Configuring InTouch To Query Data From IndustrialSQL Server Page 1 of 11

Tech Note 154

Configuring InTouch To Query Data From

IndustrialSQL Server
All Tech Notes and KBCD documents and software are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. See the Terms of Use for more
information.

Topic#: 000816
Created: September 1999

Under FactorySuite™ 2000, InTouch™ has the ability to query and display data logged in IndustrialSQL™ Server in one
of three ways:

 Using the InSQL ActiveTrend ActiveX object

 Using the InTouch Historical Trend wizard with the distributed history configuration
 Using a direct query through the SQLAccess Manager option

This Tech Note provides installation and configuration guidelines for InTouch to query and display data from
IndustrialSQL Server for each of these three methods.

Method 1: Using the InSQL ActiveTrend ActiveX control

The ActiveTrend ActiveX control is the easiest way to connect to the InSQL database by providing simple tag and time
selection. The ActiveTrend data display can be pre-configured in WindowMaker to show specific information in a pre-
set format It may also be dynamically re-configured in WindowViewer by addressing the properties and methods via
scripting. The InSQL ActiveTrend object provides the ability to select InSQL tags and view logged data up to the
current time in either a realtime "live" mode or in a "history" mode, as shown in figure 1.

Installing the ActiveTrend Object

1. Install the ActiveTrend object from the first FactorySuite 2000 CD-ROM and select IndustrialSQL/IndustrialSQL
Client Tools.
2. Start up WindowMaker and select Special / Configure / Wizard/ActiveX Installation. Click the ActiveX Control
Installation tab.
3. Select Wonderware ActiveTrend from the Available ActiveX Controls list and click the Install button.

The ActiveTrend object will now appear in the Installed ActiveX controls list.

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Figure 1. Example of the ActiveTrend ActiveX Object

Using the ActiveTrend Control

1. Click on the Wizard icon on the WindowMaker/ActiveX toolbar and drag-and-drop the ActiveTrend object from
the Wizard Library onto an application window.
2. Configure the ActiveTrend object by double-clicking on the object. The ActiveTrend Properties dialog box will
appear as shown in figure 2. Type in a unique ControlName for the object. This ControlName will be used later
on to reference the object’s properties and methods through an InTouch script during runtime.

Figure 2. Configuring the ActiveTrend Object

The ActiveTrend Properties dialog box also provides a way to connect the ActiveTrend object to the IndustrialSQL

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Server database by clicking the InSQL Connection tab as shown in figure 3. The object may be connected from both
WindowMaker and WindowViewer. Database connectivity requires a valid node name for the Server (example, InSQL)
and a valid Username and Password for the IndustrialSQL Server Runtime database.

Figure 3. Configuring the ActiveTrend Object To Connect To An InSQL Database

The ActiveTrend object connects to the IndustrialSQL Server database by using the SQL Server Client alias, which was
defined during the InSQL installation to use a Named Pipes connection. (Client aliases may be viewed by selecting
from the Windows NT Start menu Programs/ Microsoft SQL Server 6.5-SQL Client Configuration Utility, then click the
Advanced tab.)

If the ActiveTrend object will connect to an InSQL database on the same computer, enter the "InSQL" alias or the
computer node name in the "Server" field of the Properties dialog box. If the ActiveTrend object will connect to an
InSQL database on a remote computer, enter the node name of the IndustrialSQL Server computer in the "Server" field.

The ActiveTrend object has a wealth of features, including: automatic connection to the database, history and live
displays, define and save curve sets, a tag browser, and view and hide the toolbars at runtime. For more information
on these and other features, see the Wonderware IndustrialSQL Client Tools Guide, Chapter 9.

Notes on Using the ActiveTrend Control

1. More than one instance of the ActiveTrend object may be used in an InTouch application, but only one instance
at a time may be connected to the InSQL database.
2. The ActiveTrend object may be prevented from connecting to the InSQL database if Productivity Pack wizards
are installed. Objects known to interfere include: 16-Pen Trend, Document Viewer, Event Chart, OLE2 and
SQLGrid. To resolve this issue, uninstall these Productivity Pack wizards from the WindowMaker wizard library
and retry the database connection. Then reinstall any wizard to be used and verify that the ActiveTrend object
can still connect.
3. ActiveX Events are not supported for the ActiveTrend object.

Method 2: Using the InTouch Historical Trend Wizard

IndustrialSQL Server data may be displayed in InTouch by using the Historical Trend wizard. InSQL data may be
displayed simultaneously with data logged by InTouch. All the functionality needed to view the InSQL logged data in
the InTouch Historical Trend wizard is included when InTouch is installed.

