the selected context. | ||||||||||
| New Tag | Disabled when a Tag is selected. For Folders, this option opens a sub-menu to create a Tag or Tags.
| ||||||||||
| Multi-instance Wizard | Creates many instances of a UDT at the same time. | ||||||||||
Export | Exports the selected Tags. | ||||||||||
| Import Tags | Imports Tags into the project. | ||||||||||
| Go To Definition | Removed unless a UDT or UDT Member is selected. Finds the UDT definition used in the UDT instance. | ||||||||||
| Restart Tag | Attempts to start / restart the selected Tag. If a folder is restarted, then all tags under the folder will restart. | ||||||||||
| Refresh Providers | Refreshes the list of Tag providers. |
The Tag Editor is robust interface that contains all the properties that can be configured for Tags. In the Tag Editor, you set the Tag's name, value, numeric and meta data properties, security, alarming, history, and more. For more information, see Tag Properties.
Tags names are flexible and to not have to match data source names (like an OPC path) or tag codes (such as N7, F8, etc.). It is not necessary that Tag's name be related at all to its underlying data source (OPC path, for instance). This provides a level of indirection that is convenient for systems with many repeat Tag structures.
It is important to give Tags a meaningful structure and arrange them in hierarchical Tag folders so that they are easy to understand, identify, and locate for all developers. By default, Ignition Tags are named after their OPC Server address when a Tag is dragged into the Tag Browser. You can change this name to just about anything that you want. We recommend using names that mean something to your process, such as "Motor 3 Amps." Alternatively you could create folders in your Tag Browser such as "Motor 3/Amps.". When renaming Tags and folders, there is really only one question to ask: "does this structure make sense?"
Another important concept to consider when naming and organizing your Tags, is to do this early in your project. If you rename or move any of your Tags to another folder, and your Tag is being used in other places, chances are you are going to break the reference to the Tag on your screen. So keeping your Tags organized and defining your Tag structure early on in your project is critical.
When you choose a new name for your Tags and folders, there are some rules that must be followed. The first character of the Tag name must be one of the following:
The second character, and every character after that can then be one of the following:
Any of the following special characters:
| ' | - | : | ( | ) |
All other special characters can not be used in a Tag name.
Once you have Tags in your Tag Browser, they automatically start executing. The Designer is live, and in the Tag Browser you can see your Tags update in real time. The most commonly used type of Tag is an OPC Tag, which gets its value from a device like an OPC Server. You can connect to just about any type of device out there and show the data on screen, as history, and write back whenever you want. Tags make Ignition extremely flexible and easy to show data. See the Quick Start Guide to get some tags created and in your client.
Click these links to find out about
Once you have some Tags created, you can edit them to include even more features. You can:
In addition to all that, Ignition allows you to create UDTs (User Defined Types) out of your Tags to rapidly develop projects with structured objects. This gives you the ability to create a master type then quickly add many instances. UDTs allow you to make a change in one place and see it automatically propagated to every instance.
