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Historical Scanclass determines how often to record the value on the Tag. It uses the same Scan Classes that dictate how often your Tags should execute. Typically, the Historical Scanclass should execute at the same rate as the Tag's Scan Class or slower: if a Tag's Scan Class is set to update at a 1,000ms rate, but the Historical Scanclass is set to a scan class that runs at 500ms rate, then the Tag History system will be checking the Tag's value twice between normal value changes, which is unnecessary.
Additionally, the Historical Scanclass may be set to the <Evaluate On Change> option, which records every time the Tag changes value. This is useful if you wish every new value Ignition sees on the Tag.
Note: This scanclass setting will ignore the Max Time Between Records setting.
The value mode, analog or discrete, dictates the type of value that the Tag represents, and will affect how the deadband is applied to values, and how interpolation should be performed when querying. Interpolation is the method in which the Tag Historian query system generates values for a Tag when the desired time does not fall directly on a sample timestamp.
Discrete
Analog
Normally Tag Historian only stores records when values change. By default, an "unlimited" amount of time can pass between records – if the value doesn't change, a new row is never inserted in the database. By modifying this setting, it is possible to specify the maximum number of scan class execution cycles that can occur before a value is recorded. Setting the value to 1, for example, would cause the Tag value to be inserted each execution, even if it has not changed. Given the amount of extra data in the database that this would lead to, it's important to only change this property when necessary.
When a Tag executes, there are two possible timestamps that can be observed: the time associated with the data, and the time that the Tag was evaluated. The first case is generally only interesting when the value is provided by an OPC server. In most cases, the time provided by OPC, which in Ignition is referred to as the "Value" time, will be very close to the system time. Some servers, however, either due to their location or how they function (history playback, for example), will provide times that are very different than the current time.
It is generally desirable to store the System time, as it is the time that the value was actually observed by the system, and it creates a uniform timeframe for all realtime data. However, in the later case, it is necessary to store the time provided by the OPC server. Using the Value timestamp source has several consequences: the system is no longer able to validate the Tag quality against the scan class' execution, and Tag value interpolation will behave differently.
The validation of the scan class execution is generally not a concern when recording historical playback data. Interpolation only occurs when the value mode is Analog, and when there is not a value for every time window. Using System time, the value is only interpolated during the last "scan class execution window", that is, one scan class timeframe before the next value. Using Value time, however, the value is interpolated for the entire time between two data points.
As described above, the deadband value is used differently depending on whether the Tag is configured as a Discrete Tag, or an Analog Tag. Its use with discrete values is straight forward, registered a change any time the value moves +/- the specified amount from the last stored value. With Analog Tags, however, the deadband value is used more as a compression threshold, in an algorithm similar to that employed in other Historian packages. It is a modified version of the 'Sliding Window' algorithm. Its behavior may not be immediately clear, so the following images show the process in action, comparing a raw value trend to a "compressed" trend.
In this image, an analog value has been stored. The graph has been zoomed in to show detail; the value changes often and ranges over time +/- 10 points from around 1490.0. The compressed value was stored using a deadband value of 1.0, which is only about .06% of the raw value, or about 5% of the effective range. The raw value was stored using the Analog Tag mode, but with a deadband of 0.0. While not exactly pertinent to the explanation of the algorithm, it is worth noting that the data size of the compressed value, in this instance, was 54% less than that of the raw value.
By looking at one specific sequence, we can see how the algorithm works:
The sequence starts with the second stored compressed value on the chart.
Setting up UDTs to log history data works on the same principle as creating UDTs. You dramatically reduce the amount of work when setting up UDTs to log history data so that all instances of that UDT will log data without having to edit each individual instance. To learn how to set the UDT to log history, refer to Add History to Tags in UDT.
Tag History Providers are what drive the historian in Ignition. They typically require some sort of database that stores the data to be recalled at a later time in a trend or report. They are setup or configured in the Configure tab off the Gateway Webpage by going to Tags > History.
The default history provider that automatically gets created for each new database connection that gets established and will be removed if that database connection is deleted. While it can be configured to allow for some different storage options, it is setup with a 1 month partition by default.
This provider combines two separate providers into a single new provider. When setting up a Tag to store history, selecting this provider will write the same data to both providers that it has selected. The Tag History Splitter is useful for automatically creating a backup of your data, or for reading history from two separate providers. Learn more about setting up the Tag History Splitter here.
Establishes a connection to an OPC-HDA Server to read history data that may be stored there from a third party. Ignition can't write to this type of history provider.
This requires the OPC COM module be installed.