The InTouch Historical Trend wizard will connect to the InSQL database through a Microsoft SQL Server client alias,

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which is automatically installed and configured (under Common Components) when you install InTouch. Specifying the
node name of the IndustrialSQL Server PC where a dialog requests "Servername" or "Data Source" should always
provide the connection to the InSQL database.

Procedure
1. Open an InTouch application in WindowMaker. WindowMaker must create two files in the InTouch application
directory: Dhist.cfg and Histprv.ini. To do this, select Special/Configure/Historical Logging. The Historical
Logging Properties dialog box will appear as shown in figure 4.

Figure 4. Configuring the ActiveTrend Object To Connect To An InSQL Database

Select the Enable Logging checkbox, then click OK. The two files will then be created by WindowMaker. If
InTouch logging is not desired, the Enable Logging checkbox may be deselected and these two files will
remain.

2. Define the Distributed History Provider name by selecting Special/Configure/Distributed Name Manager. The
Distributed Name Manager dialog box will appear as shown in figure 5.

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Figure 5. Defining the Distributed History Provider Name

Click on the Distributed History tab. Type in a unique name for the InSQL database connection in the Provider
Name listbox (example, "InSQLData"). Select InSQL Provider, then click the Configure InSQL Provider button. The
InSql History Provider Properties dialog box will appear as shown in figure 6.

Figure 6. Defining the Distributed History Provider Name

3. Type in the node name of the computer for the InSQL Server in the Data Source listbox. Type in a valid InSQL
userid and password in the User and Password listboxes, respectively. (The wwuser account, along with its
password, has sufficient database privileges for InTouch to read data from the InSQL database.

Test the InSQL database connection by clicking the Test button. Then click OK.

4. View the InSQL data during runtime in the InTouch Historical Trend object. InTouch will automatically connect to
the InSQL database when the object's window is opened. InSQL tags may be assigned to pens in the Historical

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Trend object by preceding the tagname with the History Provider name and a dot (.) (example,
"InSQLData.tagname"). Pen assignments may also be made using function calls in an InTouch script.

The InTouch demonstration application accompanying this Tech Note (available on the Wonderware Knowledge
Base at www.wonderware.com/support) uses the following Button script to assign an InSQL tagname to a pen
in the Historical Trend object:

IF InSQLTagName == "_None" THEN

HTSetPenName( "HistTrend1", 5, "ReactLevel" );
HistTrend1.Pen5 = None;
ELSE
HTSetPenName( "HistTrend1", 5, "InSQLData." + InSQLTagName );
ENDIF;

This script will also unassign a tagname from the pen if "_None" has been selected for the tagname from the
Listbox.

Note To unassign the pen after a distributed tagname has been assigned to it, you must first assign the pen to a
local InTouch tagname, then reassign it to the tagname None. This tag must be defined in the InTouch application as
tag type TagID.

Method 3: Using the InTouch SQLAccess Manager Option

SQLAccess Manager script function queries provide the most flexible means of retrieving data from the InSQL
database. This method also requires the most effort as InTouch scripts must be written to retrieve the data and window
objects must be created to display the query results. There are 4 basic steps:

1. Create a BindList to associate the InSQL Runtime database table columns to InTouch tags.
2. Connect to the InSQL database via and ODBC DataSourceName.
3. Execute the desired query using SELECT statements.
4. Display the query results in a window using InTouch tags.

Note A sample InTouch application shown in figure 10 is used to illustrate how a typical window would be configured
to use the SQLAccess Manager option. Though you can still follow this method without needing the application, the
application is available on the Wonderware Knowledge Base. The Knowledge Base is available exclusively to
Comprehensive Support subscribers. Contact your local Wonderware distributor to learn more about our
Comprehensive Support program.

Establishing the ODBC Connection to the InSQL Database

1. Log onto the client computer with Administrator privileges and bring up the Control Panel by selecting
Settings/Control Panel from the Start menu. Double-click on the ODBC Admin program icon. The ODBC Data
Source Administrator dialog box will appear as shown in figure 7.

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Figure 7. Adding a ODBC Connection

2. Click either the User DSN or System DSN tab and click on the Add button. The Create New Data Source dialog
box will appear as shown in figure 8.

Figure 8. Selecting SQL Server for the ODBC Data Source

Select SQL Server as shown in the figure and click Finish. The ODBC SQL Server Setup dialog box will appear
as shown in figure 9.

3. Enter a unique name in the Data Source Name field as shown in figure 9. In the Server field, enter either "InSQL"

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or the node name of the computer where the InSQL database is running. Enter "Runtime" for the Database
Name. Make sure the option Generate Stored Procedure for Prepared Statement is not selected as shown in the
figure.

For more information on establishing ODBC connections to SQL Server, see the Wonderware FactorySuite
System Administrator's Guide, Chapter 4 "Configuring ODBC."

Figure 9. Defining the ODBC DSN for the InSQL Database

Configuring a SQLAccess Manager BindList

The BindList is used to associate values retrieved from a database with InTouch tags so that the data may be viewed
in a window or referenced in a script. To create a BindList:

1. Select Special/SQLAccess Manager/BindList, then click New.

2. Enter a BindList name and then type a tag name or browse to the tag list to specify an existing InTouch tag.
Next enter the name of the database column to be associated with this InTouch tag.

The BindList may have as many pairs of Tagname/Column associations as necessary to retrieve and display the
desired data.

Note The tags must be defined prior to creating the BindList. No hot link exists between the BindList definition
window and the tagname dictionary.

Querying With the SQLAccess Manager Script Functions

Once the preliminary tasks of creating the ODBC DataSourceName and building the BindList are accomplished, getting
the data is as simple as the following:

1. Connect to the InSQL database via and ODBC DataSourceName.

2. Execute the desired query using SELECT statements.

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3. Display the query results in a window using InTouch tags and graphic objects.

Figure 10 shows a sample application window that displays some retrieved data. Each object has the necessary
scripting to achieve data retrieval. Table 1 at the end of this Tech Note lists the tag definitions used in the scripting.

Figure 10. Sample InTouch Application Window Displaying Retrieved InSQL Data

Based on the sample application shown in figure 10, here's the Window script that's used:

Window "On Show" script

TableName = "AnalogHistory";
BindList = "InSQL_Data";

For the Connect button, here's the Button script used:

ReturnCode = SQLConnect( ConnectionId, "DSN=ReadInSQLData;UID=wwuser;PWD=wwuser" );

For the Disconnect button, here's the Button script used:

ReturnCode = SQLDisconnect( ConnectionId );

ConnectionId = 0;

The Select Tag ComboBox sets the value of the Message tag InSQLTagNameWhereExp from a list of tagnames
contained in a text file to be used in the Select statement.

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For the Select button, here's the Button script used:

ReturnCode = SQLSelect( ConnectionId, TableName, BindList, WhereExpr, OrderByExpr );

SQLFirst( ConnectionId );
RowsFound = SQLNumRows( ConnectionId );

For the End button, here's the Button script used:

ReturnCode = SQLEnd( ConnectionId );

The First, Previous, Next and Last buttons are used to navigate through the resulting set of data returned from a query.
Here are the Button scripts used for each button:

ReturnCode = SQLFirst( ConnectionId );

ReturnCode = SQLPrev( ConnectionId );
ReturnCord = SQLNext( ConnectionId );
ReturnCode = SQLLast( ConnectionId );

Here are the tagname definitions for the tags in the sample InTouch application shown in figure 10. to store
configuration data and display returned values in the window

Table 1. Tagname Definitions for Sample InTouch Application

Query Tagnames Tag Type Description

ConnectionId Memory Message InSQL database connection Id number.

BindList Memory Message Name of BindList that pairs the database column with
the InTouch tagnames.

InSQLTagNameWhereExp Memory Message WHERE expression for the SELECT statement.

TableName Memory Message Name of the runtime database table to query.

Display Tagnames Tag Type Description

InSQL_DateTime Memory Message Display of the date and time for the tag value returned by
the query.

InSQL_Tagname Memory Message Display of the tagname returned by the query.

InSQL_Value Memory Integer Display of the tag value returned by the query.

InSQL_Quality Memory Integer Display of the quality information for the tag value returned
by the query.

InSQL_QualityDetail Memory Integer Display of the quality detail for the tag value returned by
the query.

ReturnCode Memory Integer Success/Failure code returned from a SQL function call.

RowsFound Memory Integer Number of rows returned by the query.

SQLErrorMessage Memory Message Display of the test message translation of ReturnCode.

N. Venable

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The Tech Note is published occasionally by Wonderware Technical Support. Editors: Sabrina Abercromby and Kelly Hauser; Publisher:
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www.wonderware.com/support/mmi, our WonderFax fax-on-demand system at (949) 450-5050, and the Comprehensive Support Knowledge
Base.

For technical support questions, send an e-mail to [email protected].

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